Having had two ankle/foot surgeries in just over a year, one thing I’ve had to do more times than I care to count
is learn how to walk again.

It might sound a bit melodramatic but as a fit and healthy person you wouldn’t normally give walking a second thought, you just do it. You might sprain your ankle or have a short term pain in your foot, but largely you might be a bit ginger for a few days but it clears.

For me this hasn’t been the case.

In my case I’ve had my anatomy permanently changed twice and this has and will continue to affect how I mobilise.

Some days I do ok and get around fairly well, other days something might be a bit sore or something will happen and I’ll throw out some other part of my body.

The term that is often used in medicine particularly when it comes to physical movement is “within limits”

Sometimes you’ll know yourself what your limits are, but there are other times you’ll need someone to either tell you to push it a bit or to ease off a bit.

Now in having said that, you do need to push yourself regally otherwise you just won’t progress. Sometimes this can be some fairly easy, like taking the stairs instead of the lift, but “listening to your body” is key. However in a true contradiction sometimes pushing yourself is a matter of two steps forward one step back. What I’m saying is while you might be frustrated that an exercise that you did yesterday fine, hurts today (in a bad way) to progress you may have to reduce the reps or take a day off!

Haven’t not regularly played sport or been all that active since leaving school (until I started regular exercise about 2 years ago) I had to re-learn the difference between stretching a muscle (fatigue) or doing an injury.

There is a very fine line here and while it’s not good to rely solely on others for feedback, it can be helpful.

This is where having your Team in my case “Team Pilko” to support me, in my case Podiatrist & Physio are key. A key example is my podiatrist would make a change to my orthodics which would alter how I move. Sometimes the change would be good, sometimes it would require a time of adjustment (getting used to it) in rare occasions a rushed return to have the change removed is also required.

At the end of the day you have to make a judgement call and in this Internet age just be careful what your source is.

I’m a big fan of public forums, we can all learn a lot from each other, but at the same time a lot of harm can be done with mis-information.

It really is a case of buyer or “surfer” beware!