I'm Stuck

I need to come up with a word other than frustrating to describe how my rehab is going. People keep asking, which is nice, but I'm getting sick of sounding like a broken record. Let's see what Google can come up with then. Annoying? Baffling? Depressing even?

The last time I posted anything on here was in October after I had just completed my first on water rowing session since my back surgery. This was followed by some really promising progression into November where both on and off water sessions were slowly stepping in the right direction. Unfortunately by late December it was all unraveling as the ‘breakthrough’ that was mentioned in a previous post essentially wore off.

It’s kind of complicated. I'm facing a motor control issue here, I’m trying to get my brain to know that it’s OK to use the muscles around my left hip again. I’ll try and give a brief explanation. When you have pain or tissue damage some muscles turn off, in fact they are actively inhibited by the brain. Even after the tissue damage is repaired the muscle inhibition can remain, even to the detriment of quality of movement. In my case I have had quite severe pressure on the spinal nerve supplying some of these muscles and also pain in the area that was referred from my back. So it’s like a quest to find a magical something to wake the dragon in my butt cheek. Yes, I said dragon in my butt cheek.

Just after Christmas I basically gave up. For a week and a half I did nothing. This was the first time during any of my injury rehab experiences that I was completely over it, I'd had enough. However, I realised there was no way I could be comfortable with that decision. It’s just not how I tick, actually I think the 'never give up' mentality is common amongst elite athletes. So when I returned to my physiotherapist after this mental wobble and she gave me the choice between having some time off to forget about it for a while or a slap in the face and getting on with it of course I took the slap in the face. I’ve discussed in previous posts about not wanting to do permanent damage and until I am given a sign that I am at risk of doing so then I will keep trying and trying and trying.  

So, what am I actually doing now? Why the title ‘I’m Stuck’? Amongst the ten days of giving up and the quest for the butt cheek dragon I haven’t been able to progress my rehab. For many weeks I’ve been stuck at a level a lot lower than where I was at coming into December. Any athlete wants to keep seeing improvement in themselves by sticking to a process and trying their hardest, when this doesn’t happen it is very frustrating, annoying, baffling and depressing.

In the coming weeks I will hopefully see some improvement. If I do, I promise I’ll let you know and not wait a whole three and a half months to blog about it.

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