My PT is trying to kill me

So, my knee crapped out on me a couple months back, which led me to meet my wonderful S&M master physical therapist, D, who I leave veiled in anonymity for his own protection, as he might be embarrassed at my hyperbolic tales and crazed whining mixed with fawning worshipfulness I fear other would-be therapy patients would overwhelm the switchboard at his office or stalk him around town mercilessly for help with their own issues after reading this post.

Yes, there is an apparent disconnect between my title of this post and calling him wonderful, but he really is both wonderful and also trying to kill me.

The (silly) sports medicine doctor who took my knee x-rays & told me that I hyperpronate & I need to stretch more & get orthotics was apparently full of bunk not thinking through all the options. D has a different approach. D thinks orthotics are for sissies a short cut and not an optimal solution for me. He believes that I need to both learn better running form and also strengthen my weak body parts so that they all align properly when I run without the crutch of orthotics. This seems like a more organic approach than putting firm plastic inserts into my shoes for the rest of my life, and D is proving to be both an awesome athlete and also a thoughtful and skillful PT, so I have put my faith in him.

My faith has been rewarded. He has brought me from a puddle of crying, miserable, insomniac bitchiness who couldn't run at all for three weeks back to a cheerful, exhausted, sore, happy runner. I am very thankful, and I am also confident that he'll remain my go-to PT and coach for the future as, over time, I learn to run in a way that allows me to increase my mileage and just run, run, run as I love to do, without injuring myself to an extent that inhibits that running. If I get to my marathon in September, then I will be sending him flowers. Or maybe a liter of vodka. I guess I'll have to get to know him better in order to decide what to send him, but I'll be sending him something good.

About twice a week (as long as the insurance holds out), I see D for S&M torture sessions therapy appointments. During these sessions he tries to kill me teaches me better running form and also assigns me various daily masochistic assignments strengthening exercises. He also applies "modalities" to my knee that involve administering steroids through both ultrasound and electroshock therapy some kind of mysterious electrodes that zap steroids through my skin and into deeper tissues.

Of course, as anyone who has rehabbed an injury lately could guess, ice has become my new best friend. One thing everyone seems to agree about is how wonderful ice is for this kind of injury. D takes it to a new level, however. Other pansies experts advise you to put a towel between the icepack and your skin. Not D. If the skin isn't glowing red and ice cold to the touch when you take the ice pack off, it isn't cold enough. In fact, forget the ice pack. . . even better is an ice massage, massaging the skin directly with a hunk of ice frozen in a dixie cup. Massage until the skin is the optimum shade of red, dimpled, numb, and cold to the touch. Of course, once it is numb, you no longer feel the cold, so that is a bonus.

The running form work was my first massive challenge. It began with changing my cadence from 80 to 90 strides per minute. This was a near death experience hell of a challenge. My maximum heart rate is high naturally, around 200, so a relatively high heart rate is not particularly worrisome. However, at a cadence of 90, my heart rate was constantly in my I'm-about-to-die-zone Zone 5 (over 180 bpm) for the first week or so (about 15 running miles) at the new cadence. Add to this that I was actually running along with an actual physical, clicking, ticking, tocking metronome on the treadmill and the trails. I am sure the people who saw me in my extreme state of exertion, constantly watching the handheld clicking time bomb metronome, made some interesting comments about my obvious insanity to their walking partners.

Thankfully, over the following handful of runs, my heart rate normalized to the point where I could then run at the new cadence at a normal heart rate. D explained to me that as I adjusted to the new cadence, my body was exerting a lot of unnecessary muscles, but once I 'got it', those unneeded muscles could relax, thus my heart rate normalized. This was pretty impressive to me, and taught me to trust D's judgment.

Once I got the cadence down (and thereby my foot fall much improved to more of a midfoot strike instead of a heel strike), D moved me on to the next form challenges. About once a week, he puts me through various running drills in the parking lot at the PT place or on the treadmill. He has me stop sticking my ass out correct my pelvic tilt, suck in my gut engage my abdominal muscles, land quietly (as opposed to landing like an elephant dropped from the second story), keep my arms high and loose (as opposed to the frozen robot stance), hold my chest high and upright (doesn't he realize I am about to fall over?), put bounce in my step (really? now?), and of course, above all relax, relax, relax. That was not actually a joke. That is actually what he tells me to do. All at the same time.

Yesterday, D had me run "as fast as you can" across the parking lot a few times, and has added that to my homework regimen at the end of all runs. You know, just run as fast as you can, just to see how your form is going when you are running away from a bear as fast as you can. No problem. Umhmm.

Of course, while D is having me do these drills, he occasionally jogs along side me to watch my form. While I am running at top speed, as in away from a man eating bear, with sweat dripping down my tomato red face, D is jogging slowly alongside me in his professional dress khakis without breathing hard. How it is physically possible for us two similarly sized human beings to be doing two completely disparate activities (me running from a man eating bear; D jogging gently through a field of daisies) but seemingly traveling at identical speeds escapes my understanding of basic laws of nature. I think maybe it has something to do with Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, but I'm not really sure about that.

The other key to improving my running health is apparently strengthening various muscle groups which are needed to maintain said good running form. Apparently, many seemingly unrelated body parts can contribute to my incredibly ridiculous wild assed knock kneed running gait. My first strengthening assignments focused on my flat weak ass glutes and saddle bags hips, and he has since moved on to my soft squishy belly abdominal muscles.

I now have eleven different strengthening exercises to do each day. I don't know the real names of most of these exercises. My new favorite this week is the one legged squats balancing on a small step, with a strong rubber band attached to the working knee with the intent of knocking me over & breaking my neck strengthening the various stabilizing muscles.

Torture implements strength training tools currently used include:

• Kettle ball & dumbbells
• Giant rubber ball (upon which I rest either my feet or my shins, with either my back or hands on the ground, and proceed to do a series of bridges and/or planks)
• Giant rubber bands
• Blood pressure cuff (upon which I tilt my lower back/pelvis while engaging my lower abs and then bicycling my legs while not allowing the pressure reading to lessen) 

Some of my exercises are assigned simply as a certain number or reps. Other ones are assigned to do "with as much weight and as many reps as needed to cause pain. Then do two or three more. Then stop." This is an amusing method if you think about it.

Needless to say, my ass, hips, abdomen, and back are in a constant state of tenderness. My leg muscles only get sore occasionally, but the rest is constant.

I'm back up to running 5 milers, and am allowed 6 on Easter day. So, I am happy, happy, happy about that. I don't know why I am driven to run, but I am very, very driven. I am willing to do whatever I have to do in order to run my nice long runs once again. I'm getting close to my favorite 7-10 mile distances, and am just hoping that all this work allows me to get there soon without another setback.

Some days I wonder, with at least a touch of seriousness, if D assigns me these challenges to keep me so distracted, sore, and exhausted that I relent from my ever present quest to get him to allow me 'one more mile' each week. (He usually relents, but with moronic sensible rules like no running down hill and no running the day after a 5+ miler.)

Most of the time I am confident D has my best interest at heart, but other days I do wonder, just a little, if he is actually trying to kill me.

Disclaimer: any resemblance to anyone living or dead is perfectly accurate purely coincidental. No, really, D only pushes me hard because I beg for more every time I see him. It's not that he's actually a sadist, it's just that he's willing to feed my masochistic tendencies for my own good. I'm the crazy one, not D.