A few months after breaking my arm (my upper humerus, so I
required surgery rather than a cast), I got a hard lesson in what is meant by
the phrase, “use it or lose it” when it comes to physical activity. First of
all, let me tell you that the second “it” does not refer to weight. If you do
not “use it”, you will gain weight.
But I want to focus more on physical ability, and my atrophy
actually began a few months before I broke my arm, during the summer. First of
all, it was so miserably humid that I hardly felt like walking across our
sixteen-foot-wide house most days, let alone doing any kind of real exercise.
Second, I began having heart palpitations. Or hot flashes. Something that makes
my heart beat really fast until I slap some Be Young lavender oil on my chest.
Most of the time, I’ve been having one episode some time during the week before
my monthlies begin. However, once last summer when the morning air was
relatively cool I decided to ride my bike up and down our mountain road.
I ended up with serious heart palpitations. And since I had
not yet looked up how to make them stop (the Be Young lavender oil takes care of
them in less than a minute), they went on for a couple of minutes. It’s scary
when your heart feels like it’s about to jump out of your mouth!
So then I decided that exercise was overrated, and did
nothing for exercise beyond my gardening and taking strolls. Then I broke my
arm, and could do almost nothing for about a month, and it was a few more weeks
later before I dared to resume my pre-broken-arm levels of activity.
Recently, I decided to engage B in a game of “tickle chase.”
I became winded after about a minute, and my legs were sore the next day! And
that was after getting myself back into the habit of walking up the mountain
road (which is so steep that it gets your heart pumping just walking).
I don’t like knowing that in an emergency situation, I
wouldn’t be able to run for more than thirty seconds without feeling like my
heart was going to explode. So I am resuming my interval training.
Besides losing most of my stamina and endurance, I also lost
strength and flexibility in my left arm. I know, that should not have come as a
surprise. And it didn’t, except I had no idea how quickly muscles and joints
atrophy when you keep them still for a month, and how long it takes them to
recover. It’s been four months since the surgery, and I still don’t have my full range of motion back in the arm. I believe
my left arm is about as strong as my right now (of course, even the right lost
some strength because I wasn’t allowed to lift anything heavy for three
months), but I still have some tightness in my triceps and biceps (and probably
the joints, as well) – despite doing my ROM exercises several times a day.
Ah, well. I’m happy I can sleep on my left side again, lift
a cooler full of bananas, and do the laundry again.
Speaking of doing the laundry…in case you don’t know, J and
I have chosen to live without running water. Therefore, we have to do laundry
by hand. I often squat down to do it.
A couple of weeks ago, I took the chore back over (many
thanks to my husband for taking care of it for so many weeks!). My lower back
started hurting after about thirty seconds of swishing the laundry around in
the water, and the next day, my gluteus
maximus was SORE!
What has this experiment taught me? Use it or lose it! I,
for one, don’t want to lose it.
Happy reading,
Emily Josephine
