Thursday, April 19, 2012

Becoming Superhuman

There's no question that I lost some brain matter: that's what having a stroke and having brain damage entails. But as I work to get fitter and stronger and to recover (which is going at least as well as expected because I work hard) I have also been reading about neural plasticity and learning a bit how the brain works.

To that end, I decided that, if I'm going to get fit (and I am), then there's really no reason not to get flexible at the same time. I mean, fifteen years ago, I could walk on my hands, and I was fairly gymnastic. Since I do physio exercises 6 days out of 7, I add to that a bit of work stretching the muscles themselves, and re-educating my stretch reflexes.

Recovery is a slow process; at six months muscles in my leg that were paralysed quite suddenly started to work again. Since I'm in it for the long haul, I shall remake myself into a flexible person. I've got time.

I even went out and got a copy of the 4th ed. of Stretching Scientifically, not because I expect to be able to (or want to) do the splits, which I think are pretty gruesome on a guy, but because I want to learn about the brain-muscle interactions as much as I want to learn about good form for the exercises I do.

On which, more anon...

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