If you had read my earlier blog about my experience with weightloss surgery, you would know that in my mid-30's, slightly overweight, I began training for a squash tournament but hurt what I thought was my back in the gym. Fifteen-odd years later, I had doubled my girth requiring a vertical sleeve gastrectomy (VSG) Dec 2010 which helped significantly with my weight. I lost as much as 110 lb, but gained back 50. It has been a see-saw battle with weight for lack of exercise as my back pain persisted with increasing severity.
Now in 2019, a full twenty years since my gym injury, a search on Youtube and the anecdotal experience of a fellow squash-playing friend who cured an identical malady with yoga and meditation, pointed towards a gluteus medius issue. By following a series of stretches and exercises, my own pain seems to have disappeared. Where familiar steps that previously caused pain required me to tread gingerly, my gait is now normal.
These events led to my wondering whether I might at all play squash casually again, let alone competitively. Over the past two decades I did venture onto squash and tennis courts despite the pain. Without fail I would get laid up for a fortnight nursing the subsequent aggravation to my lower back, hips and hamstrings.
Careful not to overdo things since my self-diagnosed recovery, I have embarked upon the C25K jogging programme ending each session with a lengthy stretching routine. On the 'rest' days between runs, I alternate upper- and lower-body weight workouts as a devotee of the Bill Phillips bodybuilding regimen. So far, so good. I remain pain-free except for the normal muscle aches that accompany athletic activity, but even those are dissipating in severity.
I have just completed week 5 of C25K though must confess that some of the runs had to be on the treadmill given the inclement climate of the Canadian Rockies near where I reside. In my current condition, I am contemplating a return to training for squash when I can run continuously for over 45 minutes, and even compete at a low level in the last quarter of 2019. If that goes well, I'm going to incorporate the Shotokan Karate of my adolescence into my regimen with a view to earning a black belt over the next three years.
On the C25K support website, my username is a tongue-in-cheek stab at my twenty years of loving White Russians (the cocktail) like the hero of the movie, The Big Lebowski, and a less obvious jibe at my once burgeoning physique.
Now in 2019, a full twenty years since my gym injury, a search on Youtube and the anecdotal experience of a fellow squash-playing friend who cured an identical malady with yoga and meditation, pointed towards a gluteus medius issue. By following a series of stretches and exercises, my own pain seems to have disappeared. Where familiar steps that previously caused pain required me to tread gingerly, my gait is now normal.
These events led to my wondering whether I might at all play squash casually again, let alone competitively. Over the past two decades I did venture onto squash and tennis courts despite the pain. Without fail I would get laid up for a fortnight nursing the subsequent aggravation to my lower back, hips and hamstrings.
Careful not to overdo things since my self-diagnosed recovery, I have embarked upon the C25K jogging programme ending each session with a lengthy stretching routine. On the 'rest' days between runs, I alternate upper- and lower-body weight workouts as a devotee of the Bill Phillips bodybuilding regimen. So far, so good. I remain pain-free except for the normal muscle aches that accompany athletic activity, but even those are dissipating in severity.
I have just completed week 5 of C25K though must confess that some of the runs had to be on the treadmill given the inclement climate of the Canadian Rockies near where I reside. In my current condition, I am contemplating a return to training for squash when I can run continuously for over 45 minutes, and even compete at a low level in the last quarter of 2019. If that goes well, I'm going to incorporate the Shotokan Karate of my adolescence into my regimen with a view to earning a black belt over the next three years.
On the C25K support website, my username is a tongue-in-cheek stab at my twenty years of loving White Russians (the cocktail) like the hero of the movie, The Big Lebowski, and a less obvious jibe at my once burgeoning physique.
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