Saturday, July 22, 2006

Almost a nightmare injury...

2 weeks ago while doing the upper body conditioning in my Wed morning BODYATTACK class, I suddenly felt this pain on my left knee. It's not like I was kneeling on the floor- I was using a mat and it still hurt. After the class I had a closer look... it was swollen. However, I had no problem jumping or running. I only felt the pain when I applied pressure on my bent knee, I didn't really think much of it as I could've knock into something.

Yet, the pain was persistent for the next few days, which sort of forced me into doing the hard option for push ups in BODYPUMP. I iced it, applied muscle rub, you know.. all those things you do by yourself... and nothing worked. Last Wednesday after my BODYATTACK class in IOI Mail, I bumped into this personal trainer cum les mills instructor Alex and asked him if he knew anything about such injury. After describing my pain to him, he suspected that I may have put too much pressure onto my knee that the synovial fluid is insufficient to protect my joint anymore.... and the remedy for it: STOP WORKING OUT and hope that it would be better. Also he recommended I take glucosamine.




I don't know about you, but to tell me to stop working out is like telling me to stop breathing. I'm not a person who can sit still and does nothing. God forbid if I were ever to be incapacited(touch wood!), coz it would be a fate worse than death for me. I admire people like Peter Tan who continue to fight on in spite of their conditions, but I don't think I'm that strong-willed.

Anyhow, I decided to get myself a bottle of Viartril-S and gave it a go. That day, I was a worried man. The fear that I had to stop teaching made me lose my mood for workout. So I asked Jason Khong, a new BODYCOMBAT instructor, to replace my evening class in Damansara Uptown. Besides taking Viartril-S, I also decided not to massage or do anything funny with the knee for a while.

By the next day, I felt better and I was back teaching my classes. Surprisingly, that evening's BODYATTACK my left knee felt ok. I was very careful with the way I kneel down for the push ups and cool down, and I didn't feel the pain anymore, though my knee still felt a bit funny(not in a humorous way). Yesterday I did 2 BODYPUMP classes, and again there was no pain when doing knelt-down push ups.

Could it be that glucosamine is so effective? I don't know. For all we know, it could be that I really knocked into something and now my knee is healed. Nevertheless, I'm not going to take my joints for granted anymore. By next week, I'll reduce my glucomine dosage to 500mg daily(now it's 500mg x 3 times a day) to make sure my joint is well taken care of.