Six Million Dollar Me

Better. Stronger. Faster.

Those were the instructions I gave to my physical therapist last night during our second session. She needs to rebuild me into a kettlebell lifting machine.

Actually, last night's session was very insightful and should lead to some real progress. After a bit of electrical stim, followed by a long series of lower back stretches and strengthening exercises, we sat together and watched the video I have on my www.kettlebellsny.com website where I perform cleans (taped almost two months ago).

From the video, she was able to notice the difference in my form right side versus left. We then proceeded to have me demonstrate a clean using a dumbbell. After a few minutes of analysis from the various angles she was able to identify that cleans on the right side demonstrate a good neutral spine position while cleans on the left side cause my spine to leave neutral and bend to the left.

This could be a result of prior injuries, tightness in various muscles, and/or perhaps something yet to be uncovered. Another contributor to my pain is that I appear to hyper-extend my pelvis a lot. This could also be a contributor to some of the stress on my ligaments.

We will therefore continue to strengthen and stretch the back muscles while working to produce a better neutral alignment for my spine and pelvis.

When all is said and done, I plan to become a lifting machine! But for now, it is going to take some re-learning on my part to get back to pain-free movement. Let the process begin!