If you made it out of the past two years without any physical ailments, consider yourself lucky! Whether you dealt with an issue that resulted from the 2020 pandemic or worsened because of the pandemic, you’re not alone! I had both of those issues this year and I’m ready to prevent them from happening again!

I spent half of 2021 in physical therapy for two different issues. One of my issues - I got a pinched nerve in my back (from water aerobics), I know, I can’t believe it either. The pain was so restricting that I couldn’t empty the dishwasher. When I asked the doctor after a week or so when the symptoms didn’t subside, she gave me a script to see a physical therapist. The physical therapist mentioned that this probably didn’t happen during water aerobics alone - but from the 2020 pandemic when most stopped getting their routine movement in - as well as from sitting cross-legged on my couch, over-extending my legs, while sitting on the couch, and leaning forward at my desk - and I may have just moved in a way that caused the nerve to pinch.

The second issue was an old ankle injury more than 10 years ago that never fully healed itself - you know when “they” say once you injure your ankle, it never fully recovered? I tore a ligament in my right ankle and it’s never been the same. In 2014, I trained and ran a half marathon (which you can read about here) and because my ankle never healed correctly, my ankle muscles weren’t supporting my foot properly which caused my right middle toe to fall asleep during long runs. This pain didn’t bother me much as it didn’t stop me from completing the race, however, when I went to buy new shoes, I’d ask the sales people about my issue and was told that my shoes “were not wide enough.” I kept buying the widest shoes available. This foot pain worsened considerably during the pandemic and I wasn’t really sure why. I finally was able to see a podiatrist which then lead me to physical therapy.

Here are 3 things I’m adding to my fitness routine so I don’t have to endure another 6 months of physical therapy🤞 :

Stretch, Stretch, Stretch

This one is huge for me. During my half marathon training, I rarely stretched. I was in my 20’s, do you blame me? If I did stretch, I may have done a forward fold to my toes for a few seconds, foam rolled my thighs or when I went to yoga. NEVER paid any attention to my calves. When my physical therapist asked if I had tight calves when I ran, I never made the correlation that my tight calves could be causing my foot pain. The more you know!

Maintaining my Core Strength

I have been neglecting my core for so long because getting a six pack was completely out of the picture for me! But I learned this year that your “core” is not just your abs. Your core is actually a very large part of your body and everything is connected! There really needs to be a song similar to “head, shoulder, knees and toes” but about the muscle groups - like “your hip muscles are connected to your hamstrings which are connected to your calf muscles then to your Achilles tendon and to the muscles in your feet.” To maintain my core strength, I will continue to practice some form of the following: Pilates, yoga and walking (yes, walking helps strengthen your core muscles!)

Continuing my Mobility journey

Mobility exercises help keep you mobilized (get it??) They also help to keep you from getting injured in everyday life, working out, etc! If I had continued my mobility practice as the lockdowns extended in 2020, I could have prevented my pinched nerve (probably…).

A few of my favorite follows for stretching, mobility and more are:

Dr.Lisa.Dpt // David Carson // Reyna Cohan // Dr Jacob // Kanoa Greene // Size Diverse Pilates

Tips:

As a reminder, I’m not a doctor. If you are experiencing any sort of pain or limitation daily, I would ask your doctor as the pain could be a bigger problem than what you think.

Form is important with lifting, mobility and stretching. My advice to being taught correct form is: schedule a virtual appointment with a trainer, see a trainer or attend a class at your gym. If this intimidates you, make a request that the trainer is body positive, explain that you are plus size and want to learn the movements correctly to help prevent future injuries. The trainer should be able to provide you with proper instruction (if they can’t that is their problem, not yours!)