A Growing Concern

I’m back at SPI for physical therapy with Pieter Kroon, famous go-to guy for gimpy runners. The pleasant, relaxing, generously windowed room with a Loop 360 view, however, deceives. Tucked away in its corners lie special tools and devices designed to stretch, bend, and relocate. Under a stack of yoga mats I swear I saw a hook.

Pieter approaches and plants a hearty handshake. His stature and demeanor is cheerful, broad, Teutonic. It’s like we could put away beers together, or he could crush me, depending on his mood.

First order of business is the adjusting. Pieter asks me to lie on the table on my back and cross my arms over my chest. He then wraps his biceps around my shoulders and gives me a suffocating bear hug until I hear a succession of pops in my upper back. Aah, echoes of the primitive greeting ritual my Dad and I peform twice a year.

Next, Pieter calls across the room: “Troy, can you come over here for a second and help me?”

Troy? Wait? Why do we need to bother Troy?

“Troy is going to hold you down while I adjust your left leg.”

“Hold me down?? You know, I can see that Troy was making a real difference in someone’s life over there, so I think we should just send him bac—OH MY GOD.”

Pieter wraps his arm around my left shin and yanks on my leg until there’s a dull snapping sound at my hip.

“What was that all about??”

“Ha! Don’t worry! The hip joint is the strongest in the human body. Back in medieval times, when they would draw and quarter someone, the rest of the victim’s joints would come apart, but the hip almost always remained intact. Ha, ha!”

Ha! The victim’s hip stayed intact while his arms fell off, that’s hilarious!!

Finally, Pieter retrieves from, I don’t know, the dungeon next door, a padded leather strap that he secures around my upper left thigh. Once again, he yanks on the thing, but this time up and out, moving my hip in a direction it has never ever known. I think my hip would have preferred to live in ignorance.

And now we’re ready for the therapy.

Gratefully, the horror scene dissolves and we get down to some serious stretching. Pieter kneads the back of my left thigh with his knuckles, finding the adhering nerves with magical precision and unadhering them. It hurts, but dude, it hurts so good. He bends my legs all over the place, and I learn that my hips are about as flexible as a rusty lawn chair. After 20 minutes, he unfolds me and sits me back up on the table.

“Your hamstring is dominating. When you rely too much on your hamstring, the site of your original injury, the nerves in the whole area flare up. Your glutes need to do more of the work. Over the next several weeks you’ll be performing exercises designed to strengthen your glutes and get you to rely more on them when you run.”

“So, what you’re saying is . . . . my butt needs to dominate.”

“Yes.”

Okay then.

This is a serious medical discussion we are having.

Pieter gleefully sends me off with a cadre of butt exercises to do at home. Settling into my car, I begin to fret. What this ultimately means is that over the next several weeks, my butt will grow in size. What are the implications? I’m concerned about proportionality. Will this be noticeable? Will I need a new wardrobe? What will my co-workers say?

But as I remind myself of Gilbert’s sage words, my concerns fade. I want to run with power and I absolutely must rid myself of this godawful nerve pain. I got to have a butt to do it. I’m going for it. I’m making the sacrifice.

My butt will dominate.