Don't be Perturbed! Try Perturbation Therapy


 

Don't be Perturbed! Try Physical Therapy

I just read this article about perturbation training. It is basically that you train in doing a balancing exercise with unexpected challenges. Without knowing it, I had some of this training when I first joined Gold's Gym, some years ago. My trainer had me stand on a bosu ball, and while I was jogging in place, he would throw a ball to me to catch. It was tough, and I didn't always stay on the ball, but it was a graduate course in balance. 

I loved training at the gym, but since my heart transplant in October, 2018, and then hip replacement in July of this year, I have been being a good girl (as I should be), going carefully, slowly. My transplant team forbids gym attendance, because of the virus. Imagining walking into the gym with a KN95 mask and hand sanitize and checking in has been a constant daydream lately. I would walk over to the "guys' side", which is theoretically for everyone, and do my routine. 

As it is, I feel house bound, especially with the variants still raging. My current relief is physical therapy. There are machines, and therapists (trainers?), and a workout routine for home in an app. Since the app reports to my therapist, Kathleen, I type in challenges or questions, and she will have changed the exercise by the time I go back to the gym, er, office.

Kathleen is very tough about the core. Having been told by trainers to "engage your core" a hundred times, it was refreshing to have someone put her hands on my body to show how to do this. I am working on it, and I can see some possible profound changes in how I move, exercise, and even sing. Kathleen told me at my last session that we will work on balance, tomorrow. I can't wait!

Perturb away! 


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