“Man makes plans and God laughs”.  This is one of my favorite sayings.  I’ve no clue who said it, but it resonates with me daily.   In fact, it’s proving true right now.   Recently I wrote about my failure when it came to strength training.  Although I had the best intentions, I hadn’t managed to get into a habit of training my muscles.  In the blog I laid out a foolproof plan to get back on track.  It was perfect, follow the steps and I couldn’t fail.  Right.   That’s where things really went off the rails.  

On the first day of my new “habit”, I started slowly by doing a few push ups and then went on to do a ten-minute strength session on Apple Fitness – easy.   I was about three minutes in when I felt the twinge in my left leg.   My hamstring wasn’t happy to be doing squats.   I stopped and tried to stretch the offended muscle, but it wasn’t having any of it.   I made another attempt to work through the pain but that wasn’t going to happen either.  So, I stopped.  I thought maybe if I go for a light jog I can loosen the muscle up.  Yeah, right.   That worked…a bit…at least I thought it did.   I clocked a few kilometers and came home. 

Later that day it became apparent that my leg wasn’t injured at all but my lower back sure was.   Then it got worse.  Over the next few days, I became crippled with pain.   I was uncomfortable doing everything.  It was a struggle to find a position that brought any sort of relief and when I did get some it was fleeting.  This was miserable. 

Now back pain is nothing new to me.  I’ve suffered from lower back pain for years.  In that time, I’ve been through all sorts of treatments and seen every kind of doctor imaginable.  I’ve been to chiropractors, physiotherapists, a variety of massage therapists, a sports therapist, medical doctors, an orthopedic surgeon, acupuncturist, and a doctor of Chinese medicine.  The results were almost always the same, I was rarely certain if the treatment helped, or the back just got better on its own.  In fact, I’m sure that some of them only relieved my back pain by lightening my wallet.  The one treatment that brought me some relief was acupuncture, but it had to be very specific acupuncture which involved needles and electric current.  Yes, that sounds like something used to get terror suspects to talk but it works for me.  

When my back goes out, I’m down for at least full week and then sore and tender for another week or more.  Then there’s the moment of “Oh God, did I just hurt my back again”, whenever I’d get a twinge bending over to pick up a sock.  It all meant putting life on hold until I could safely move without pain.  This would happen two or three times a year.  That’s six to eight weeks of lost time annually.   That’s way too much!  

During one of these episodes, I happened to be working with a former dancer (modern, not pole) who told me that he solved his back issues by doing Pilates.  I laughed the suggestion off.  Pilates?  Me?  Yeah, right.  To me Pilates was something wealthy housewives did between shots of wheat grass and Botox injections at their favourite spa.  Pilates wasn’t for me.   It took Neil Young to change my mind.   Yes, the musician Neil Young got me into Pilates.   I was listening to him on a pod cast when he was asked how he managed the physical rigors of touring at his, somewhat advanced (advanced for a rock star that is), age.  He was about 73 at the time.   His answer, Pilates.  I was stunned.   If Pilates could keep Neil Young limber enough to tour the world then it was worth me giving it a shot.   So, I signed up for a handful of lessons at a local Pilates studio.   I was still skeptical, but I was also fed up with the pain. I was willing to try anything, even Pilates.   Much to my surprise, it worked.  

Over the years I’ve discovered the root of my back pain and it mostly has nothing to do with my back.  It almost always starts with my legs.   My leg muscles act like the strings on a marionette.  When you pull on a string something happens, an arm moves or head bobs.   In my case my right hamstring is tighter than the left and it pulls down causing my hips to go off kilter.  My hips then cause my back to become misaligned.  Then all the muscles, back, legs, you name it, tighten up to “protect” the injured area and that’s when the pain kicks in.   So, keeping my legs limber and balanced is the key to keeping my back on the straight and narrow.   Not only does Pilates keep me balanced but it also strengthens my core muscles to help keep my back firmly in order.   

For those of you not familiar with Pilates it is a series of exercises and stretches created by Joseph Pilates a German physical trainer in the early 20^th century.  The aim of Pilates is to lengthen and stretch all the major muscle groups in the body and put them in balance. The exercises are designed to improve flexibility, strength, balance and body awareness. Pilates are like other types of exercises – but unlike anything else at the same time.   There are two main types: mat and reformer.   Mat Pilates is various moves, stretches and exercises that you do on a mat.  This did remind me a little of Yoga.   Then there is reformer which is done on a piece of equipment that looks like it could have come out of a medieval dungeon – hey, combine it with the needles and electric current of acupuncture and you have a CIA Black Ops torture room.  Mat Pilates, which was key to my success, is a series of smaller moves that are targeted to work specific muscles.   If regular workouts are like chopping wood, then Pilates is surgery.   Half the time I couldn’t figure out what good they were doing me, but the proof was in the pudding or my back.  I stopped having issues with it.   Pilates worked!  

So how did I end up in my current state of agony?  Simple, I stopped doing Pilates.  In fact, I’d stopped doing anything other than walking & running.   No stretching or weight training or swimming or anything.  This for me is like being a ship in a storm and ignoring the lighthouse – of course I ended up on the rocks.   I knew better, I just didn’t do what I should have done.  So, I’m back to square one.  I’m lightly stretching until the pain eases up.  Then, when I can work out again, Pilates will be a regular part of my routine.  

What I’ve learned from this mess is that everything is connected.   If I don’t strengthen my core and stretch my body, particularly my legs, I’ll end up in serious pain and misery.  I can’t simply pick and choose what bits of fitness I want to do. I have to do the whole gamut to keep my whole body in running order.  It doesn’t mean I have to do everything every single day.   It does mean I have to do a variety of exercises on a regular, consistent basis and that include Pilates.  So, I’ll be back at it, at least that’s my plan.  Then again, I have a feeling God could use a laugh.