Muscle imbalance and all that jazz

It's a bright beautiful Saturday and I ended up spending almost half of it in the gym. Haha. 

Wendy has finally found the time to come take a look at my knee and "load up" on my exercise regime. I'm finally moving away from weird and awkward slow-mo lunges (trust me, one gets self conscious doing that in front of so many fitness instructors walking around) and really painful physio moves. And hurray! I have less resistance when it comes to muscle tearing stretches, which translates to one step closer to running again. 

All these efforts in the last few months just so I can run again. In short, I have muscle imbalance and hence I have issues with external rotation of my right leg (which translates to really crappy running style and hence overuse of small muscles not meant for running). The source of muscle imbalance was an old injury from secondary school that didn't recover completely. Minimal attention are usually devoted to injuries at that age so it went unattended for a while. Knee problems started to become a hassle in university where I started to run more frequently and across longer distances. On my worst days, the dull pain can hit me so hard, the soreness spreads through out my leg (there was a stage my physiotherapist suspected I had Iliotibial Band Syndrome aka IT Band Syndrome) and my lower back. It disrupts my sleep and there are days I can hardly sit still because of the ache. 

Good to know those belong to the past. Haha. 

Wendy upped the notch today by finally placing me on a treadmill to run. However, this "new" running technique is entirely alien to me. Large strides. External rotation. Push off more on the right leg. Don't let your left leg overwork. Every step is consciously made to make sure my right leg does not rotate inwards.

I've never felt so uncomfortable running before :(

Re-training my body and muscles to run the right way is the key focus now. Till then, I won't be doing any marathons or whatsnot :(

So depressing. Hurhur

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