OneAndOneIs2

We're in the grip of a mini heatwave, and geez is it a scorcher. Thankfully, the heat hasn't brought with it humidity, so it's actually still fairly comfortable.

Mind you, humid does at least stop you from dehydrating so quickly. I went out for a jog yesterday afternoon, and my water bottle, which usually stays chilled until the third lap, was already becoming tepid during the second. And it was empty before I completed the third - usually I have some leftovers to tip on a pot plant in our block of flats.

Even so, by the time I got home I had to struggle to get up the stairs, and I more or less collapsed into a chair for a while. It took most of the evening to recover normality, even after a restorative sausage sarnie with fried onions. It was that bad.

I might drop down to two laps for a day or two - it goes against the grain, but I don't want to put myself into hospital with heatstroke.

On the other hand, it might be that it was a struggle just because I was using the right muscles - I've had similar experiences in the past.

To clarify: I've mentioned in the past that I'm a chronic pain sufferer, and have been for years. I had wrist RSI and numerous aches & pains that was bad enough that I seriously considered quitting my job just to spend less time on a keyboard.

Luckily, I found the cause: Not too much movement, as most RSI sufferers would think, but too little. Too little of the right kind of movement, leading to too much of the wrong kind.

The human body has hundreds of muscles, many of which are used for movement. Each joint has a number of muscles attached, which are used to generate specific movements. The problem comes when we don't get enough exercise, and the big muscles that are supposed to haul our bodies around slowly atrophy away and become incapable of doing their job.

At this point, things get tricky, because we still call upon them to do the job occasionally. At this point, other muscles get involved and help out. But because they're the wrong muscles, they move the joints inappropriately and begin to cause chronic damage. Worse, the more demands are made, the stronger the wrong muscles get, and the harder it is to get the right muscles into play - so they get even weaker still.

A simple example of the wrong type of movement is bending at the waist to lift something up off the floor, using your back muscles instead of your legs - bane of workplaces everywhere. An example of a dysfunctional body compensating for weakness by using the wrong muscles to do a job is: From a sitting position in your chair, stand up.

Did you keep your back upright at all times and raise your body entirely by leg power? I bet you didn't. I bet you leaned your upper body forward, ducked your head a bit, and then lifted your head sharply, pushed your hips forward, and pushed off the chair arms (if present) with your arms.

In other words, you used your stomach, back, neck, and arm muscles to get yourself out of the chair. Sit back down, and try to stand up by using only your legs: Keep your back straight, and arms away from armrests.

If it's difficult, you should consider getting more exercise. If it's impossible, you're in trouble.

Anyway, to get back to myself: More than anything, I had wrist pain from typing. I wore wrist supports & took painkillers, and could just about make it through the day without being reduced to tears. Most of the time.

I saw a book called "Pain Free" recommended on a Web forum by a physiotherapist who said that she'd learned a lot from it, which was a pretty good endorsement. I bought a copy, but not actually for me: I gave it to Lou, who had suffered shoulder tension for a decade or so, so bad that she lost feeling in her left hand sometimes, and I could just about make it relax to the point where blood would flow by spending quarter of an hour giving her a shoulder massage.

She tried the recommended exercises, and the sudden loss of tension in her shoulder pretty much floored her for the day - she had trouble staying awake because of the sudden relaxation of a muscle that had been tense for years.

Next weekend, I started on the excercises for wrist pain. I didn't have to fight to stay awake, but I did have trouble breathing because I was laughing so hard: My wrist RSI was caused by a body-wide musculoskeletal misalignment that had also thrown my hip askew, and the muscles in my right thigh were so tightly locked up that I actually couldn't stop laughing in relief as I felt them gradually relax.

I went back to work on Monday, only my third day into the Pain Free exercises, put my wrist supports in my desk drawer and never used them again. I didn't need them any more.

Sadly, however, that didn't fix my problems completely: I still had little aches and pains, which I couldn't quite get rid of.

I finally tracked it down tho: It's the right gluteal muscles. They're too weak, so the thigh muscles are taking over their job.

On the plus side, these are quite easy to exercise: You can do it while sitting down. I did so yesterday: I spent most of the day consciously tensing the muscles, especially when I was walking around. And by the end of the day, I could feel the benefit: The neck pain that's been plaguing me lately has eased right off: By using the muscles, I've not been sitting slightly at an angle and straining the muscles on one side of my neck.

And when I went jogging, the muscles were doing so well that they actually did some work, and I felt properly upright for the first time in ages as I jogged along.

The thing is, tho, that this meant I was using a whole batch of muscles which have largely shrunk and weakened over time, while the muscles that have been compensating have grown very fit, but weren't actually in use.

As has happened in the past, therefore, I tired quickly because I was using muscles that just aren't used to being used. My right calf, in particular, was complaining. Last week, of course, my left calf was the one complaining, because it was doing all the work to compensate for the dysfunctional right side. But at leasts it's hurting because it's getting better, rather than getting worse ;o)

From experience, I know that it won't take long for the problem of under-used muscles complaining to ease off: Muscles love being used, they build up fast when they're given a reason to.

With any luck, this'll be the last major muscle group that gives me problems, and I'll actually be genuinely pain-free in a few more days/weeks. I imagine it'll feel odd, going through a day without something hurting. . .