Day 135-Yes, I'm a tight*ss.

Early Yom Kippur morning, I was slapped awake by a cramp in my calf. Whoa, I haven't had one of those bad boys since I was preggers! Waking up crying for help is so pathetic, but that's what you do with a leg cramp. You cannot move, since it makes it worse--even the act of taking a deep breath to call for help sets off a tensile explosive reaction that makes blood cover your eyes. So I just started hitting the air, gasping like a fish dropped on deck, and eventually made contact. 

With my little dog, Tootie. Then The Huz. Sorry, baby. It was a necessary punch to the face. 

After we talked my leg down off the ledge, I spent a good deal of the rest of the day (when I wasn't repenting, of course!) taking my leg to counseling sessions, so we wouldn't have another suicidal leg episode again. We talked and talked, spent 2 hours in that fantastic epsom salt/hydrogen peroxide soak I taught you, and tried to figure out what had made my gastrocnemius go bat-shit crazy. 

Turns out, he was being bullied on all sides, and it was too much for him to take---he snapped. See, he was being picked on by my overly tight gluteal muscles. That's right. From waaaayyyy up there, my rear end's uptight nature pushed Mr. Gastrocnemius over da edge. 

For years, I thought I had super-cool-highly developed butt muscles. Turns out, I just have too tight butt muscles. Go ahead, make the tight-ass joke in your head. Better now? 

Okay, while my glutes ARE strong--even stronger now that I walk in neutral shoes--they are too tight. You may think they're too far away from Calfy to do any harm, but honey, you should know it's all connected. Even though I stretch my calves daily (the best way, I'll show you sometime!), I was pretty unaware that I was clenching my fanny minute by minute. This lever-system malfunction was causing a constant pull on Calfy Gastrocnemius, making him edgy and tense. 

The other cause we discovered in our bath tub counseling sessions was that I have a silly, previously unnoticed habit of turning my right foot in as I sit at the computer. This, in turn, shortens the medial head of the gastrocnemius:

making it nervous, wound up and unable to relax completely. 

Look what I accomplished in one day! That doesn't mean I'm cured, oh, no! Now comes the super interesting work of tuning into my gadunkadunk every minute of every day and telling it to take a chill pill. And, I've got to lose the silly habit of turning that foot in while I type. But I can do it.

It's cool, though. Our bodies are amazing, just waiting for us to stop, be still and listen to what they are doing. Chances are, your headache isn't caused by the things you think, and that pain in your back is actually probably related to your front. 

I have to go now, it's time to go take my butt through a guided relaxation meditation. Hah! I'm just kidding. I actually have a new mantra galloping through my head, and I kinda like it: 
Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...Relax da butt MUS-cles...

Ciao, Booty Buddies, 
Dani