The Number One Determining Factor In Feeling Good is TIME! There is a direct correlation to the amount of time you spend trying to get your body to feel good and it actually feeling good. Now, what you do in the time can be different for us all.
The impetus for this post is me feeling f'ing great! It all started with the Covid outbreak. With having to work from home two variables changed. First, being chained to a computer and sitting all day was awful. Second, I was saving an hour on my commute.
I knew sitting all day would ruin me, so I tried to get up every hour and take a movement break. During this time I also started seeing my physical therapist. I have three herniated lumbar discs, thoracic arthritis, spinal stenosis, shoulder arthritis, and tight hips.
Everything in my upper body is damaged and tight from over a decade of handling 800 lbs plus as a bench specialist. I turned my body into an anti-rotation and overprotective shell. I have been trying to unravel it for years and have been very unsuccessful.
However, seeing my pt and having this extra time on my hands, I decided to truly dedicate myself to feeling well. Before I drag this on any longer, with no exaggeration, I was spending two hours a day on stretching, corrective exercises, and soft tissue work.
Some of the changes came rapidly, others, very slowly. There would be the odd day where I didn't invest the same amount of time in myself. The following day would always reflect it. I think subconsciously when I felt good I would think I was cured. The next day always proved that theory wrong.
Even now almost six months later I still need at least half an hour of maintenance work a day. Not surprisingly, if I spend 45 minutes on myself, I feel even better.
Whether it's cold therapy, heat, soft tissue work, stretching, sleep, deep breathing, rehab work, etc, I always feel better after doing it (granted you are doing it correctly which is a different post for another day). Like I said earlier, there's a direct correlation with the amount of time you spend on making yourself feel better to how much better you actually feel. Shocker huh?
At the ripe old age of 51 I can say without a doubt that I spend more time rehabbing my body than I do training and I still train a lot. I want to train hard and feel good, so it's what I have to do. If your body is truly FUBAR'd, then you need to be spending a lot of time on feeling better. The choice is yours.
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