High Roller

I've been exercising five or six days a week for coming up to eighteen months now.

I'm not losing weight any more, which is not surprising when you consider that I devote so much of the time that I'm not in the gym to drinking lager and roasting pork bellies, but I am pretty fit.

A good thing about writing a regular blog is that it helps to keep track of long term changes, and I've realised lately that the kyphosis and bad shoulders that I was complaining of back in March have now cleared up. It seems that I was tending to rust up as I was getting older which - while bad - is at least better than wearing out.

I stretch every day that I exercise, and now that I seem to be beginning to succeed in loosening my hip flexors and adductors, Gordon has announced that the next rate limiting step that I have to address is my I (for Iliotibial) Band.

It seems that we are going to treat this via self-myofascial release (SMR) on a foam roller, basically, you just use your body weight to sandwich the roller between the soft tissue to be released and the floor. You roll at a slow pace and actually stop and bear down on the most tender spots ("hot spots").

All I can tell you so far is that it certainly hurts so much that I am convinced it must be doing me good. (How people who weren't raised as Catholics motivate themselves to do it I can only wonder.)

It's worth noting that , just as was the case with kyphosis, the best article I could find on SMR was published on a website called Testosterone Nation. Not an obvious internet hangout for me, and thus a good lesson against snobbery and sneering.