A Whole New Ballgame

A year ago, my right knee was in such bad shape that I could barely run. I had to wear a knee brace for almost everything I did, including golf. 

In September, Keith Scott, a physical therapist, used ART to dig the knots out of my quads and hamstrings and give me back most of the function in my right leg. But the real key to my recovery was the set of rehab exercises Scott suggested.

The workout was fairly simple:

• Foam rolling
• Body-weight squats
• Squats while squeezing a basketball between my knees, to work the adductors (inner thigh muscles)
• Glute bridges, first with both legs, then with one leg at a time
• Hip-flexor stretches
• Lateral band walks, to target the abductors (outer hips and thighs)

My first introduction to foam rolling came back in 2003, when I was editing Mark Verstegen’s Core Performance. I’d never really done it with any enthusiasm or consistency. Nor had I ever done specific exercises for the glutes, adductors, or abductors. I’d stuck to basic squats and deadlifts with heavy weights, and a smattering of lunges and step-ups for variety.

I did Keith’s workout three times a week, as he suggested, while hobbling through my normal gym workouts. While I got the expected benefit — my right leg felt better — I noticed that I also got leaner. I’m not sure if the extra few minutes of targeted exercises produced that effect, or if I’d somehow improved my ability to recruit lower-body muscles in general, which made all my workouts more productive. Whatever the explanation, it was a nice side effect.

Eventually, I incorporated foam rolling into my regular pre-workout routine, along with most of the other exercises. I don’t do all of them three times a week anymore, but at least once a week I do a circuit of adductor exercises, and I work the abductors at least once, usually with X-band walks (scroll down to the bottom of the linked article to see a video).

All of which is a prelude to what I really wanted to write about in this post. Yesterday, in what might have been my last baseball game of the season, I beat out an infield single. On the one hand, it was a terrible at-bat, and I was lucky to put the ball in play. On the other, I don’t think I’ve ever covered 90 feet as fast as I did — not in my adult life, anyway. I’ve always been slow, even by middle-aged white-guy standards, but yesterday I felt fast.

In a way, it’s like having an entirely different body from the one I had last year. The old one was bigger and stronger, but I couldn’t run with it, much less run fast. The new one is still a mess in some ways, with a hernia, shoulder impingement, and two achy knees. But it’s lighter, leaner, and a lot more functional.

I didn’t make a conscious choice to change my body like this in my early 50s. I was just trying to solve a problem, with the help of a talented physical therapist. But it sure is fun to teach an old body a new trick. 

Tags: Tags: baseball, functional training, injuries