Six months ago, my left knee developed severe enough pain for me to walk around with a hobble. I work out regularly, eat pretty well, stretch a lot, and usually live a life free of aches and pain.
So this was a surprise. And it wasn’t going away.
I don’t like my regular gym work out at Pure Austin on Quarry Lake to be hampered. It’s a major way I care take body, mind and spirit.
So I went to my go-to-doc, Dr. David Harris, a physiatrist medical doctor at Charm Rejuvenative Medicine. When Dr. Harris ultra sounded my knee he literally bellowed, “OMG!” Which, of course, scared me to death.
What he then mewed calmed my heart. “You have the ligaments and joints of a 25-year old.” He bent down mumbling, moving the wand around my body, “Do you mind?” He ultra sounded the opposite knee, my shoulders, and both hips. His large hands rotated my knees, spine and even my neck.
He stepped back, eyebrows raised and proclaimed, “I haven’t seen anyone your age with joints like this. Perhaps,” he chuckled, “I should become your patient?”
He did perform two treatments of Prolo-therapy four weeks apart, but over my lifetime I have learned that pain comes for a reason. Our lives speak to us. I was game to look and listen.
I started to examine my past actions.
In looking back over the last few months, between patients, the gym, regular studio dancing, teaching and cooking for friends, I had been diligently writing for several years.
I’ve been sitting in front of a computer. A lot.
There are multiple strategic ergonomic stations set up all around the house to move from here to there and keep things posturally Zen.
But secretly I’d became an ergonomic slut.
I had taken to the habit of sitting in this great huge chair by the fireplace and putting my legs stretched out upon this comfy ottoman. This extended my knees.
Many of the ottoman-chair configurations at most furniture stores these days get all our knees into this position. Legs straight out. Knees fully extended.
This is “bad knee ergonomics”.
Its very hard on knee joints to be held in extended positions or even moved in and out of them while working out or doing yoga. When I used to be a yoga teacher we were taught to teach our students to attempt to achieve “extended knees”. No more. Human knees do not like to be extended as straight as they can go.
Why hadn’t I thought of this? Because it felt “comfy” at the time. I was in dumb brain denial.
So I literally jumped into my Lindsey hybrid mobile and ran over to Ross Dress For Less and bought a $25 lower height ottoman.
After one day, NO more knee pain. None.
How we sit affects our joints. All of them. Contemporary work place experts appreciate the role of ergonomics. Folks get PhDs in the field of ergonomics from institutions like Harvard and work for large corporations designing workstations to keep the company from having to pay huge worker comp bills.
But when you go home at night and set yourself up for some relaxation in front of your TV, where are your legs in relation to your torso? Straight out? Not good!
I am no longer hurting once again. And it was a simple $25 dollar fix. At the same time, I got confirmation from an expert that how I am living and what I am doing, for my joints, is working. It was my ottoman that wasn’t.