Experiment

I decided to try to ease back into Pilates today and see how that works. The jury's still out but it was an interesting experience, so I wanted to share. I returned to my favorite local Pilates studio, Mind 2 Body, for a private lesson with Jamie. I considered resuming my work with a mat class, but ultimately decided that due to my special needs (i.e., avoiding certain positions that will aggravate the hip joint and my labral tear), that I'd benefit from some personalized assistance.

We started with some mat work with some modifications on leg positioning (i.e., not as large of a leg circle, bent legs at 90 degrees instead of straight at 45 degrees) to ease me back into the swing of things. Everything felt good so we went to the Reformer machine, which, if you've never seen one, looks like an ancient torture structure. It's actually a piece of equipment that was designed by Joseph Pilates, however, inspired by the hospital beds he used for rehab. (Most of his designs appear to be based on things patients had in the hospital).  I started with some leg work, modified to avoid the positions I know would hurt the groin/hip area. Everything went really well, until about 10 minutes into it, after we had switched to some arm action, that I felt a sharp knot in my sciatica/rear. I am not an expert in anatomy, so I'm not sure what the actual muscle spasm was, but it was deep inside the middle of my butt cheek.

So I alerted Jamie about the pain, and we stopped, I stretched, and when that didn't really help, we abandoned the reformer temporarily and did some exercises on another piece of equipment -- the Cadillac. A lot of rolling out the spine and stretching the legs. That seemed to help. The pain didn't disappear, but became much less prominent.

We finished up some work on the reformer on the short box (ab work) and ended with some work against the wall where I had to move my arms, but had to keep my back completely glued to the wall. Not easy.

So I'm still waiting on my body's verdict. I didn't experience any of the actual hip joint pain, which is thrilling. We'll see if it shows up later today though. I'm holding my breath a bit. I'm concerned about the butt pain I did experience, and am currently sitting atop of an ice pack to help prevent inflammation. I won't schedule another session until I'm confident that I can do this without aggravating the hip. But I'm hopeful. I think muscle pain is treatable, and maybe I'm just in need of strengthening a new under-utilized area. We shall see!