Feeling encouraged...

Yesterday was, as far as life is now, a "high activity day", with over 12,000 steps recorded on my Vivofit.  I use this number merely as a relative activity level guide, and it is pretty good in that sense.  And lately, as the hamstring and bicep have limited me, it is as good a guide as any since putting on my Garmin 620 is pointless.

I did my PT workout and extended it with a five-minute workout on my "old school" NordicTrack Challenger.  I also included my biceps workout of 10 reps each of palm-up, palm-down, palm-in curls, and three sets of those (90 reps).  The whole workout took about an hour to complete.

I then took the puppies out for a "walk", their first time to walk together on leads.  As expected, it was a hilarious disaster.  They did not like being separated because all they wanted to do is pounce on each other.  They cried as I walked them with my arms extended as though I was doing an iron cross on the rings -- not because of the strain of the leads, but because they could not play 'Bash Brothers".  We only went a couple of hundred yards (meters).  They are 11 weeks old, and such can be expected.

After I put the Bash Brothers in the utility room.  I took a mile walk by myself -- a test for the hamstring.  The time alone was good, and although the hamstring nagged a little from the beginning, it did not get significantly worse.  I really dreaded the afternoon, after the hamstring would have time to tighten again, and getting up and down out of any seating would be painful.  It did, but to a much smaller degree than expected, and I could walk it loose in a dozen or so steps.  This is what improvement looks like.  The next test would be morning, after the hamstring had seven to eight hours of no load.  Pain level was small this morning, a "two-or-three" on the pain scale.  Lifting my heel with a leg curl felt closer to a two.  After being up an hour, the pain level has increased to the three-to-four range when curling.

A few short weeks ago I would have been painfully hobbling about all day after a "high activity day", and sharp pains would arise throughout the day, especially when rising from being seated.  Today, such actions are not without some discomfort, but it is much less than before, and I am encouraged.