Wednesday

Wednesdays are a day off weight training for me, but I use that time to have a myotherapy treatment. I thought I'd show you what today's treatment consisted of. I had two areas of concern. First was tightness around my left shoulder blade after training upper body yesterday. Rob did some tests and told me that my rhomboids and levator scapulae were tight, causing downward rotation of my scapula. To treat this he cupped the area.

'Cupping is an ancient Chinese therapy in which a cup is applied to the skin and the pressure in the cup is reduced (by suction) in order to draw and hold skin and superficial muscles inside the cup' (source)

Rob did this to place a constant stretch on the rhomboids and levator scap to release those muscles and reduce the tightness, allowing the scapula to move back into a more ideal position.

I was also tight around my kidney area from (improperly) twisting during a dynamic stretch I did on Monday. Rob often uses dry needling but was reluctant to needle that area directly due to the proximity to the kidney, so he placed needles nearby, in my quadratus lumborum and erector spinae, and while he was at it decided to needle my rhomboids, infraspinatus, supraspinatus and levator scap.

Rob took this pic while the needles were in. The needles are superfine and you can hardly feel them going in. The red circular marks are from the cupping.



I expect I will be a bit sore tonight, but should be a lot looser tomorrow.

Also had full length posture photos taken today to send to Mike Robertson. (Not willing to post those just yet!)

Today's food
M1: 'muesli', eggs
M2: chicken stir-fry
M3: larb gai, nuts
M4: kangaroo patty, sweet potato chips, roasted spiced cauliflower
M5: Asian-style sweet potato and tuna patties, dry coleslaw

I will lose 10kg by 31 December