My legs are what?

My last post on the physio visit alluded to a conversation I'd come back to later.

As it's now later, I thought I'd come back to it.

After various exercises and stretches, my physio noticed something.

Basically, in laymans terms, my legs are messed up.

It seems that over the years the muscles in my legs have developed a weird thing where they take the weight on the outside of the leg, instead of evenly.

So, the muscles on the inside of my calves and knee aren't strong enough, and whilst the ones on the outside have developed to compensate for it for normal everyday stuff like walking, they can't take it for the running - hence the injuries.

So, basically I have to teach my legs how to walk properly.

Oh come on!

I'm cracking on 30 and have to relearn how to walk!

It's not like I've been in a car accident or anything - I've done a bit of running and now I've got to relearn something most people have got a good grip on by the time they reach the age of four!

Apparently it could be down to the amount my feet roll, and having paid a bit more attention to it when I'm walking since session one, it is a hell of a lot!

I've now got six weeks of knee classes starting at the end of the month to strengthen the weak bits, and and to try to retrain my legs to carry the weight properly.

To me that sounds like six weeks in a room with a load of people who have proper injuries and are trying to recover their quality of life, rather than just trying not to hurt themselves when they put their names down for stupid things like the London marathon.

I'm gonna feel such a tit.

In the meantime, it's doing the exercises she gave me religiously, and spending a ridiculous amount of time during my day thinking about how I'm walking.

This better work, or I think I'll explode.

5 comments:

  1. back to the old adage of 'you must walk before you can run!' so so very true.
    I'm secretly hoping they'll sit you in an adult version of a baby walker-if so photos please!!
    good luck and don't beat yourself down- running a marathon is-yes- stupid, but you were also doing it to benefit and help others, no one in that room will begrudge you that.

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  2. Welcome to the Weird Legs Club - at least yours is muscular (ie fixable fairly easily) not skeletal (ie not very easily fixable). You sound like you're doing really well so far!

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  3. @leigh would I be allowed to do the marathon in the baby walker? Imagine it'd be easier! I'm trying to persuade them to let me take pics, but they're a bit uncomfortable with it at the mo...

    @becki - true. Better to have something that can be fixed without having to cut me up and chip bits off!

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  4. Hey - I'm in the weird legs club too!

    I have odd legs - one knee is higher than the other even though the legs themselves are the same length. Hence my ITB problems last year. Orthotics fixed things for me...

    Keep up the exercises Phil, we'll be rooting for you in VLM10.

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  5. @ulen erm ...are you an X-man of some kind?

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