Fitness Weekly Discussion

Back in the groove after giving my lower back a rest and a few months of physical therapy. All that sitting around is catching up compounded by age with weak hips, tight flexors and a tight iliotibial band. Can do all the barbell compound lifts fine, but near zero internal rotation, can barely do a 90 degree straight leg raise.

Cut my previous weights in half, learned a few things in rehab that I now add after a workout to stem the effect of decades of gaming and desk jobs. Still figuring out how to schedule it and program it into a separate 10-30 minute daily routine:

• positioning for a Thomas Test and dragging the dangling leg down with a kettlebell where having a PT would push it down. Absolutely humbling and my first go-to.
• 90/90, progress with trying to lift the back foot, and working up the flexibility to do a pigeon pose
• pancake stretches
• hip flexor lift off with a band or against the wall
• isometric hip abduction with the strongest resistance band you can put just above your knees
• lying near a corner, resting one leg in the wall and letting the other fall
• various kinds of side planks (Copenhagen, one bent knee, one leg raised)
• various kinds of lunges and kneeling stretches, turns out I just needed yoga blocks for initial support
• learned about the Myrtl Routine and Jay Johnson's stuff for runners. The kinds of things that the current state of search engines or LLMs don't surface unless you actually already know the terms.

On the upside, hip hinge is perfect and no rotator cuff issues, so essentially only one problem instead of multiple.