I'm sitting here at almost 7 p.m. on a Friday night working on increasing my limberness. This is not a skill I've ever felt that I've needed so I've never worked on it before. Trying to touch my toes brings on the sensation of tendons and muscles stretched to their limits before I even get to my ankles.
This sudden interest in my flexibility comes from my current desire to gnaw off my leg. In the last few days I somehow screwed up my left knee. If I step wrong, esecially going up or down hills, I ge a pain shooting out from the outside of that joint. I think I may have strained the tendon in that area backpacking earlier this week, but it didn't start giving me any problems until well after I had left the trail on Tuesday. My other knee had bothered me on the trail with a spot on the inside of that knee feeling like someone was pressing on a good bruise every time I took a step on a steep incline or decline.
Yesterday, my knee was actually worse than it was this morning, so I made the stupid decision to hike the 10-mile round trip to the Len Foote Hike Inn. This wasn't as stupid as my decision to take a college internship near my hometown instead of waiting for the one in Alaska or not going back to grad school before having a kid, but it was pretty dumb. My knee started acting up again about 3/4 of the way into the trip to the inn, and by the time I made it back to the park, we just called my mom and K to come pick us up where the trail met the road in the park. I had been able to walk normally before I left, but after the hike I couldn't walk without a limp.
Now I know I could skip the whole limberness training and just use my all-in-one tool to do the job from a sitting position. I'm sure the knife section would do well on skin and muscle, the wire cutter section of the pliers would make quick work of the gnarlier tendons, and I could switch to the saw for the bone. The problem with that is that the tool is brand new and I don't want to get blood and grease on it.
So here I am doing stretching exericses in the hopes that I can use my teeth for the job instead.
2 comments:
You need to ice it. And if it hurts as much as you say it does, you shouldn't push yourself so much when you stretch.
Good luck with that. And if it makes you feel better, I've been having knee pain after some of my longer hikes lately.
Because other people's pain usually makes us feel better.
Post a Comment