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  • My Weekly Journal – 06/10/19 Through 06/16/19

    Posted by michael-morale on June 17, 2019 at 3:00 pm
    Monday, June 10, Through Sunday, June 16 – This past week, everything fell into place like it should have, but it seemed to have gone in slow motion. It seems funny to me how one week will go so quickly, and the other will just drag on and on. Even though the week felt as if it was moving extremely slow, I made it through without any major difficulties.
    PT Recap
    When I went for my workout with Emily, she and Vicki started with my balance exercises. Now that Emily and Vicki are having me sit on a cushion, it takes just a little bit longer for me to get positioned properly. Normally, Emily will be behind me, and Vicki will be standing in front of me. Emily usually starts out by pushing me forward, backward, and from side to side, and these exercises are called perturbations. This act of throwing my balance off forces me to utilize my core strength. My goal is to remain in an upright position.
    Balance Exercises
    Last week, if you read my journal entry, I said that Emily and Vicki were going to start using resistance bands to increase the difficulty level of these particular exercises. Once I gained my balance on the cushion, Emily did start out doing her normal perturbations, but after about five minutes, she switched over to the yellow resistance band. With her standing behind me, she placed the yellow resistance band around my chest. I thought we were going to do isometric exercises. Instead, she had me work my core strength by doing crunches.
    After leaning forward just a bit, Emily would start pulling back on the resistance band, trying to bring me back up into a neutral sitting position. I would then sit back up as straight as possible, and then lean forward to pull against the resistance band. At first, this was extremely difficult, but after doing this for a couple of minutes, I found it to be a great workout for my abdominal muscles. We worked on this for about ten minutes. 
    Trust
    At one point during these exercises, I leaned a little bit too far forward and lost my balance. Luckily, Vicki was standing in front of me, and she grabbed me before I fell. Even though I knew that Vicki was in front of me, it was still quite scary to lose my balance. After sitting me back up into an upright position, both Vicki and I looked at each other, and I wished I would’ve had a picture of this moment. We both looked extremely shocked, but relieved that nothing bad happened. Emily grabbed me by my shoulders and was apologetic. This is when the true test of trust comes into play. I trust both Emily and Vicki to not let me fall, and this trust level increases each and every week.
    After working with the resistance band, they laid me down on my back, and Emily began the range of motion and stretching exercises on my hips, legs, knees, ankles and feet. After this, she worked on my neck muscles by rotating my neck to the left and right. This particular exercise feels very good, because it stretches the muscles in my neck and the ones that run from my neck to my shoulder. 
    Conclusion
    To finish my exercises, we used the yellow resistance band on my side to side exercises. Emily sat on the therapy table, and put the resistance band around my left shoulder. After this, I leaned just a little bit to my left, and she began providing resistance with the band. My job was to lean to my left and push against the resistance band, which worked the oblique muscles. While Emily was sitting on my right side, Vicki was there on my left, making sure that I would not lose my balance. Finally, Emily transferred me to my left side, and we worked by having me lean to my right. 
     
    I’ve updated the flash briefings that I do for Bionews Services. Click HERE to go the flash briefings.
     
    I hope that all of you had a fantastic week. Do something for yourself this upcoming week that will make you a better person. God bless you and I’ll see you soon.
    michael-morale replied 5 years, 3 months ago 1 Member · 0 Replies
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