83. Health and Wellbeing
Health is the number 1 pillar when it comes to living the good life.
Each week in the month I focus on growing in a particular area. I have 4 focus areas:
Health
Learning
Money
Business
I can fit everything I do into one of those 4 pillars. Some things are bit iffy. Travel goes into learning as I have new experiences and fiction books go into health because they are part of my leisure time.
My health goal this week is to continue developing my strength with the dead hangs. When I go out for my morning walks on Mon, Wed and Fri I stop at the park and use the chin-up bar.
I thought it would be easy to just to hang with my feet off the ground but my first efforts resulted in me slipping straight off and hurting the pads on my palms as they dragged off the hand grips. I tried a couple of times with the same result.
I went home and researched dead hangs and discovered that I needed to work up slowly to holding my whole weight and that I wasn’t useless. I just hadn’t spent time strengthening my grip. There were lots of helpful sites. Some had the exact process to get started and some had all the muscles that were used. Others had all the benefits of doing dead hangs. I took screen shots of all the muscles that a dead hang benefits and now I am using Notion, I am going to create a page to store my exercise research.
So why dead hangs?
I am always scanning my substack subscriptions and suggestions looking for things that interest me. I came across this post:
I really connected with the idea that particular exercises can be good for stress and longevity. She listed a number of exercises and I picked a couple I thought I could start with straight away. These were dead hangs and step ups.
Trying to do the dead hang told me that my grip strength needs attention. If I want to continue sewing doll clothes and making jewellery I have to maintain the strength in my fingers and hands.
I do the dead hangs following all the tips for good form and I just keep my toes on the ground. After a few weeks I can notice that my grip is a bit stronger as I take a bit more weight now.
Warning
Who would have thought that hanging would create such havoc in my body!
The first few times I was OK then I started to notice that I had what felt like nerve pain in one hip. I would take a step and yikes! I got a shooting pain in my hip. For about 5 days I struggled to step out and walk properly. I had to limp and even then I got jolts of pain sometimes. After about 2 weeks the pain started to ease and I could feel more of the regular muscle pain just above both hips in my lower back.
I can’t be sure, but I suspect that the traction affect from hanging and the use of back muscles that I don’t normally use, moved things, so I was pinching the nerve. It’s almost gone now and over the last few days I have been hanging just for 2 breaths, stop, then another two breaths. Clearly I need to take it very slowly.
This is my park gym.
I love the park. The council has recently done it up with new gear and picnic tables. I passed the bubbler and dog drinking fountain this morning and smiled as I watched a minor bird having a bath in the dog bowl. I couldn’t get a picture of the bird but it made me think that it was perfect as a bird bath.
Step-ups
I thought I would be OK for the step ups but I have lost some strength over the last couple of years. I found it hard to push myself up starting with my knee at right angles. I have since learnt that I am not supposed to push off the other foot at all. I should be able to lean forward to put my weight over my stepped up foot and just lift myself by straitening my leg. No bouncing or pushing.
I found some useful steps around my neighbourhood. I had to start quite low when doing them correctly. I used a log for a few weeks and now I am using a small bench. It’s about 12” high at the front. My stepped up leg has the knee several degrees below the right angle and I can just manage to do 5 in a row with each leg.
My goal is to work up to having my knee at a right angle. I can’t even do one at present. This is the bench I want to be able to step up on. It’s about 15” high.
This week I have created a lovely A5 poster of my favourite gems for resilience and endurance. I printed it on matte sticker paper. I cut it in half before printing to make it A5.
I have stuck it in my disc bound notebook with my worksheets on self-confidence.
Paid subscribers can download the PDF.
I just have so much fun creating affirmations with bracelets or earrings to match.
Cheers,
Val