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Weekly Update: Sep. 5, 2018

Apart from a few nice walks at sunset, the heat wave kept me indoors for most of the last ten days. I managed to do three weight sessions: Monday, Friday, and Labor Day Monday. I have been battling injuries on the left side of my body. Through yoga and foam rolling, as well as a couple of chiropractor adjustments, I managed to eliminate that pain by the beginning of the weekend. I had been using mostly 5 and 10 lb. dumbbells to reintroduce my body to weight training gradually.  Friday's session felt easy I decided to upgrade the weights to 12.5 lb. for the Monday session (keeping the left arm at 10 lb. for some exercises to give it more time to heal).

In retrospect, that was a mistake, as I had spent an active and vigorous weekend with my girlfriend. We exercised both in and out of bed. She left me exhausted on Monday, and I should have rested instead of immediately doing weight training.

ice pack
By Tuesday morning, I woke up with serious pain on my entire right arm, from the shoulder to the hand. It was almost the exact opposite pattern of pain on my left arm, which originated two weeks earlier immediately after my girlfriend's visit. Interestingly, we decided to switch sides in bed this weekend, so that definitely points to certain repetitive activities as the source of the pain.

I iced the affected areas several times on Tuesday, doing restorative yoga in the evening to let my muscles relax as much as possible. Slept well, and woke up today with the pain entirely gone!

Since I reported about the running mobility assessment, I have been performing almost daily corrective exercises from the same book (Anatomy for Runners, by Jay DicHarry). Within a week, I started feeling results. I primarily needed to stretch my hip flexors and quadriceps, while building strength in my glutes and isolating them so I can engage them more in various activities like squats, the bridge pose, etc. Initially, my left glute was so tight, while my right was almost non-existent.

By the end of the first week, I was able to work away the tightness from my left glute and quads.  While working on the pigeon pose, I suddenly felt my right glute. It was awakened. Being able to feel it while exercising means I can improve the balance of my postures and use it to stabilize me better. I have also been able to straighten my knees in yoga poses better than ever, using my glutes to pull my legs straight rather than my hamstrings.
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