“I don’t care about your back.”
The physical therapist cut me off mid-sentence.
Which was a little surprising.
Since I was there to discuss . . . you know, my back.
At least I thought I was.
Sensing my surprise at her retort, she explained, “Listen, I understand what the doc said about your back, and I know what the x-rays suggest, but you haven’t said one word about having any pain back there.”
That was true.
When she’d asked me what issue I was trying to resolve, I only spoke of the knife in the ass I felt whenever I sat for more than thirty minutes or ran for more than five miles.
The doc had said it was all likely associated with the scoliosis, vertebrae compression, and general deterioration he’d discovered when he’d reviewed my back x-rays.
It turns out, flying and marathon-running aren’t conducive to good lower-back health.
I’d done a fair share of both.
And now I had the spine of a ninety-year-old woman to prove it.
Which, the doc explained, was likely the source of all my ass and hamstring pain.
Armed with this knowledge, I’d made an appointment to consult the physical therapist.
About my back.
But not right away.
It took me some time to decide to go the therapy route.
Two reasons.
First, the doc hadn’t given physical therapy a ringing endorsement.
Not in my case, at least.
He knew I worked out regularly and surmised I was likely already doing everything that could reasonably be done to strengthen my back and prevent further deterioration.
“Make an appointment if you want,” he said, “but it might not be worth your time.”
The second reason was that I had based my concept of physical therapists on what I’d seen in movies and on television.
I’d pictured therapists as quasi-healthcare professionals who specialized in getting people like Lieutenant Dan to walk again after he’d gotten his prosthetic legs.
They said stuff like, “Dammit, we’re gonna get you up out of that chair! Now, come on . . .”
And then you’d see Lieutenant Dan get up, fall down, and get back up again.
Until, one day, he would triumphantly take that first step.
That’s what physical therapists did.
In my mind.
They weren’t people who cured ass pain for skinny, middle-aged dudes like me.
But what’s the harm? I thought.
Maybe they could teach me some stretches or something.
Might as well give it a try.
Of course, none of this was of any interest to the therapist.
“Lie down on your stomach,” she instructed me.
Okay.
And then she started pressing around on my butt.
“What about here?” she asked as she dug her thumb into the spot where my glute met my hamstring.
I nearly jumped off the table.
Yes! I said. That’s the place.
“So, I think we’ve isolated your problem,” she concluded.
Then she had me lie on my left side with my right leg extended up at a forty-five-degree angle, scissors-style.
She started pressing down on my foot and told me to resist.
I was completely incapable.
My right foot collapsed onto my left with minimal force.
The therapist continued to be direct.
“Your problem is that you have pathetically weak hips,” she said.
Oh, really?
Pathetically weak?
Screw you, I thought.
My hips are just fine.
And what the hell do my hips have to do with anything, anyway?
Quite a lot, it turns out.
The therapist went on to explain that my weak hips were causing my body to compensate in unnatural ways whenever I ran or worked out.
And that compensation, in turn, contributed to the tightening and knotting in my hamstrings and glutes.
And my monkey’s-fist hamstring, when pressed against the underlying nerves, was the likely cause of the pain I experienced when sitting for extended periods.
So, it all began with my hips.
Not my back.
She prescribed exercises.
“We’ll start with resistance bands,” she said. “You can work your way up from there.”
She gave me two bands of different resistances and copied pages of old-lady hip exercises from a therapy manual.
Clam shells. Side planks. Fire hydrants.
I’d be on the floor, waving my hips around like Richard Simmons, for at least half an hour.
The therapist also gave me a hard-rubber lacrosse ball.
“Put this where it hurts the most, and sit on it with all your weight,” she instructed.
I’d be giving myself a deep-tissue massage, which should help alleviate some of the tightness.
And hurt like a motherfucker in the process.
“That’s how you know you’re doing it right,” she said.
Fantastic.
I left the therapist’s office, questioning.
Were my hips really that weak?
And were they, in fact, the cause of all the pain in my backside?
I tried the exercises the following day.
Just to ensure I maintained proper form, I started with the lower-resistance band.
Even while I assumed it wouldn’t provide sufficient resistance to give me much of a workout.
I mean, come on.
I’m no amateur here, right?
So, I started with some clamshells, doing the minimum recommended number of reps and sets.
Then the side planks.
Then the fire hydrants.
And about five other exercises, each performed precisely as described.
As expected, it took about thirty minutes.
And when I stood up at the end, I was shocked.
I could barely support my own weight.
My entire core was in spasms.
What the hell is? I wondered.
Was it true?
There was no escaping it.
My hips were indeed pathetically weak.
And this caused me a minor existential crisis.
Where else was I weak but didn’t know it?
How many other problems in my life had I attributed to the incorrect root cause?
What other pain in my life was I either ignoring or addressing in the wrong manner?
The upperclassmen at the Naval Academy were fond of reminding us plebes that, “Pain is weakness leaving the body.”
Is that so?
Or is it your body telling you that you’re an idiot?
For years, I’d trained myself to ignore pain.
I refused to see doctors.
And when I did, I acted like a P.O.W., unwilling to volunteer any information.
Name, rank, and serial number.
That’s it.
If there’s anything wrong with me, it’s on you to find it, doc.
Because I’m not about to tell you there’s anything wrong.
That was my way of thinking.
You can get away with that when you’re young.
But then you eventually grow up and realize that living with pain is stupid.
As I recently had.
But even after I’d chosen to confront the stabbing pain in my ass, I’d been misled.
Well . . . misguided.
The doctor hadn’t been wrong in his assessment.
X-rays don’t lie.
My back is totally screwed up.
But to focus on my back as the correct path to alleviating issues with my glutes was the wrong approach.
It took the physical therapist to teach me that.
Someone I had previously ignored.
And the result?
My hips are getting a little stronger every day, thanks to those medieval, old-lady exercises.
And stretching. Lots and lots of stretching.
The stabbing pain in my backside isn’t entirely gone, but I’m getting far less of it.
How about that?
So, the moral of the story:
Don’t be stupid.
Don’t ignore pain.
Don’t discount possible solutions.
Challenge assumptions, including those made by experts.
And don’t be offended to learn that you’re weak.
Even pathetically so.
Perhaps this was best summarized by my Harvard finance professor when I asked him to describe his entire philosophy in one sentence.
“Be skeptical,” he said.
Especially of yourself.
And your back.
And your ass.
And, of course,
Your hips.
Don’t forget the hips.