I’ve spent the weekend researching and attempting to sea trial my body the way that Gary at Drum Point Marine did my engine. The results so far are surprisingly similar in that there appear to be multiple contributing causes, without any one of which, I might just be an aching and cranky old sailor instead of a beached one. Like the engine, the major cause may be easier to fix than I thought.
I came across this very interesting blog entry by a doctor who believes that improper walking is a common cause of many SI pain cases:
http://trusted.md/blog/vreni_gurd/2...tion_and_hip_socket_degradation#axzz1qhqjNXcP
Couldn’t be me, I first thought. I’m a power walker. Little children run and hide their faces in their mother’s skirts when they see me coming. I walk about a mph faster than anyone else and used to think nothing of going 30 miles in an afternoon.
I read further and realized that she was describing exactly the way I walk. I lean forward with impatience and thrust my legs forward using the large muscles on the front of my thighs. These are attached to the top of the hips, one of which is tipped forwards. Is there an engineer in the house?
I went out and tried to walk pretending that the muscles in the front of my thighs were paralyzed and stood tall with my pelvis rolled level under me. Immediately, I fell into an exaggerated but fairly natural feeling “toughest guy in the bar” kind of walk. I could almost instantly see that my hips were moving together as a unit and my shoulders were moving as I walked, for maybe the first time in decades.
I went back to my normal pace and could feel my big hip bones flexing hinge like and individually on the SI joints. My spine was locked tightly by other muscles so there wasn’t any other way for them to respond to the pull of the big muscles in front. I suddenly realized that the first significant onset of this event was immediately after I tied up to a dock with a dead engine in a town with no food stores and the cheapest restaurants (and only breakfast) a mile and a half away. My only recreation was walking around and worrying so I was suddenly doing 3 – 6 miles a day while tense after a long period with relatively little walking and recent stresses on the whole area.
I returned to tough guy mode, glad to be out on a deserted country road, and it felt great. I quickly began to feel the pull and burn of muscles that haven’t been used in a long time, muscles I didn’t even know I had. I felt like I could collapse over forward because my legs weren’t locked straight and I needed to use previously unknown muscles in my calves.
It occurred to me that, because I walk so fast (someone once said I looked like I was headed off to kill someone) I might have fallen into the habit of restricting swagger like hip and shoulder motion that make me look more intimidating. It could also be left over from the old injury or maybe just being dropped on my head as a baby. Whatever.
I’ve walked a lot this weekend and I’m sore. It’s the good kind of sore though and none of it is in the places where the major pain has been. Those have been getting better even faster than from doing the exercises the PT outfit gave me. My gait has gradually been getting more natural as all those muscles I never knew I had strengthen, I get used to the rhythm, and can focus less on keeping my forward thigh muscles more relaxed.
They say you are never too old to learn something new. Me, at age 62 (nearly), I’m learning how to walk.
I came across this very interesting blog entry by a doctor who believes that improper walking is a common cause of many SI pain cases:
http://trusted.md/blog/vreni_gurd/2...tion_and_hip_socket_degradation#axzz1qhqjNXcP
Couldn’t be me, I first thought. I’m a power walker. Little children run and hide their faces in their mother’s skirts when they see me coming. I walk about a mph faster than anyone else and used to think nothing of going 30 miles in an afternoon.
I read further and realized that she was describing exactly the way I walk. I lean forward with impatience and thrust my legs forward using the large muscles on the front of my thighs. These are attached to the top of the hips, one of which is tipped forwards. Is there an engineer in the house?
I went out and tried to walk pretending that the muscles in the front of my thighs were paralyzed and stood tall with my pelvis rolled level under me. Immediately, I fell into an exaggerated but fairly natural feeling “toughest guy in the bar” kind of walk. I could almost instantly see that my hips were moving together as a unit and my shoulders were moving as I walked, for maybe the first time in decades.
I went back to my normal pace and could feel my big hip bones flexing hinge like and individually on the SI joints. My spine was locked tightly by other muscles so there wasn’t any other way for them to respond to the pull of the big muscles in front. I suddenly realized that the first significant onset of this event was immediately after I tied up to a dock with a dead engine in a town with no food stores and the cheapest restaurants (and only breakfast) a mile and a half away. My only recreation was walking around and worrying so I was suddenly doing 3 – 6 miles a day while tense after a long period with relatively little walking and recent stresses on the whole area.
I returned to tough guy mode, glad to be out on a deserted country road, and it felt great. I quickly began to feel the pull and burn of muscles that haven’t been used in a long time, muscles I didn’t even know I had. I felt like I could collapse over forward because my legs weren’t locked straight and I needed to use previously unknown muscles in my calves.
It occurred to me that, because I walk so fast (someone once said I looked like I was headed off to kill someone) I might have fallen into the habit of restricting swagger like hip and shoulder motion that make me look more intimidating. It could also be left over from the old injury or maybe just being dropped on my head as a baby. Whatever.
I’ve walked a lot this weekend and I’m sore. It’s the good kind of sore though and none of it is in the places where the major pain has been. Those have been getting better even faster than from doing the exercises the PT outfit gave me. My gait has gradually been getting more natural as all those muscles I never knew I had strengthen, I get used to the rhythm, and can focus less on keeping my forward thigh muscles more relaxed.
They say you are never too old to learn something new. Me, at age 62 (nearly), I’m learning how to walk.
