Skating Again after Kneemageddon!

I went to freestyle today at my old rink and skated for 30 minutes.  Honestly, that last minute was torture. I've lost so much muscle tone in my right leg, and my balance was all over the place, that when I cautiously got on the ice I looked like this....

Slip, Slidin' Away

 This is one of the things I anticipated. As you get older,  the body loses muscle and flexibility at a rate that's positively depressing. Even though I continued my weight lifting and stretching exercises over the last 3 months, there was nothing I could do to keep my legs strong. I had to let them rest and recover. Now I have to rebuild them.

I started out with some simple stroking, the lack of practice showed, It took me a few minutes to get my posture and upper body back in alignment. I knew I looked like a Basic 3 skater, but the kids knew me and avoided me (the sweethearts). I was able to do forward and backwards crossovers by the end of my half hour; three turns and mohawks were where I was a year ago.

So what's a good thing for an elderly  mature woman to do to recover?

I did some research and everyone agrees that the four fitness goals for a 'mature' adult are the following:
Endurance
Strength
Balance
Flexibility

Endurance. What's a good exercise for this on ice? Swizzles. I found that swizzles were very demanding on my weaker leg, and I had to work hard to make the swizzles symmetric.  Also I wouldn't let myself do 'lazy swizzles'. I did them so I touched my feet together then out again which I find harder than 'lazy swizzles'.

I've been doing strength training of upper body during kneemageddon, and just started rebuilding my leg muscles. Pnysical Therapy starts Monday. When  I look at the strength exercises for the 'mature' online, the weights are at the 3 and 5 pound level. I'm using 15 and 20's and have a personal trainer. I guess I'm not the traditional little old lady.

Balance. Believe it or not I've been working on my off ice balance during Kneemageddon.  It's not the same as real skating. Cross fingers my skating balance comes back quickly. And what, you ask, is a balance exercise? Stand on one foot--working up to standing on one foot with eyes closed, on a Bosu Ball.  Still at standing on one foot with my eyes open. Man, the whole one foot on the Bosu ball, not happening.

I'm on the left....sigh.

Flexibility. Use it or lose it, baby. I do 30 minutes of flexibility work every weekday. My DVDs for this are here. I also have a knee rehabilitation DVD and a few others. My orthopedic surgeon was amazed. If I had one thing I would unreservedly recommend to 'mature' adult skaters, it's regular stretching training, and these DVD's are really good.

Now you're wondering how I was skating after the half hour of practice.

Ta Da!
(I am this cute!)

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.

Stretching DVDs

One of the things that happens to adult skaters is that they accumulate injuries the way diplomats accumulate parking tickets. While diplomats have immunity, we poor skaters don't. We pay for our injuries every day. So it pays to work on maintaining some reserve fitness.

Fortunately, I'm of a get up and go personality. I don't like sitting around bemoaning my fate. So, first things first: Sitting is killing you. At work I don't use IM or the phone. I get up and walk to talk to people. It helps keep the joints from stiffening up during the day.  Also,  I keep my back straight when walking or sitting. Those little things can contribute to feeling good throughout the day.

Secondly, I've always been a big believer in stretching. I'm not talking here about stretching to get that Beillman. I'm talking about stretches that help keep you going in spite of the pain in joints, muscles, and tendons. Here are some good DVD's to help.


Annette Fletcher Save Your Back -- Release Strengthen Stretch.
This video starts out deceptively easy. The three segments each last about 12 minutes. I like doing all of them in one sitting. In Release you relax the muscles and joints and warm them up for the challenge to come. In Strengthen you do some exercises to support your back by building up the core muscles. Then in Stretch, it's pretzel time! Because of the preparation in the first two segments, I was able to get into deep stretch even in the most extreme positions without pain.

If you have a beillman--maybe not for you. On the other hand, I'm flexible and I felt it was worthwhile. My back felt great after doing it once. If you have back issues, well, it's designed for people with those so look at it on Amazon and see what you think.

Cathe Friedrich Stretch Max
I bought this thinking it would be intimidating. Some of Cathe's strength videos are beyond me at the weights she uses. This stretch video is good and doable by a fit adult. It presents some nice exercises for opening the hips. It's not an extreme stretch video like some yoga videos that require a year of practice to complete. The Cathe video offers three stretch programs: no equipment required, on the ball, and resistance band. (You will need a mat) I like doing the no equipment one, and the resistance band one. Taken together these two really hit skater stretch needs. In the no equipment segment lots of emphasis on getting open hips and working those hip flexors. In the resistance band one, more hip work and work on the articulation of the feet and ankles. Great video. 

Why yes, I have been working on my stretching.