Happy, Happy, Happy.

Just got back from physio and Lisa is so happy with my single leg squats. Actually I think her words were "I'm impressed". Great, this actually means I was doing my exercises properly and they are working. WooHoo. Her following words were "Up on the bed and lets loosen these glutes and your paraspinals". Oh ohhhhhhh, noooooooo - those cold beads of sweat started to ooze out of every pore again. As Lisa presses her thumb somewhere deep into my left glute I have this absolute eye crossing, breath taking, butt breaking, shooting pain that radiates somewhere down to my knee. Holy crap that hurt, but as she sticks to her guns on that position it finally eases off. Ohhhhh bliss. But just when you think she has given up, she tweaks that thumb to another spot and "holy mackerel" there it goes again. Oh well, she is doing her job and for that I am thankful.

Next up on the agenda is some gluteal stretches which always hurt but feel nice and then she showed me some exercises that I need to do at home for the following 2 weeks.

She wants me to do these bridge exercises and focus on squeezing my butt cheeks tightly and turning my core on. She wanted to add the variation of raising one leg like so:

But it was a no go. Everytime I tried to raise that leg, my hamstring on the leg that was down would cramp. Lisa stated that my glutes and core were not supporting me at all and that my hammies were doing all the work. So for now she would just like me to do the bridge and just try swapping weight from leg to leg making sure that my pelvis stayed centred.

I also have to do this functional exercise which mimics the way I should be walking. So I have to take a step forward and roll through the walk into a slight lunge and then push off. All whilst maintaining my pelvis in a forward position. I have a real funny swagger when I walk and it just shows lack of stability. So need to get my walking right before I can run.

So things are definately looking up in the Hughes world. I can swim and bike to my hearts desire. So guess where I am off to tomorrow - the pools of course.

Another tid bit of info, a friend of mine on this wonderful blogger world misszippy is having a wonderful giveaway. A great pair of Ryder's sunnies - jump on over an check it out - you just never know. I will also hopefully get to catch up with her when she makes her way to Aus in the next couple of weeks. Looking forward to it.

So in the meantime, I shall keep rolling with the punches and feel great that everything is coming good.