It’s hard to start/resume a good habit. I’ve been struggling to resume my home physical therapy (PT). And then I remembered my 10 minute micro walk hack. And I realized I didn’t have to do an entire hour-plus of physical therapy. My exercise ball therapy consists of 5 exercises that are 2 minutes each – a perfect 10 minute micro PT session.
I don’t have to start with the whole routine; I can start with 10 minutes on my exercise ball. That’s not daunting. All I have to do is 10 minutes of exercises – while sitting on my exercise ball. I can even do it in front of the TV. All I need are the exercise ball and a timer. I don’t have to wear exercise gear – I don’t even have to wear shoes. Nothing special, fancy, difficult, or time-consuming.
Hopefully it’ll be a building block, and I can eventually add back other exercises and work my way up to a longer PT session. But even if all I do is resume a regular practice of 10 minutes on the exercise ball, it’s still strengthening my core muscles, which are essential for a healthy back and probably help keep my shoulders in their sockets as well.
And it’s so much easier to commit to a daily 10-minute routine. So that’s where I’m starting. I know PT is essential for maintaining/improving my health. But I also know that pacing is important for maintaining my health. And I know that it’ll be much healthier, psychologically, to try to take it one baby step at a time and amass a series of small victories than to attempt to resume an hour-plus-long physical therapy session all at once and fail.
So here I go (partly inspired by @bennnesb and her PT streak). I’ve done my 10 minute micro PT tonight, and I hope to do it again tomorrow. Baby steps. Micro hacks toward better core strength and muscle strength, which is so crucial when one has connective tissue issues.
This post was very… timely!
I usually whine and snivel all day about my physical therapy exercises because I’m sore, and when I’ve been sitting for a while then I’m also stiff. Yet when I finally settle down and start them, 10 minutes later I feel a lot better and wonder why I was fussing so much.
So true! There’s so much inertia to overcome, but I always feel better once I’ve done my PT.
Of course, I have the extra degree of difficulty that the exercise ball is a magnet to K-9, who always comes running to lean against the ball/my leg or lie on my foot. Hard to do my exercises with an added 90 pound weight!
Do you think breaking up your PT into 10 minute chunks will be helpful for you?
I think the 10-minute chunks are the only way that I’ll make time for PT exercises…
Excellent! I hope it works for you. I’m doing pretty good with the exercise ball 10 minutes so far.