Thankful, Part I :o)

Welllll, my back/neck started hurting a couple days after my post about the lady who prayed for my neck. I do think that I was healed, but I re-injured myself...again.

Now, I'm realizing that my cycle de re-injuration :o) continued for 8 months because of muscle imbalance/weaknesses in my upper back, shoulders, and neck. Lately, I've gone to Daren Kosters who is a specialist in the Muscle Activation Technique (MAT) - and I've felt a lot better. Basically, I have some muscles that were not firing at all (slackers!), so my body was constantly compensating to succeed at whatever motion my brain was telling it to do. PTs, chiros, orthopedic docs, neurosurgeon, sport meds, MRI, xrays, and now also MAT...all conclude the same thing - soft tissue is the culprit.
But before when I was completing the prescribed exercises, I used cords, bands, & light weights, which was too hard. My body's way of completing the task was by using the default (stronger) muscles, so all the exercises were just reinforcing my problems....

At this point, I'm still in a very slow progression...Right now, I'm working on doing one swimming stroke in the air with correct form and muscle use, and the goal is (of course) to be able to complete an entire triathlon while maintaining proper form and muscle use! ...baby steps ;o)
So, in sum, if you keep re-injuring yourself and everyone thinks you're crazy...try a MAT specialist - maybe your brain doesn't realize how inefficient it is using your body and that's the cause of your problems! ;o) It's always nice to have information that proves you're not crazy...

My new medical mystery has to do with my ticker. To explain, I'd rather post a few pics - the first is of Stephen's heart from the polar heart rate monitor graph, and the next 3 are mine. In his, he is working really hard. Mine are from times when I was just cruising...
Maybe I wasn't sweating enough to get a direct reading (?)...maybe atrial fib? maybe something else? how long has this been going on? I don't like training with HR gadgets, and I just recently started wearing this contraption...I'm sure that in time, we'll get more data and conclusions...or maybe I am crazy? :o)

Stephen's heartbeat polar RR graph

mine

mine

mine

Starting next week, I will wear a monitor for 2 weeks and try to capture my heart freaking out.
...to be continued :o)
But until then, Happy Thanksgiving!!!