A Rude Awakening

Onward we march to recent times........

In January I slipped a couple of times on an icy pavement, it bruised and I thought nothing of it at the time, merely took some painkillers and cracked on with life, occasionally I would get a dull ache in my hip after walking to/from work.

By April the ache was almost a daily occurence but one I'd got used to until one morning I got out of the shower and couldn't bend down, I was in absolute agony and finally went to a chiropractor, to find out that my pelvis had twisted out of place and that I had inflamed some of my vertebrae. I had some chiropractic treatments and was ok for a little while until I did a 30km walk and ended up back at square one.

With the back and hip pain, I lost all interest in exercise and was even skipping walks to work by getting a taxi and so we get to November, and my 3rd time of twisting my pelvis out of place, after some corrective chiropractic sessions, my chiropractor recommended a gait scan, and I discovered my feet were over-pronating due to previous injuries and the weight wasn't evenly distributed between my legs, which in turn was throwing the alignment of my spine out.

I got myself some orthopaedic insoles to help correct the pronation problems. I also realised that the extra weight would not be helping in this situation and decided that I really had to start taking my health seriously and shifting some of the weight and getting back to some exercise.

I did some research online and figured some stretching and light strength training would be a good starting point and invested some money in a decent home barbell/ dumbbell set and some kettle bells. I came across the HASFIT Youtube channel who have some great beginner videos and started doing a few sessions a week of all over body strength training and 15 mins of static stretching afterwards. When I started I couldn't even hold a quad stretch because I had no balance or flexibility.