Andrew Schrauben

Another PT session today and it went pretty well as my shoulder rarely clicked during the stretching exercises. Nothing really feels different, but apparently progress is happening. Today I was the only person there most of the time so the trainer and I were talking a bit.

He told me about how he gets lots of wannabe bodybuilders who have lots of back and neck pain because they only work the "mirror muscles", i.e. only the muscles they can see in the mirror! As a result they don't work their back and everything gets out of whack.

I commented about all of the PT "toys" laying around and he said that his kids love to visit him at work and play with the equipment: giant rubber bands, medicine balls, balance balls, blocks of foam in various shapes. A friend going through some PT of her own recommended that I ask about the "ballistic squat machine". Unfortunately my trainer didn't recognize the term, and asked how she described it. Since I didn't actually talk to her about it, I replied "that's all her email said" to which he replied "Tell her to send a picture!"

My curious trainer isn't done; he asks why my friend is in PT. I tell him they think it's compartment syndrome in her leg and he responds "Oh, that's why she's doing that squat whatever thingy, to make it worse so they can confirm it." He's pretty sharp! He then describes the painful aspect of needles and possibly cutting the fascia, and adds that most people don't like to watch that stuff. I explain how I actually prefer to watch procedures being done to me so I know what's going on (e.g. when drawing blood). He agrees, but then casually states out of the blue:

"Except when I had my vasectomy! I couldn't bear to watch that, you know." I didn't quite know what to say; I was trying figure out how the conversation went from compartment syndrome to vasectomy so quickly!

Maybe I shouldn't be so surprised - apparently there's no place for modesty during therapy. One time I asked a female PT where a certain tendon was on the front of my shoulder. She replies "Here, feel where mine is" and she guides my hand to the spot, but first has to move her bra strap out of the way. Ack! It's really no big deal but I wasn't quite prepared for such an open environment. After all, this isn't the kind of stuff you'd do at the office!

Awkwardness aside, my PT is impressed with the progress on my shoulder so whatever they do, it really woks.