19 minutes of hell

About 3 1/2 weeks ago I started experiencing excruciating back pain. Everyday it seemed like the pain increased ten fold and my back made my entire body feel tense. It was hard to breath and painful to turn my head to the left. Nonetheless, I reasoned the pain would eventually go away if I stopped sleeping so wildly. After 2 nights of peaceful slumber with ever increasing back pain that theory was shot to hell. I next reasoned that I needed to stretch my back muscles so I performed every stretch I could think of. I immediately felt worse but persevered through 2 more stretching sessions before I said screw this. I finally made a same-day emergency chiropractic appointment. My chiro doc made all kinds oos and ahs as he felt up and down my spine as if to say you should be in pain fool with these many verterbra out of line. Snap! Crackle! Pop! I felt like a new man. The trouble area that was tight finally had loosened. However, my chiro doc warned that he was going to have to perform a few atypical violent adjustments and I'd probably feel some pain. He wasn't kidding. One area in my neck is still tender and my chiro adjustment was last Tuesday. (Usually, if there's any lingering pain after leaving the chiro's office it last no more than a day. This new pain only occurs when I tilt my head backward but I don't mind it much. I am too thankful I'm able to turn my head to the left...again.)

On Saturday my back started tigtening up much to my chagrin. I could tell my vertebrae were out of alignment again because of certain tingling pain I felt every time I stood from a seated position. I finally knew what needed to be done. And I wasn't looking forward to the task. It was time to get serious about exercising with an emphasis on strenghtening my abdominal and back muscles. I hadn't been to the gym in 3 months and in that time my membership had expired so I blew up my body ball and went to town Sunday and Monday.
I knew that wasn't going to be enough. I knew I needed something more structured than lying on my body ball for a few sets of this or that exercise. That's when I got the bright idea to dive head first into pilates. Soooo...this morning I turned on my new Windsor PilatesAdvanced Slimming video and endured 19 minutes of hell. I was happy that I made it to minute 14 before she hit me with some crazy movement that my body wouldn't let me perform no matter how hard I tried. Truth be told, I didn't try too hard. That body position didn't look normal. The good news is that I finished the video unscathed. For a pilates newbie I was quite satisfied with my results. I hope my 3 a week dosage of 19 minutes of hell will be worth it all in the long run.