Pilates/yoga has saved me from a life on the couch. Try and get a good instructor whose familiar with your injury so they don’t go pushing you into something that’ll hurt.
Some Pilates is on the cards, general core strengthening, and sensible changes to old bad habits.
Are you giving up veganism ?
Exercise Physiologist. Late stage rehab, once physio was happy with me lifting 10kg’s post op he sent me to see my EP.
We did our first Pilates class yesterday, and the instructor knows all my injuries, so I was exempt from some stuff. I think it was very good and I'll keep going. After that I rode yarra trails for an hour and a half, then we went to Fitzroy pool and I did a few laps. OK, my wife swam a shjtload of laps as she is a swimming machine. The swimming is good too, even though I suck at it. My wife was a swimming teacher and can swim endlessly, and she's been working on fixing my dredging hopelessness. Anyway I use fins and swim up the pool doing freestyle and then return doing back stroke, to mix up the muscle usage. I'm hoping to lose the fins over time. But crikey swimming tires me out.
THIS!!
). Keeping it simple and having gratitude for what I have and can do and not getting caught up too much in what I can't do have helped greatly.
100% perfect reason for an e-bike.THIS!!
Injuries are shitting me no end at the minute....so much so I've bought an ebike..
L4/L5 disc replacement and L5/S1 fusion about four years ago in a single operation....pretty fit before the op and recovery went well and after 18 months i was 95% back to normal so loving life again and into training hard. Two years ago had a bit of an off on a motorbike...resulted in C5/C6 disc replacement and C6/C7 fusion. Two separate operations, the second one (12 months ago) to try and alleviate the symptoms that the first op was supposed to fix...this has been the issue. Second operation has made the symptoms worse. Neck pain is fucked...all encompassing and everything is in the firing line in a negative way.
Lower back injury I could work around it, still training other parts of my body which wouldn't bother the cyborg portion whilst it was repairing. The neck injury is a right royal c*&t. Did the pharmaceutical torment for a few months, needed the get the fuck away from any more of that shit before things turned completely dark......don't the docs just dish that shit out without a care in the world.
Riding uphill is the worst for me. Trying to keep my eyes up looking up the hill for bikes coming down starts my neck spasming and getting nerve shocks. Then my traps go into protective mode and start locking up so by the time I get to the top of the trail I'm looking like something from the bell tower and lying down trail side is the only option for relief. Its also the pulling of the bars when I'm trying to ascend causing all my huge back muscles to tense causing all sorts of drama in my neck. Going downhill doesn't illicit the same response as the terrain drops away so my neck isn't as stressed holding my head at a funny angle.
Hence the ebike......no pulling of the bars to try and get enough effort thru the pedals to get up the hill, just lower the saddle so my vision is near level and choose the appropriate level of assistance to get up the hill. Buying this thing has really turned my head around. Beforehand every ride was resulting in bulk pain and torment at only being able to do maybe 10klms before I had to call it. Now I'm doing triple the amount of klms and having fun again. Don't get me wrong, I'm still quite fucked at the end of each ride but now they are bigger I'm not so down on my self and seemingly it's enough to get some good natural chemicals flooding my brain.
Never good when the surgeon says it could take 5 years for the nerve pain to settle....or it may never settle. I'm not believing that for a second (I'm saying that right now but there have been some days when that thought has been troubling..) but I have to say, for me the mental battle has been a challenge as I haven't progressed physically as I expected/needed to. The mission creep has been astounding lol but it'll get done. Full credit goes to a couple of my mates who have helped me with this unexpected invisible battle (and a little credit to the Levo too
Did they give you Lyrica? That shit is godawful, and caused me all sorts of bizarre nerve damage.THIS!!
Injuries are shitting me no end at the minute....so much so I've bought an ebike..
L4/L5 disc replacement and L5/S1 fusion about four years ago in a single operation....pretty fit before the op and recovery went well and after 18 months i was 95% back to normal so loving life again and into training hard. Two years ago had a bit of an off on a motorbike...resulted in C5/C6 disc replacement and C6/C7 fusion. Two separate operations, the second one (12 months ago) to try and alleviate the symptoms that the first op was supposed to fix...this has been the issue. Second operation has made the symptoms worse. Neck pain is fucked...all encompassing and everything is in the firing line in a negative way.
Lower back injury I could work around it, still training other parts of my body which wouldn't bother the cyborg portion whilst it was repairing. The neck injury is a right royal c*&t. Did the pharmaceutical torment for a few months, needed the get the fuck away from any more of that shit before things turned completely dark......don't the docs just dish that shit out without a care in the world.
Riding uphill is the worst for me. Trying to keep my eyes up looking up the hill for bikes coming down starts my neck spasming and getting nerve shocks. Then my traps go into protective mode and start locking up so by the time I get to the top of the trail I'm looking like something from the bell tower and lying down trail side is the only option for relief. Its also the pulling of the bars when I'm trying to ascend causing all my huge back muscles to tense causing all sorts of drama in my neck. Going downhill doesn't illicit the same response as the terrain drops away so my neck isn't as stressed holding my head at a funny angle.
Hence the ebike......no pulling of the bars to try and get enough effort thru the pedals to get up the hill, just lower the saddle so my vision is near level and choose the appropriate level of assistance to get up the hill. Buying this thing has really turned my head around. Beforehand every ride was resulting in bulk pain and torment at only being able to do maybe 10klms before I had to call it. Now I'm doing triple the amount of klms and having fun again. Don't get me wrong, I'm still quite fucked at the end of each ride but now they are bigger I'm not so down on my self and seemingly it's enough to get some good natural chemicals flooding my brain.
Never good when the surgeon says it could take 5 years for the nerve pain to settle....or it may never settle. I'm not believing that for a second (I'm saying that right now but there have been some days when that thought has been troubling..) but I have to say, for me the mental battle has been a challenge as I haven't progressed physically as I expected/needed to. The mission creep has been astounding lol but it'll get done. Full credit goes to a couple of my mates who have helped me with this unexpected invisible battle (and a little credit to the Levo too
I was offered that but declined after researching it. Some bad shit..
Sounds like you need to plan a little MTB trip away. High country, or derby (new St. Helens trail before xmas?).
I hear you, although I've been pretty fortunate compared to many of the other war stories here but have to agree that most of my more ouchy endos have happened at low speed or a front wheel washout or evil vegetation snagging me.
That might help, but at the moment I'm just wondering when I'll feel like riding decent trails. A riding holiday might go someway to that. We'll see..
I know I just need to give it time. Fingers crossed it comes back soon enough.
In the beginning I rode conservatively for a few weeks and reminded myself I'm only human but now after so many crashes, I just get back on the bike and admit that it's part of MTBing. Everyone deals with it in their own way but doubting yourself can sometimes result in a not so good outcome. No point in discussing it with non-MTBers because they don't understand the feeling and they'll just ostracise you for it.
