How I Kept Postponing Getting Help

Today's post describes my search for physical activity after moving to the city, my tentative running beginnings, but most importantly my experience with postponing a visit to physical therapy and finally the visit itself. If you're currently deciding whether to seek help with anything, maybe this post will nudge you into action. Because: The worst decision is no decision at all.

Enough introductory words, let's get this story rolling. After moving to the city, I soon started thinking about what sport I wanted to do. When I lived in the countryside, I cycled. Quite a lot. But cycling in the city, especially if you live downtown, means getting out of the center and then back again at the end. That got old very quickly. Plus cycling is inherently time-consuming. So I started thinking about what kind of movement would work for me.

You'll run it off!

The fitness level from cycling wasn't a problem. It was clear I wouldn't transition from the more or less individual sport of cycling to team sports. I didn't have to think long about a similarly individual sport: so I cheerfully started jogging around the neighborhood and enjoying rapid progress.
My tight body, my aversion to stretching, and overly high expectations for myself cooked up their revenge pretty quickly. "You'll run it off!" I told myself two springs in a row, when that strange pain would always start in the front part of my leg between knee and foot, more on the outer side. It would end with me having trouble jogging across a crosswalk.
Yes, I blew out my shin muscles, two years running. I had no idea about their existence, just like I had no idea the word "shin" existed. I'd never had health problems before. That made it all the harder to admit I couldn't handle it. The punishment for not listening to my body lasted dozens of weeks.

But everyone runs!

"Everyone and their brother runs!" kept going through my head. "What am I doing wrong?" tormented me. I wanted to move somehow after a whole day at the computer, and running appealed to me. But when your body rebels? So I at least started swimming. But swimming has the disadvantage of people being around, which sucks for an introvert. Add hairy male butts that you inevitably glimpse sooner or later in the shower (okay, better than hairy butts of the gentler sex :D) and it's clear I wouldn't stick with swimming long.
So what about that running? During the year I naturally tried jogging and usually ended up after fourteen days in the same dead end. It was dark there, cold, I was alone and it smelled of urine and vomit from boxed wine. By the end of the year I gave up on running completely and waited for spring.

Admitting I should accept help

"Maybe I should go somewhere?" I dared to go that far in my thinking. "Am I really in such bad shape? Do I really have to go somewhere?" Well, so I finally ended up at physical therapy (YES!). I overcame my prejudices, swallowed that I was too healthy, young, proud, poor [feel free to fill in the blank, readers, let's be playful!], in short that I should accept help. And there, instead of a sour nurse, was a normal girl who didn't mess around from the very beginning.
We'd barely shaken hands before I was standing in front of her in just my underwear. She looked at me with this strangely evaluating gaze. I had no idea what this would lead to.
I could have read something about what to expect beforehand. I would have at least worn more appropriate underwear. Nothing against mom's Christmas gift: A cute beaver holding a gnawed log with the slogan "That's cool!" smiled confidently and surely made quite an impression. But I felt all the more awkward. What else made an impression during tricky exercises with loose underwear legs, I'd rather not think about.
And then it came! I hoped no one would ask me to do this, but there it was: "Please bend forward as far as you can."

Feeling special

Drops of sweat broke out on my forehead: "Well... I'm a bit tight..." I muttered unconvincingly. From her reaction, everyone says that. Probably from a sense of false modesty, so their performance wouldn't be judged too harshly, because she just casually waved her hand and said something like: "Yeah, who isn't. Ironically, I am too."
That I didn't mean it as just conversational filler, she understood very quickly: "Come on!" she urged me, not understanding that I was already performing my personal Olympic feat. I was actually quite proud of it: I touched five centimeters below my knees. Normal state was two and a half.
"Is that really it?!" she bugged out her eyes, "you call that SLIGHTLY tight?!" but I could hear from her voice that I still hadn't sufficiently convinced her. Unfortunately, this became apparent when she stood behind me, put her elbow on my back and tried to push. I squealed like a shot pig and a moment later I read pure surprise in her eyes. Dilated pupils stared at me in silent amazement.

Starting the fix

"I've never seen that before," she whispered after a good while. For a moment I basked in triumph, in feeling special, before realizing it would be better to hear that sentence in any other context, just not from a physical therapist.
Once the initial shock left her, she put on her professional face: "Don't worry, we can handle this!" she spoke again with that enthusiasm that otherwise stayed with her throughout the visit. She scribbled four papers (A4!) with exercises for home and scheduled the next check-up.
Then she had me lie down on the table. She touched my stomach. A red warning light went off in my head: "Uh oh, abs were never your strong suit, Tom."
"Hmm..." she immediately confirmed my fear.

Belly breathing

"Breathe into your belly," she instructed me and I just stared at her: "How do you breathe into your belly?" She gave me that uncomprehending look again: "Into your belly! Come on!" As if she needed to prove what rare material had arrived in her office. I had no idea what she wanted from me. If she'd told me to wiggle my ears, it would have been the same.
"Into the belly?" I repeated to myself... "how?" That day I was confronted with harsh reality. Suddenly, a few years before thirty, you discover you've had no idea how to breathe your whole life.

Gratitude

Today I'm infinitely grateful for the determination to go to physical therapy; for admitting that I needed to accept help. Back then it was stepping out of my comfort zone that paid me back more than I could ever have hoped. After over two years of unsuccessful attempts at running, in just four total visits I reached a state where the amazing physical therapist told me: "Okay. Now you know what to do and I don't need to see you anymore." That surprised me then, I imagined physical therapy lasted years. Wrong!
I did the recommended exercises about four to five times a week, learned to breathe into my belly, and slightly improved my tightness.

Thanks to the determination to let myself be helped and the will to change my then-miserable state, in the next article you'll be able to read why I actually run. Running forced me to go to physical therapy to learn how to breathe properly. My visit to physical therapy caused me to run for four years without interruption, in summer, winter, in heat, frost, rain, mud... Part of running was changing my diet... and the wheel keeps turning. I still run, without pain and with tremendous joy! There's nothing wrong with admitting a problem and letting yourself be helped! From my example you can see it works!