I Blame Hurricane Sandy

You know you're old when you have to do stretching every day to keep from falling apart.

I need to exercise every day!

I restarted exercising a couple of days ago after I realized that I had stopped my stretching sessions when Hurricane Sandy hit. Right after that my back went out for a week, followed a week later by my knees going 'kablooey'.

All my misery is due to Hurricane Sandy throwing off my exercise schedule. Maybe I should sue NOAA .

Then this evening I got a new fitness video in the mail. Quick Fix Knee Rehab with Jen Miller. It requires two small balls in a net bag to self-massage your joints.  I did the 11 minute Pre-Hab section where you lie on and roll over the balls in the little net bag; First the hip joints, then muscles of the thigh, then the knee. This is to get you warmed up for more difficult exercises. It was a pleasant experience, not too difficult.  The instructor mention this 'weird heat' that people would get when the muscles were responding but I didn't get that while doing the pre-hab exercises. (There are two additional sets of exercises on the DVD, I just haven't done them yet.)

However, as I was seated cross legged on the floor, reading the New York Times, I started absently massaging my knee where it hurt with the massage balls. And you know, my knee felt better. I started doing the massage more purposefully. I massaged the knee with the ball until it stopped hurting, then changed the leg position, found a new pain and massaged that. So, that took another 10 minutes before I quit.

A half hour later this 'weird heat' flooded through my knee as if someone had put a space heater in my knee and plugged me in. For 10 minutes my knee was without pain.

Wonderful.

I'm going to keep up with this!

How it works, what it's doing; No idea. Just feels great--for a few minutes at a time.