The body adapts.That’s one of the most important concepts that I live by. The body adapts.
It’s an amazing thing to observe. The body is a living, adapting, beautiful machine. If you spend your days hunched over a computer, your body will adapt to being in that position. If you walk barefoot for a week, the body will create hardened callouses on your feet. Consider that, your body will literally make shoes for you. If you stay in the sun, the body will darken itself to protect you from UV rays. We just came out to with the technology to darken sunglasses and windows less than 20 years ago. Our bodies have been doing it for thousands of years.
It’s an amazing thing to observe. The body is a living, adapting, beautiful machine. If you spend your days hunched over a computer, your body will adapt to being in that position. If you walk barefoot for a week, the body will create hardened callouses on your feet. Consider that, your body will literally make shoes for you. If you stay in the sun, the body will darken itself to protect you from UV rays. We just came out to with the technology to darken sunglasses and windows less than 20 years ago. Our bodies have been doing it for thousands of years.
If you stay in bed all day, your body will stop expending energy to maintain the muscles in your legs. That’s what happened to me, and I had only been in bed for a little over a week. Granted, walking was already difficult when I got to the hospital, and standing was even harder.
After my first physical therapy session in which I couldn’t walk across the room, I decided to take control. The therapist said something that stuck with me to this day.
“This bed will be a coffin if you stay in it.”
That’s probably not in the PT bedside advice handbook, but it made a difference to me. I asked my buddies to bring me some exercise bands, and my process of physical rehab began.
I had a total of zero experience in rehab. My initial exercises involved attaching the bands to the bed and getting resistance in any way that I could. Pull some way 10 times, switch arms, do it again. My body was so weak that anything I did was exercise. For the first few days I only used the yellow band. I think it gives 3 lbs of resistance. I did the same for legs. Push some way, pull some other way.
You know how most people hit the gym for an hour because they have to get to other things in life? I didn’t have that problem. I could literally spend hours exercising, fall asleep, wake up and do some more.
I forced myself to be out of bed. I would sit in the chair next to the bed and work on the computer. Beginning with a few minutes, then hours. Every time I was tempted to get back into bed I pictured myself dying there. I’d been there, and I was not going to go back to that.
I had my yoga mat brought in, and started doing my exercises on the floor. The first day my exercises consisted mostly of getting onto the floor and lying there. I was like a baby, just moving my legs and grabbing my feet and discovering movement again.
Then I started with glute presses, leg circles, Pilates movements. Then I hooked the resistance bands up to the bed and did exercises from the floor.
After 2 days of doing this, I figured it would be a good idea to ask the doctors if it was ok for me to be exercising. The head doctor said that I could do some things carefully, if I had someone with me to help me in case I fell.
Well, since I was already laying down, I figured my chances of falling were pretty slim. So I kept going.
After a few more days, I figured it was time to knock out some pushups. I tried to assume the position and… that didn’t work. I didn’t have enough strength to hold myself up. Then I had the bright idea of starting in the down position and then pushing myself up. That’s why they call them pushups right? I laid on my stomach, put my palms on the ground and…
Well I laid there for a while looking at the ground as it did not move farther away from me. You might has well have asked me to move a wall. My upper body didn’t even get to the “You can do this, push!” phase. I managed to do 3 girl-pushups. Political correctness asks that I call them something else. But you know what I mean.
I was dejected. I remember a time when knocking out 50 pushups was like “*Yawn*, that’s it?”
Now I couldn’t do one.
I did squats in the bathroom. I guess everyone does squats in the bathroom, but I would do more. It was a perfect setup with the toilet and the support bar right next to it. 10 squats, sit on the toilet and rest. 10 more, rest.
I continued with the resistance bands, it gave me a reason to get out of bed. I wasn’t sleeping at all. Instead I laid in bed and took catnaps, waiting for the clock to get to 5am, as that gave me a solid 2 hours to stretch and exercise before my 7am visit from the doctor.
The staff would come in and see me lying on the ground each morning.
“Mr. Brown, are you OK?”
“Yeah, I’m fine.”
“What are you doing?”
“Exercising”
“I wish I could do that…”
“There’s space, just bring a mat, we can do it together”
Well, they never took me up on the offer, but it still stands. Sometimes they would ask if I was doing yoga. Or what type of exercises. If I was a trainer. The only answer I can give is that I believe in movement. I’ve spent all my life moving in some way. Martial arts, dance, track, swimming, volleyball, skateboarding, rollerblading – it’s all just movement. It’s learning how to move your body most efficiently, which is a combination of strength and flexibility. Once you have that concept down everything becomes art and science.
The doctors always came in around 10am to do rounds. My first week they were waking me up to examine me, I just said “OK” to anything they said while I laid in bed. The second week I was sitting in the chair, waiting for them, at the computer, music playing, with my brother there drilling them on my treatment plan.
Oh, and at the end of the second week, I did one pushup.
The body adapts.