My Injury Story

I have been unbelievably fortunate to be incredibly active and remained injury free for most of my life which is something I attribute to a dedicated yoga practice. However, in 2005 I fell off an aggressive bouldering route (my ego guiding me rather than my rock warrior sense- readers of the “Rock Warrior’s Way will know what I mean) and I tore a ligament in my ankle. It was an ankle sprain, a relatively minor injury I thought at the time, and I never sought proper rehabilitation. I was stubborn and thought I could work through it, which I did. The ankle healed. But my body learned to compensate for the ankle instability in a way in which I began to develop all sorts of compensatory movements I wasn’t even aware of- something I could have avoided if I had rehabilitated correctly under the guidance of a trained eye.

In 2017 I began to train for a marathon under the educated direction of Mike Kirby, a physiotherapist at our sister clinic, Country Hills Physiotherapy. I was fine. My right hip would ache and my lower back would pop but I wrote that off as “normal” training aches until I started to increase my distances. Then things unraveled. 

I began to see January Muhlbeier (Drysdale) for rehabilitation. However, physios make the worst patients; I was sporadic with my physio appointments and worse with my physio exercises. When patients tell me they struggle to prioritize their care, I get it. In September 2018 I decided to get serious about my self-care and began making weekly appointments for physiotherapy, and doing my exercises daily.  January addressed my movements and identified areas where I off-set weakness around my ankle by over-recruiting muscles around my hip and back. She drew awareness to which movements felt normal to me but were maladaptive. She looked at the BIG PICTURE! Her treatments RESET my system, education and awareness REINFORCED change in habits and home exercises RETRAINED my movement- principles we all focus on and implement at Maximum Potential Physiotherapy.

I’m delighted to say that practicing what we preach works! And I am back to running pain-free! My husband and I rang in the new year by running a race in Central Park in NYC at 12am on January 1, 2019! 

New Years Eve 2019 Run in Central Park, NYC