Prelude: I’ve been working for two weeks with some simple exercises that Marie Achkar gave me on Saturday, November 12th, during our first meeting. I ran a comfortable Turkey Trot on Thursday, avoided all the heavy food that afternoon by washing dishes constantly, then headed out to Ravenwood on Friday for some more Stolen Holes (another series). Despite a balky belly putter (yet another series), the round was rewarding for the company and for the tee to green game. Thanks to the wee bit of strengthening, I was longer off the tee and quite straight to boot.
Body: At 9 o’clock, Marie and I set to work. We began with an evaluation of my twistability, the flexibility in my shoulders and hips. Evidently, I don’t have much in either one! We did some foam roller rolling to loosen up the upper and lower backs, hips, quadriceps and glutes, then moved on to some swiss ball work and some floor work. The latter targeted the shoulders and, lo and behold, we made progress.
Next, we worked on isolating my glutes from my hamstrings, in terms of contractability. I’ve always used the hammies for heavy lifting and have never considered the importance of the glues…I’ve basically ignored them. When Marie asked me to fire the glutes, I had no point of reference. Slowly and patiently, she worked with me until I got to a point where I could partially identify them and begin to make them stronger.
With a series of exercises to add to the original ones, I’m good to go for the next two weeks. I’ll be seeing Marie again on the 10th of December for some more exercises and a reality check. After all, you don’t expect me to do this stuff perfectly for 2 weeks, do you?
