"Warm up before you work out!!! "

I have heard this advice from so many people including doctors, physiotherapists, my husband and my sister. But I never took it seriously, until that day.

Literally, I was not doing any sort of physical exercises for years. Cycling and walking were means of commutation during my school and college and they have been keeping me fit and healthy those days. But after I started working, only stepping up 2 staircases were my physical activity for a whole day. And I was working as a software engineer, I need not explain my job's effect on my health. Even though I was aware of it, I did not take any steps to work out. I resigned my job and moved to US after wedding. One fine day(very bad day for me :-(), I went to play racquet ball with my husband. I was playing after some 8 years. I did not even think of warming up. I just happily went to the court and started playing. After some silly shots, I took the game seriously and tried to play a good game. So I was stretching my legs and running here and there. Obvious that I lost the game to my husband.

I was perfectly fine with my leg. I was wondering that I was able to play better after so many years and I was telling some silly stories about my childhood games to my husband proudly. Told him that I was a good athlete those days and only because of it I could play better after so many years. Things started when I woke up next day morning. I could not move/lift my leg. I could not get up from bed. I initially thought it is some sort of sprain. After sometime, I somehow got up and tried walking. I was able to walk and it was much better after some 2-3 hours. But when I tried to sit, I was having such a terrible pain that I could never imagine in my life. I thought that it will become better in 2-3 days. Even after a week, I was not able to sit for even 5 mins. I was perfectly fine walking and doing all other activites. But I did not take it seriously. Since I was not working, I just passed the time without sitting. After a month, it did not get any better.

My husband was totally scared and we went to doctor. He checked it up and guessed that it could be muscle tear and said that it would heal itself in some 6-7 weeks. If it doesn't, then he asked us to go for physiotherapy. I waited for 2 months. I was able to sit for nearly 1/2 hour, but I had a little pain always. When I travelled to India, I had a very tough experience sitting in the flight for 9-10 hours continuously. I did not go for physiotherapy immediately. Trying to be smart, I started following some tactics to live with the pain. Time went by and I was not getting better. So nearly 5 months after that incident, I was scared that it could be some spinal cord problem since I heard the same from couple of my friends, I went to physiotherapist. For some 4-5 sittings, she was not able to identify the reason behind my pain. But she was sure that my hip muscles were very tight and when the nerve behind those muscles try to do some activity, it was giving me that pain. So she gave me some exercises to stretch those muscles. But I was not getting much better. Meanwhile, I started working out regularly doing Treadmill and stuff. Also, in the 6th sitting or so, she found the exact exercises to stretch the muscle that is giving me the problem. So I started doing those exercises and was working out regularly too. In 2 months, i.e., now...am feeling very much better and I feel like it is 90% recovered. My physiotherapist said that she needs only one more sitting and we could stop with that. The worst part in my pain is I was not able to sit in our new reclining couch since we bought it. I was very upset about it. And now...I am sitting in our couch (it is not new anymore :-)) and typing this blog for nearly 1 hour without any pain.

Sorry for boring you with my story but I wanted to stress the importance of warming up. So friends...

Warm up, warm up and warm up before working out/playing/doing any strenuous activity