Physical therapy
This morning I went and tried the physical therapy recommended by the doctor the other day. I had never done this before, so I did not know what to really expect.
We started out by testing all my muscles, and indeed, my hip abductors are really weak on both sides, not just the side that hurts. She had me warm up with five minutes on the elliptical trainer. That was only my second time ever on one of those, so I did get a few tips about what kind of posture to use and such, so that was nice.
I got a few new exercises to do. By far the one that’s the hardest for me is to use either a floor-height weighted pulley or a stretching band tied to a low object and then slowly pull my leg across the floor out to the side and back. I did just two sets of those, and my hips felt just spent. I felt it both on the side that was pulling and on the side that was just stabilizing. The motion looks similar to when I use the multi-hip machine to work my abductors, but for whatever reason this is much, much tougher. It may be in part because my hip is active in stabilizing me on this one, and on the multi-hip machine I can hold on with both arms.
I also got a few really good stretches and balance exercises to practice. For the next two weeks, I’m supposed to do a lot of these strength and balance exercises and only low impact cardio activities. I am supposed to be able to do as much elliptical and cycling as I want. Since I want to maintain or even improve my fitness level, that will probably be a lot.
So, I will go back in two weeks, and then we will discuss my triumphant return to running.