Bad Back

This week I’ve been suffering from a bad back, it feels like my upper torso is balancing on the sharp end of a pin like a spinning top and every time I move anything above my waist I’m bracing myself for agony. Of course it’s muscular and because I’m tense the situation is made even worse, if I could relax I’m certain that I’d feel much better. I’ve no doubt that the problem is self-inflicted.

I don’t remember the exact moment that I caused this injury but recently I’ve been trying to increase the power behind my tennis serve and it turns out that pounding 100+ MPH tennis balls at my opponent is not good for me. My problem started with a slight stiffness the morning after tennis and this should have been a warning that all was not well.  Acting as a typical man I continued with my new serving style and gradually I reached the point where I’m struggling to be fit for the ALTA Senior season that starts on Friday night.

A long time ago when I was a young man and playing squash twice a day I had a back injury which was eventually diagnosed as sciatica, things were so bad that after a visit to an osteopath I left the building in my bare feet because I couldn’t reach to put on my shoes and socks. Even after treatment I was in terrible shape and feared that my sporting days were over. This particular practice was very busy and it felt like I was just a number to be processed.

Needless to say I didn’t go back to that particular practice but thanks to the soon to be extinct yellow pages I discovered a wonderful older lady that had her own one person practice in Cheltenham, UK.

This lady was brilliant, I felt so bad that I asked her if I’d ever play sport again and she laughed but told me that it would take several months before I’d be fully restored and able to play without pain. After her first session and evaluation she saw that I was struggling to get dressed and she was kind enough to help me put on my clothes. It was this gesture of human kindness that convinced me to sign up for multiple sessions there and then. This brilliant and talented osteopath was interested in me and all of the sports that I played, she couldn’t understand why I walked with my right leg slightly turned out. She had me walking up and down her office while watching me like the trainer of a Derby winning race horse, it was all very strange to me but session by session my situation improved and I was able to dream about my return to the squash court.

At that time I was in great physical shape, I’d been playing 40 minutes of squash twice a day and involved in on court training exercises for 2 sessions a week. These sessions started with the most simple of short exercises and relatively long rest periods, even the first session was a shock to my system because I was being forced to use a different set of muscles to those I’d developed on the squash court. The intensity of the sessions increased each week, exercises became longer and rest periods shorter, consequently any recovery after training took longer and longer. Wife number one took part in the same sessions and we both basked in the afterglow once we’d cooled down, eventually we had about 10 people on court for each training session and being in a group certainly helped motivate me to push myself to the limits. I have memories of people diving to touch a wall in order to complete a task before the whistle sounded the end of the allocated time for the exercise. The person running the sessions kept a record of our scores and it was interesting to see the improvements we made week by week.

It wasn’t long before these training sessions started to show improved results in my squash matches, I think it was a mixture of increased fitness and also added self believe that I could push myself harder when needed. For this brief moment in time I was in the best shape ever, I could eat anything and still fit into my trousers without having to breath in. Sadly those days are long behind me.

By the end of my treatment I felt that I’d got to know my osteopath quite well, we chatted about a lot of things, it turned out that she looked after the Gloucester Rugby Union team and also a new American Football team. She told me that the American Football players were the fittest clients she’d ever had. Things improved so much that I actually fell asleep in the last few sessions, all pain had gone and I was restored to perfect working order. At the time these sessions were quite expensive but it was money well spent.

I left her treatment table full of instructions about warming up and warming down but sadly and typically once I was good to go I threw all of her words of wisdom in the bin. Now I wonder if I’d followed her advice perhaps I wouldn’t feel so stiff and need to walk down stairs backwards every morning. I’m starting to understand that I am the result of my own decisions!

That's my reality,

Jobsonian