Small battles

For two weeks I've been feeling down on myself for my bum knee.  Resting it, I slip another notch down from lack of exercise.  I was on a lively high from getting stronger, feeling younger, but my age forces me to remember it after all.  Is that some sort of cosmic jealousy?  No, no, I don't believe in that kind of crap, really.  I do feel that it's unfair and want to blame someone or something.

I did think of one place to lay blame -- me.  Knowing better, I never stretch either before or after exercise.  I also stopped doing yoga when I started walking, and stopped walking the long ones when I started school.  I rationalized that doing stairs on campus in addition to a bit of walking, and carrying a backpack, might balance out.

One evening, on impulse and missing yoga, I decided to do a down dog in the living room.  YOWTCH!!!  Both heels caught on fire!  My hamstrings and whatever else is back there have always been so free, have never given me any pain before.  Googling around for pics of heel anatomy, I couldn't see anything back there but the achilles tendon, and a bursa under it.  That sent me back to Sunday morning "gentle" (ha) yoga.  Given enough time gently stretching it, I can finally get my heels down.  The left one doesn't bother me any more, but the right one is consistently painful.

Now I've been paying attention to the backs of my legs when I'm walking.  I notice that my calf muscles feel knotted, tense.  So I guess that's where the problem is.  Meanwhile, my left knee is still bothering me.  I avoided stairs for most of a week, then yesterday I took one flight of stairs, slowly and carefully.  When I reached the top and started walking, I felt some very weird movements in my knee.  Parts were actually shifting around!  That spooked me.  Afterward, the knee was tender again, and my spirits fell.

I need to go back to my Egosque book and work on the knee exercises.  Every time I read the knee chapter, I get frustrated because my two knees aren't doing the same thing.  I can't decide between the knees-out exercises and the knees-in exercises.  Well, now I'm just going to look at the left knee.  Maybe it will be obvious.  When I climb stairs, that knee sort of swings outward, to the left.  There has to be a weak muscle responsible for that.  But when I look at photos from my yoga teacher training, my left knee and foot are turned in.  This is very confusing.

This must be boring to read!

This morning I got on my bike and rode about six miles.  That was enough.  It tired me, and it felt great.  Biking is gentler on my knee than climbing stairs, so maybe this is good therapy.