advice · fitness · flexibility · injury · stretching

Christine Learns The Same Lesson…Again.

Christine Hennebury

I was at my chiropractor last week about a problem I’m having with my heels.

I already had a working theory that my sore heels were a result of overly tight calves (I was half right) so I had been doing all kinds of different calf stretches to try and find some relief.

One of the most useful sets of stretches I found was in this short yoga video.

Her exercises helped my calves…and my heels, at least temporarily, but there was one problem.

I really hate that ‘front fold with your fingers tucked under your toes’ stretch.

I mean, I HATE IT.

I know, I know! Why don’t I tell you how I really feel.

Let’s see if this helps clarify things:

Image description: A GIF of Sophia Petrillo, an elderly character from the show Golden Girls, raises ​and lowers her hand as she vehemently says ‘I hate that!’
Image description: A GIF of Sophia Petrillo, an elderly character from the show Golden Girls, raises and lowers her hand as she vehemently says ‘I hate that!’

I forced myself to do it though because the rest of the video was so helpful (I was wary of the bouncing but I didn’t hate it) but I found myself dreading it and putting it off, and even the promised relief for my heels didn’t help.

So, anyway, I’m mentioning all of this to Ken, my chiropractor (and my cousin!) and he, clever soul that he is, sensibly said ‘You won’t stick with a stretch you hate, do something else instead.’

Glerg.

Of course!

How many times do I have to learn this lesson?

How often will I have to be reminded that the best exercise is the one I’ll do?

Why can’t I remember that hating an exercise can be a good reason not to do it?

Now, I get that sometimes there are exercises that must be done in order to heal specific things and how much you hate it may not be a factor in that case.

But, for me, it keeps happening for exercises that can easily be switched out for something else.

I need to start letting ‘I hate it!’ be a signal to find an equivalent exercises that I like instead of a signal to dig in my heels and (try to) force myself to keep doing something that feels awful.

(Besides, digging in my heels is definitely not going to help right now. 😉 )

Do you have exercise lessons that you have to learn again and again?

Please tell me that I’m not the only one!

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

6 thoughts on “Christine Learns The Same Lesson…Again.”

  1. I hate physio in its entirety and thus struggle with pain all the darn time. I should learn.

    1. Oh, I’m sorry you are struggling with pain. It’s so hard when you hate the whole set of exercises – especially when you haven’t been given alternatives.

      I hope you find some less awful movements to give you some relief.

  2. I feel like every time someone says to me, “Well you’ll never do that again, now that you’ve learned that lesson.” I pretty much end up doing the same thing a few more times, minimum. Then again, the lessons that start to stick better are the ones I keep re-encountering. As if instead of saying to myself, “I should know better” or “Now I know better”, I should just say to myself, “thank you for the reminder.” And take the schoolmarm pressure out of learning my lesson.

    1. Oh, I like that shift to ‘Thanks for the reminder.’ That would be being a lot kinder to ourselves, wouldn’t it?

      Thanks for reading my post, Mina!

  3. Hi Christine, it’s Joelle from YouTube! Just stumbled onto this blog post, and good for you for listening to your chiropractor and yourself! It’s definitely not worth coming back to a stretch or exercise that doesn’t feel right for you. If it’s helpful, you might like to check out a few other practices on my channel for foot pain (https://youtu.be/9GiLEupJq40), heel pain/plantar fasciitis (https://youtu.be/kYqnbQNzxko), or a combo of these calf / foot quickies (https://youtu.be/M2XcfOy-uQI / https://youtu.be/cmRykuBQNtw) You’re always welcome to leave me a comment on one of my videos if there’s something you’re struggling with and I’ll see if I can help. 🙂 YouTube is a fickle friend and doesn’t always show the best results when you run a search, depending on how the algorithm is feeling that day, but I pretty much have 10-minute practices for pain in every part of the body at this point. I hope you feel better soon!

    1. Hi Joelle!

      Thanks for reading my post and thanks for all the great recommendations. 🙂
      I’ll definitely check them
      out.
      Even though I hated that one exercise, I loved the rest of your video – the movements, your approach, and the length of the practice. It made a huge difference on some challenging days.

      I am feeling a bit better each day – I appreciate your good wishes!

Comments are closed.