Week 2 - Tuesday 24 Jan

Tonight, my body feels as you'd expect after more than 30 different exercises over three hours - tired, ready for my rest day tomorrow but sensing that the hard work is really starting to pay off. I had a big "Aha" moment in my session with Travis  - piecing together two components of my gait and so helping turn what was a stiff, segmented movement into a single, fluid motion. I hope that improvement sticks when I try it out tomorrow.

One of my biggest challenges is tightness throughout my body - very typical with SCI injuries. Its like there's a big rubber band wrapped around my legs and torso. Sometimes, like in the videos from last week, the tightness eases a bit, but most of the time I fight against myself to move. Sometimes, when I've exercised a lot and moved fast (like on the treadmill), it feels like the rubber band gets overwound and starts to spring back, so I almost feel like my body wants to move without my mind telling it to go anywhere! It affects my gait, is inefficient and uses up a lot of physical energy. It also means I have to think about pretty much every step, so requiring lots of mental energy too.  Today I tried acupuncture for the first time post injury. The therapist said what I hoped he would - that he thinks this can help reduce the tightness. The idea is to help with the neuro system re-programing and to prompt the system to relax. He was very confident that acupuncture should help accelerate my recovery, and that I should see very big progress by the end of the 6 weeks here. That's what I came here for, and I'll explore all options to help me get there - so will try a few more sessions this week and next.