Life of Wry

This is my office..  and also the guest room (note futon).  Most importantly, it’s my little den of torture (and sometimes pleasure) — my workout room.

I’ve had this set up for years, but there are some new additions (and more on the way), that are specifically used in addressing my achilles issues… which… I’ve recently learned is not garden variety acute tendonitis; instead it’s something more like chronic tendinopathy.  Which may also be garden variety for old people like me, whose tendons and sheath-like things are not what they used to be.  (From a useful website, quote, Unfortunately, achilles tendinopathy ranks as one of the biggest nuisances to sports medicine providers and athletes. End quote.  Yuck, huh?)

Not really wanting to use this blog to whine about my tendons, which I do a lot of, but thought I’d provide a tour of the gear.  Because I’m a gear head.

First, note the thick foam pad on the floor.  Heavenly.

Then some built-ins: those two horizontal bars are great for stretches of many types.  Love those bars; super heavy duty, you can do anything on them.  On the lower one, you’ll see a thick plexi-glass incline board (really, an insert that came with some computer we’d recently ordered) with no-slip bathtub strips stuck to it (it’s got a lip that hooks over the top of the bar and is easily removable).  This provides a perfect calf muscle stretch.  Presently, I’m using a brick riser to decrease the slope (and that brick has a dishtowel wrapped around it so I don’t scratch the floor).  The brick does double duty, as well.  Also built into the wall is a thick, heavy ring that holds various stretch tubes for all manner of arm and torso workouts.  Really awesome.  Just like a real gym.

Thanking the gods for crafty husbands.

On the ground, an array of weights–a few different sets of ankle weights for various leg exercises and some free weights for numerous other arm exercises.  There are also two different instruments of torture used to loosen one’s IT bands and other intractable fibers, sheaths and tendons.  The foam roller and the roller stick, much as I hate them both, are my best friends right now.  That Gerty ball, purchased today at Alphabet Moon, is something I’m supposed to use for a couple of stretches the physical therapist has been working with me on.  Also not my favorite stretches, but I like the ball.

Also on the ground is a heating pad, something I’m using a lot these days.  Poor my tendons.

There’s a clock; that’s for timing the length of certain stretches (30 seconds seems to be the magic number).  And all that paper on the wall.. those are charts and graphs and lists and things like that.  Because I have to write all this stuff down.

Out of camera range is my cool radio, so I can listen to NPR.  Good way to keep up on news, because I am certainly hearing a lot of it while on this road to recovery.