Tattletale

Guess who has started tattling on me?

Yep.  The little Stinker is a tattletale.  First, I will back up a bit.  I started playing sports when I was in middle school.  I was terrible.  That happens when you grow a lot and lose all coordination.  I stopped growing in 8th grade, and once I started high school the coaches started being more interested in me as a player.  That is what happens when you are a 6'0" tall girl.  Anyway, I started focusing on basketball and had a coach that wanted to win at all costs.  I was expected to play at all costs (I actually got yelled at for not playing with a sprained ankle).  This basically taught me to ignore pain and push through it.  This carried on through college (basketball again).  I was basically a year round athlete plus working on my parents ranch, sometimes doing as many as three practices a day.

He was snorting at small children...

At the time I didn't realize I was destroying my hips and ankles.  I knew my ankles were weak because I kept spraining them, but I wore braces (basically the air cast ones) and was careful outside of practice.  They got taped a lot, but I never went to the doctor or did any rehab when I did injure them.  It was ice and advil to numb the pain to play.  I got really good at hiding limping.  In college, I started having hip problems and this was more serious, but I was just taught to wrap them and mask the symptoms so I could play.  Once I hit grad school my activity level dropped drastically and I started having back problems.  I finally went to the doctor when I was having spasms that rendered me immobile and was having problems walking (super smart to wait that long I know).

Even still I am screwing up my ankles and getting booted (pic from last year).

A set of X-rays later, I was told, "wow you have a lot of wear on your hips even for an athlete." Super helpful dude, but they did send me to PT for a bit.  There I learned that I am quad dominate and have weak hamstrings.  This leads to my hip flexors being tight and when they get too tight they pull on my lower back causing the back issues.  For the most part I am doing better about keeping things in balance, but I still have days where I sit too much and my hips start to tighten up.

He does not look like this when I have tight hips...

This is were Stinker comes into play.  He does not appreciate it when I have tight hips.  And now apparently he can tell my hips are tight before I can.  I had an excellent ride on Saturday and Sunday was supposed to be a light day.  He kept getting more and more anxious, so I decided to give him a timeout.  I got off him and just let him chill for ten minutes.  Typically this helps to reset his brain.

More yoga for you and cookies for me please.

When I got back on things were a bit better, but it took about 40 minutes to get him to where he was reaching and supple.  I worked him a bit longer just to solidify that it was what I wanted and got off.  I promptly started thinking back to last month when I had a tense anxious monster on my hands.  Then did a few other errands and what not and a few hours later I noticed my hips were tight.  I am willing to put money on Stinker's tenseness was due to my hips being tight.