30 Jan Tucker: Immediate gratification

It is SO nice to be able to have something go wrong, and then very quickly know what’s up and have a plan of attack. I haven’t seen Craig for a while and I went in there with a couple things to work on. My knee feels okay doing squats and certain leg presses, and no issue with leg extensions, but with some of the leg press machines I’m feeling some irritation. It’s not as bad as it was 6 months ago, but I’ve given my legs rest several times now and I haven’t seen a significant improvement, so somethings gotta change.

Craig did some mobility tests and the most telling was when he held my shin and rotated in and out. My left side is my bad side, and my shin didn’t have hardly any movement, where as the right side had a couple degrees like it should. From what craig said, if that doesn’t glide like it’s supposed to, the stress goes directly to the knee and bingo, knee pain. We did a couple more tests and then he gave me some exercises to do and I was significantly weaker on my left side than right…. So I’ve got some stuff to work on at home and for my warm ups.

He prescribed a couple exercises – bracing against a wall and lifting my good leg off the floor to support with my bad leg. A side plank where instead of using my leg that’s closest to the ground, I use the upper leg to stabilize. A glute bridge with a block between my knees, and a wide stance squat where I sit back to each side and hold. He threw in a couple extras like an uneven weighted carry so that my obliques and core need to engage more, but those initial ones are the meat and potatoes. I just did the exercises at home and I’m already feeling stronger and feeling the blood flow go where it needs to, so it’s very encouraging and I’m feeling optimistic!