Aaron's Status

6:16 pm

Flexibility

When I injured my back and started physical therapy, my therapist told me that my problems all stem from mobility and flexibility issues in my hips and legs (hamstrings, specifically).

Because I can’t fully flex in some directions, I compensate by loading my lower back in ways it doesn’t like. OK, that all makes sense. So the physical therapy prescription includes quite a bit of stretching.

I’ve been doing this PT routine every day, without fail, for nine weeks. But, if you’ve ever stretched for flexibility, it takes a long, long time to work. Flexibility (I’m told) improves in millimeters at a time. It’s hard for me to say whether it’s changed much at all, even though I’m the one doing it every day… It’s just so gradual that I don’t remember where I started.

Anyway, I came to think about this while reflecting on the big 5.11 route that I sent on Tuesday, the one that I had worked on at least a couple of other times and just couldn’t pull through.

The crux of the climb is a move where you have to use two pockets to get your foot up onto a mantle at roughly the same height. It’s a really high foot, and squarely against my specific flexibility limits.

It occurred to me that, in fact, it may be that I was able to send that route because of the stretching. Of course I don’t know for sure, but the theory holds water. Either way it’s so encouraging to see progress in both areas.

Performance reviews

The only thing worse than giving performance reviews is receiving them. Or is it the other way around?

In any case I had a good performance review. It has been a very strong couple of weeks down in the Appreciation Department, and it makes me so glad that this is somehow happening even as I viciously guard my work/life boundaries and feel honestly the best about my job as I have in over ten years.

The review in general is ironic, though, because I’m simultaneously workshopping a podcast episode about the toxicity and pointlessness of performance reviews. That’s a hill I will die on.