My Neck, My Back, My... Well, it's Just my Back, really...

Around the beginning of June, I woke up and couldn’t stand up straight. Like it physically HURT for me to stand up straight. If I hunched over, I was okay. I couldn’t turn my torso very much, either. I assumed it was just from sleeping wrong, so I made sure I did some stretches every morning and after a few days the pain dulled down a bit. I, uh, celebrated my 24^th wedding anniversary, perhaps too robustly, because the pain came right back. 

Luckily, I had a massage appointment the following day (YES! Finally – I haven’t had one since the end of March!), and she did a little work on me, and I thought once I slept it off, I’d be good to go the next day.

I was WRONG!

When I rolled over the next morning, I think I was worse!

It's hard to explain what hurt, but I"m gonna try...

In a standing position, it hurt to stand up straight. When I did, I felt something pull in my lower back, around my gluteus (my butt). Turning my torso left or right was painful. And then, the worst, I think, the act of... well, wiping my tushie... hurt the worst. Sitting, leaning to the right while twisting to the right... it pulled my muscles in a weird way.

I did some internet digging, and I think it's my Quadratus Lumborum. I'm not 100% sure, because now that I want to blog about it, I can't find the original photo that hit the nail on the head about what I was looking at. And my internet history apparently doesn't go that far back... The muscles in question connect to each individual rib on the back, and also attaches to the hips, both front and back. The QL in the diagram below doesn't reflect that, but I'm still not sure if it's wrong... sigh.

Anyway... So I spent the next two weeks stretching it and being miserable. Being miserable included not being able to get up without wincing, not being able to shave my legs, not being able to pick things up off the ground, and my all-time favorite, not being able to stand up for long enough to go grocery shopping without losing my breath.

Good times.

To stretch it out, I did some stretches I learned from the last time I hurt my lower back. Lay on your stomach in bed and bring your lower legs up (like you're a giggling schoolgirl at a slumber party).

For the first set of stretches, widen your knees and cross your left ankle over your right. Hold for 3-4 seconds and return to straight up. Repeat three times, then cross your right ankle over your left for three stretches.

The second set of stretches requires you to tighten your knees (like the girl in the pink), and widen your ankles to as wide as possible (try to keep your knees together and touch your outer ankles to the bed).

The other type of stretches I was doing was some old school Jazzercize bullshit.

The stretches weren't doing all that much, so when I went back to massage again, two weeks later (we're up to June 24th at this point), I told her that I was feeling worse than before, and explained that I was doing the above stretches and she kind of giggled.

I'd been doing the wrong stretches.

The foot ones were working my hips, not my side muscles. The old school stretch was stretching the muscles under my arm, not at my hip. Instead, I needed to do the same idea, but with the arm down.

I didn't believe that it was that much different, but she made me stand up and do both, and whoa! The no-arm version was much more beneficial for my situation. I could feel it pull the muscles around my waist and hips. So, she did some heavy work on my sides and back, and reminded me to stretch every day (but also to not overdo it, either).

So, what even did I do to myself? How did this happen? I don't have a definite idea, but I think the past three months of sitting badly in my office chair, for hours on end, with terrible posture. I haven't been to the gym in months. I haven't been using my treadmill. I've only gone walking outside a few times since the shutdown. I think my muscles have gotten used to being in this terrible position. And probably, sleeping extra-badly one night kind of pushed my back over the edge.

So, since my massage on June 24th, I made sure to stretch every day, and after a few days thought that it was a good time to try to get back on the treadmill.

It wasn't.

Even walking at a whopping 2.5 mph, I was able to walk for 5 minutes before I needed to step off and stretch. After that I was able to walk for 5 minutes more. So, I did that over and over for about 25 minutes. I don't want to say it was an unsuccessful experiment, but once I got off, I didn't feel like it was a successful walk.

A few days later I tried again, and though I didn't need to step off and stretch as many times, I still only made it 30 minutes. After that, I decided to allow myself another week or so to recover more. (Sadly, I'm lazy, and I've not gotten back on the treadmill since the end of June...)

 

So, because of this stupid back issue, I've not gone to the gym (apparently they opened after Memorial Day), I've not gone for a walk, I've not gone out for a walk in the park... I've continued to sit on my ass every day... I'm so proud of myself. 

Just for the hell of it, here's some quarantine + weight memes