Tag: Exercise

I need to do more..

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We need to move, I need to move, I’m becoming too sedentary, stuck in the mud. I have some exercises to do, but I put the sheets down somewhere and now I can’t find them. When I pick things up I shake too much and it’s hard to grip things. But I will try. Even if it’s just gentle stretches. Muscle wastes if it’s not used and I’m finding moving more difficult since I’ve had this virus. I feel shut in and fed up.

I will have to find those exercise sheets. I really need to get moving. I do chair yoga and that helps a bit.

Swimming a mile

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What was the hardest personal goal you’ve set for yourself?

When I was fitter I used to swim. I’m not fast but have stamina so I gradually built up the distance I could swim. My preferred goal was breast stroke.

I found out that a mile was about 40 lengths of the pool so I set a goal to see if I could  do it. I slowly built up the numbers, I was limited by the time it was taking me to finish it but after about two or three months I managed it. I have to say I never swam that distance again!

Movement

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I’ve found through a bit of research that it’s important to keep moving if you have Parkinsons disease. So I wobble and shake my way along to the shops or to the pharmacy and back. Trying to get my slow steps in. I have looked at my movement counter but although I’m almost always getting a couple of thousand of steps in every day my heart rate barely registers!

What to do? Then someone from my surgery suggested a Parkinsons group that does table tennis (ping pong). I’d played this on the dining table at home as a young teenager and thought I’d have a go. My worker from the surgery came down to introduce me to the group a week ago. I needed that support because I find it hard to integrate with new people because of anxiety.

So..  I went, and found that I can hit a ping pong ball across a net! I was getting my feet tangled a bit and sort of felt rather static. But I could do it. I went back this week and I’m happy I can progress. I’m going to keep going. It’s only a fortnightly thing, but I hope it will be good for me. I ache in places I didn’t know I have though!

Cycling

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What’s the most fun way to exercise?

I’ve cycled for exercise when I was younger and I loved the freedom of it. You could travel for miles, with the ability to see places you could never get to on foot and if you travel in a car or a train the world goes by almost too fast so that you don’t get the connection with the land that you do on a bike.

We cycled for many years and I went from pushing my bike up hills, to slowly slogging up in bottom gear to being able to make good progress up to a summit. I could tell my fitness was improving, my breathing improved and my physical strength improved too. My hubby and I could cycle up to a hundred miles in under eight hours!

The worst thing that happened to me was a bike accident that eventually persuaded me to get a car. I should have continued to cycle.

One armed pressups

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What’s something most people don’t know about you?

When I was young I read that the world record for one armed pressups was one. It was a fun fact in a comic I used to read. I asked my mom to watch me and I did two, my Mom said it was closer to 2 1/2 so we wrote in explaining what I had done.

A few, weeks later I bought the comic and opened it up only to find a cartoon of a muscular man in sports gear collapsed on the floor, and a cartoon of a young girl in running gear smiling as she continued to do one armed pressups. The little write up below explained what I had done! I was amazed and proud to find the little article!

It was never ratified, I never held an official world record, but it was an amazing experience. I cut the article out and carries it round in my purse until it fell apart! Not many people know this about me!

Simpler

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Your life without a computer: what does it look like?

I do try not to be online all the time, I don’t use a pc or laptop, but who needs them when you’ve got a phone? I think sometimes my brain is permanently plugged in…..

It’s those little hits of seratonin? They give you a brief hit of pleasure, and if I am not blogging or drawing digitally I feel empty.

But I know it’s not good for me, I find myself following vlogs and different pages and sites. I’ve got worse since I hurt my leg, and I know as I recuperate I need to do more physical things. I have to take the phone though, to measure my steps!

Things I would do without a computer.

Not get lost, I can read maps,

Not miss my favourite TV shows

Get more exercise

Go to my studio

Actually paint and draw with real, physical art supplies!

Meet with friends more.

I do a yoga class

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What strategies do you use to increase comfort in your daily life?

I’m not good at yoga, I’m not very flexible anymore. So I use a chair for most of the positions we do in class.

I have to use the chair for balances too, I just cannot manage to stand up and balance on one leg. But overall I think its slowly helping my mobility. I don’t feel like I will ever be able to do some of the poses, but at least I try.

I think yoga is about doing the best you can, and trying to get to a calm state of mind in the process. I have to admit I have not studied the teachings behind the practice, but if it lowers my blood pressure and helps me to gain some lost movement, even if only to a slight extent, then I’m all for it.

I ache after classes but I think as I have kept going I have been able to feel more comfortable physically, and it might be helping me mentally.

I don’t like the idea of ‘exercise’ style of yoga, where people force themselves into position and use heated rooms, I think there is more to it than that. What next? Boxing yoga? No thanks.

It was cycling

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What’s the most fun way to exercise?

When I was a lot younger my then boyfriend (now hubby) encouraged me to buy a bike because I couldn’t afford a car. We would cycle short distances but gradually I got fitter and we found we would go off into the countryside to enjoy the landscapes or put the bikes on the train and visit our families (both about forty miles away).

But then we started to cycle to and from the family homes, we had both got to the stage where we had got fit and healthy. It’s a great way of getting around and we eventually bought a second hand tandem which was actually two bikes welded together! We manages a hundred mile reliability trial, despite a pedal falling off because one of the chain wheels had been put on back to front. We then got a Gitane tandem, it was much better but the chain was always too slack. We could get up a good speed on it. We would cycle along and down country lanes. Once we ran into a boy scout jamboree, and also a pony trek with ponies stretched across the road up in the Staffordshire moorlands.

My regret? I got knocked off my bike and ended up with a fractured skull. I carried on cycling for a year. But then one day I was cycling up a hill and the bike collapsed underneath me! I took it in for repair and the cycle shop lost my bike for a year! I got it back eventually but I’d got a car and although I still cycled work got in the way and I didn’t use my bike as often. I now can’t get my leg over the bike because my hips are too stiff. I regret losing that fitness and a wonderful exercise.

Ouch!

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We had a walk last night up and down hill so I decided to have a flat walk this morning. One of my feet hurt, but I thought it was just a bit of an ache from yesterday. We walked very slowly round the lake because it hurt. I felt miserable but we stopped for a hot drink and I felt a bit better.

It was only when I took my shoe off that I saw I had split one of my small toenails from the end down to the quick, it’s sort of hanging off (I’m not showing a photo of it). I rang my podiatrists but they are short staffed and everyone is fully booked. I rang my GP (General Practitioner) but they have no one to deal with it. Waiting for a phone call or I might have to make a private appointment. Thank goodness the car passed its MOT, I might just be able to afford it! Hubby said he will get a pair of pliers if I wanted! No!

Stepping up

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Today’s walk was up and around my local hill. We walked up to the park along horizontal and then steep sections. We had a look round, sat on a bench for a while, then we carried on and walked further than we did before.

Clearly I’m not doing this because it’s part of my life. I don’t need to walk to collect water or food. But I’m doing it for my health, a first world problem.

Anyway it’s more than I’ve done for a year and it’s got to be good for my heart. I now need to build up my distances safely, because after suffering a pulled calf muscle I don’t want to do that again!