Wow, what happened to time? I was going to write a short notice on my latest health check when I realized that it was nearly a fortnight since I recieved my judgement from the physiotherapist. Time flies!
Every year we get to do a health check at a local fitness center called Feelgood. Usually it’s just a few basic tests; pulse, bloodpressure, cholesterol, length, weight, percentage of body fat, etc. This year we where given a choice between the regular tests and something that would translate into an agility test.
Since I had had an agility test of sorts several years back based on naprapathy I figured this would be the same and I though it would be cool to compare results. Back then I had excellent stamina and endurance although I had a somewhat restricted movement in some areas. To quote the guy who did the tests, “I see you do martial arts and that you have a problem with high kicks.” I was quite impressed with his ability to determine what I did in my spare time just by folding my body in ways I thought impossible and he had pinpointed my problem straight away.
This time I wanted to see if my poor presence in the dojo as well as a few more years on the meter would have had an adverse effect on my health. Well, the test wasn’t what I expected and the results was in hindsight not unexpected although I never knew it was that bad. The first try to check my fitness on the exercise bike gave invalid results since I had underestimated my fitness and they therefore had put far too little resistance on the pedals. After a brief rest doing other stuff I was back on the exercise bike and lo and behold I still have excellent stamina and endurace despite not doing anything.
The next part of the test, the agility part, was just a set of simple exercises; me standing with my feet shoulder width apart and putting my palms on the floor with my legs straight followed by me sitting with my legs folded under me and trying to touch my forhead to the floor. From these exercise they could draw conclusions about my back. There were a lot of exercises involving turning, twisting, bending, etc but nothing strenous - anyone could go through these motions. All they wanted to see was how far i could turn, twist, bend, etc. Then came tests to check balance and strength; the latter was the killer in my case.
It turns out that I have strong legs and arms which I found kind of flattering but they also concluded that I had no midrift what so ever. All exercises involving belly, sides and back were failures - they concluded that I lacked the necessary stability in my torso to do most things properly. After my judgement had been presented to me I realised the truth of the matter. Sensei Fredrik had mentioned it earlier - I just hadn’t realise how much torso stability I lacked before these tests. I have always thought that I had poor balance but these tests showed that there was nothing wrong with my sence of balance it was my week midrift that made me overcompensate with whatever muscles I had and therefore cause my inbalance.
Luckily they gave me a few simple exercises that I could do to train my stability. They also told me that any weight lifting I did should be done using free weights and not machines so that I would train my stability all through those exercises. Now I’ll start doing those exercises any day now. Did I mention that it was a fortnight since I recieved this judgement and I have only done my exercises once since then. Shame on me. 
Nice to see you back in the blogosphere
It is also good to hear that you know what you need to work on. Maybe now you can upgrade to a belt of a different color?
Posted by Hannes on May 12th, 2007