a restart?

I've spent a pretty fair amount of my time in the last 3 weeks sitting in doctors offices.  A lot of interesting news.  Just enough to get me to start dreaming again.   I'm afraid to even write about it and jinx myself.

First the doctors, then trip for MRI, then back to doctor, then to physical therapist.  Turns out at some point I had a bulged disc that pressed on the nerve that tells my multifidis to fire.  The disc bulge went back on its own, but the muscle wasn't getting the signal and wasn't working.  I did a week's worth of exercises and got that firing again and now I'm finding all sorts of weakness because I've spent a few years compensating for the back stuff.

First off is a horribly weak left hip and poor stability when doing one legged squats with my right leg.  I did about 2 weeks of all sorts of crazy exercises for those.  Pretty pathetic! One of the exercises was a side plank, but instead of just holding, I rotated my top leg as though I was running.  I could last 7 seconds.  Well, after 2 weeks of that I can now do 3 sets of 1 minute.  My hips are getting nice and strong, my core is nice and strong.  Still weakness in my left hip, but the main problem now is the stability issues when squatting. 

Right now we're tackling that with some exercises where I land and hop stopping in a one legged squat.  Sort of odd to express in writing.  We'll see how all that goes.  All I can say is that every night I go to bed with my hips totally wore out and all day long they're quite sore.  Good sore!!

Yesterday they had me run on the treadmill and did video gate analysis from the side and back.  My form over 6:10 pace is too up and down and my cadence is too slow.  Once I get faster than 6:10 my cadence improves, but I'm still up and down.  Measuring my legs upon landing it's quite clear that I'm catching myself cushioning with my muscles, then having to push up and off again.  Hopefully cadence with take care of some of that.  The other problem is that I lean to the right when I run.  He thinks that's is what has been the main issue putting more stress on that right knee.  Probably due to my back not working, my left hip being too weak, and my instability....so back to those exercises.  For now that's my emphasis...but I am allowed to run. 

Here's hoping I finally beat this thing.  Don't just be teasing me!  I want to run!  Save some love for me!