1.26.15 I DIDN’T Give Up!

I got out of my car by myself and Nick pushed me into Barwis yesterday.  Jon was there from the Canton gym and it was nice to see him!  I haven’t seen him in a long time.   My legs were kind of tight as Mike pushed me to the blue table.  He squeezed my calves a bit before he told me to lay back  on my back.  He grabbed my right leg and put my foot over his left shoulder.  Jesse and Phil have stretched me like this and I think I have pictures of them doing this:

Barwis 6Barwis 16

But, they NEVER stretched me this much!  Mike leaned in and grabbed my knee to hold my leg straight.  I gasped, squeezed my eyes shut, and reached for his hands.  I felt the stretch in my hamstring and I felt warm tingling in my toes.  I leaned my head back and grabbed both sides of the table and squeezed.  He leaned in a little further and asked, “Ooh Doggie!?”  I took a deep breath in and through gritted teeth told him to do his worst.  I didn’t think he could do any worse, but he did.  As he put my leg down, he told me that he was impressed as he grabbed my left leg and did the same.  He told me that my butt would hurt tomorrow (today).

When he was done, he told me to lay on my stomach.  Once I rolled over, my legs curled and my back arched but I grunted through it, forcing my body to lay flat.  Then he started the stretch. I put my hands on either side of my face with my palms down.  I pressed them down and kept repeating, “I didn’t give up!” over and over.  When he was done I was exhausted and my legs felt like Jell-O.  I kept thinking of and repeating The Never Ending Story quote in my mind.  It’s got to hurt if it’s to heal.

Mike wheeled me to my car and put me in because I could barely move.  He got me in pretty smoothly and he told me that it was the best try to date as my legs bent to get them in the car.  We HAVE had some technical difficulties getting me into the car so far.  I told him that I just need to sit there and rest for a while.  He told me that he had to go back in and told me that I did a good job and that he was proud of me.  When I DID eventually drive home, I went to bed early and slept well.   I laid on my stomach for 53 minutes before kind of turning to my side with my legs still mostly straight.  This morning, my butt did hurt but I think my lower back hurt more, I’ll ask Mike about it tomorrow and my legs stayed relaxed and didn’t stiffen so they were straight out until lunch and even then, they weren’t completely straight.