Putting the Hobbled Back in Hobbled Runner

And so it begins – another round of physical therapy.  This time it’s my shoulder, the right one to be precise.  The pain began in January after a few hard weekends of cross-country skiing.  Shoveling snow didn’t help, and now I can’t comfortably cross my right arm in front of my body.  It makes it hard to wash my left side in the shower, and makes putting on shirts a bit of a challenge.  Sleep is impacted as well.  I usually sleep on my right side but the pain in forcing me to sleep on the left side.  Inevitably I roll over and wake up on my right side – with a stiff, sore shoulder. 

The PT guy was probably my age – maybe a little younger.  During the intake process I mentioned that as a result of the shoulder injury I found push-ups challenging and I wasn’t doing pull-ups anymore.  He sort of snorted/laughed and kindly offered that he hadn’t been able to do pull-ups with ease in a while.  Then he asked how old I was – implying that pull-ups were for kids.  Hah! 

I’m no Cross-Fit gym rat but I know my way around the pull-up bars.  The nerve of the guy!  Just because he’s too old for pull-ups doesn’t mean the rest of us can’t hope to swing again from the bar.

In my typical Scandisotan* way I tried to down-play my ability – said I wasn’t a pull-up freak, and they were probably easy because I’d been doing them for years.  This is true.  I started doing pull-ups when we lived in south Minneapolis.  I would run with Favorite around Lake Nokomis and take time to do pull-ups (and dips!) on the old 1970s era Parcourse fitness equipment. 

While it’s true, I’m not 15 anymore – but I think I see some pull-ups in my future – once I lick this latest shoulder injury.

*Scandisotan – (Adjective, first used 2014) – A new word of my own invention; a combination of Scandinavian and Minnesotan meant to imply one who has the “best” traits of both traditions.  See also, “Minnesota Nice”, and passive-aggressive.