Sup Broskies?
It's been a while since this bitch got updated.
I've missed H&F.
I mean, I browse it every day while I grind internet pokers (def +EV) but it's time to start posting/logging again, regularily.
Recap of my last 9 months:
First two months of my leave from my 9-5, I got absolutely crazy with pokers. As a result I spent most of my time awake (or half-awake really) sitting.
All those all-nighters and 15+ hour sessions slouching in a chair absolutely ruined my already bad-ish low back.
I made decent monies but that money really came at a price.
For next 3 months I was in constant pain and the nagging pain combined with impaired mobility made me move around like a legit old man.
I couldn't even tie my shoes in the mornings, had to buy a pair of rubber boots to avoid that.
I consulted yet another physiatrist and few other so-called medical professionals.
But as I had learned before, you can throw all the money in the world at them but get not much in return. They couldn't diagnose me reliably let alone give me sound advice on how to fix it.
Pain killers were useless as well.
Those miserable 3 months I quit playing poker almost altogether and actively avoided all other sitting-including activity. Avoiding sitting helped me some but the real solution so far has been truly activating myself, starting doing **** and keeping at it.
So, in February I finally got my act together and started rehabbing my back on my own, mostly based my routine on the work of Stuart McGill.
Last 4 months or so I've done static stretching (and/or SMR), lumbar stabilization exercises and nerve flossing EVERY DAY, EVERY ****ING DAY.
After countless hours of stretching/SMR'ing/nerve-flossing and thousands of reps of bird-dogs, planks, side-planks and curl-ups, my efforts have started to really pay off and my low back is finally almost as good as new.
I have no way of telling if the (supposedly herniated) disc itself is any better but at least the muscles surrounding and supporting my lumbar spine are in much better shape and as a whole my low back is much more stable now.
Back is not quite 100% yet but getting there. The difference to 6 months ago is drastic. Basically my mobility has improved 10-0 and I only have very mild nerve-pain in my left hip in the mornings and sometimes after a workout.
Plan is to keep doing what I'm doing until back is 100%, might be 2 more months, might be until I die at the age of 96, who knows.
Also, I now limit my poker session length to a maximum of 2 hours and get up at least once during every session.
Anyways, overall things are starting to look quite promising going forwards.
Cliffs: