Monday, 8 June 2015
Hamstrings
I have often thought the word hamstrings a rather odd term for a part of the human body and in all honesty it is only in the last two years that I am certain of what my hamstrings are and where they reside.
Generally I think we are disinterested in our bodies until something goes wrong with it. For example, I paid little attention to my fallopian tubes until I got pregnant at the age of 32 (20 years after sex education at school). After all, how often does one think about ones fallopian tubes.
Anyway, my hamstrings hurt. They hurt very badly and seem to be getting worse. This is somewhat embarrassing at Pilates given I am probably the only person there who has been doing it for four years plus and while all the other ladies are doing the splits on the reformer stretching their hamstrings, I am standing there like a human tipi stretching jack squat (NB. jack squats, something else I can't do without setting my legs on fire).
I don't understand why after so many years of this particular type of exercise I seem to be getting so much worse at the basics. My instructor who is also a qualified physiotherapist advised me to do a particular type of stretch at home to loosen my hamstrings but my actual doctor on www.yahoomedicaladvicebyunqualifiedidiots.com said the best thing to do is rest the muscles, use ice packs and heat compresses and watch TV.
I am in a bit of a bind. I don't want to be one of those people who stretch in public. I am happy to do my stretches at home if it is going to help but given I am not stretching enough prior to exercise, I think I will have to do some stretching in view of other people. I am sure this is pre-exercise basics but people who stretch in public are .. well .. wangs.
I think I am being punished for my recent spate of mean thoughts and as is the way with divine punishment it is always going to be a humiliation related to the mean thought thunk.
The children go to a lovely swim school on Sundays. The teachers are excellent, great with the kids and the lessons are a cracking workout and lots of fun. Furthermore, the teachers at the swim school are perhaps the only men I have ever seen who can carry off Speedo's and believe me, I very rarely say that. Not that I am looking at their budgie smugglers, I just mean they are very tall and fit.
In case you have not guessed, tall, fit, friendly ... they are Dutch and the swim school is Dutch owned. Up until now spending time at the swimming pool watching the kids has been a wonderful thing however over the last three weekends a chap has appeared every Sunday morning to conduct this kind of public stretching exhibitionism pool side in front of the kids in his speedos and even though he is Dutch, he is not tall and cannot carry off those tight trunks.
The stretching itself as I said is right in front of my daughter's swim lanes and not far from the entrance to the pool where all traffic enters and exits. He stands here with his legs in some sort of splits thing and then bends forward in his speedos so we get to see his meat and two veg from the front and back. This goes on for a good ten minutes and is truly vomit inducing. Frankly, I should really phone the police as I believe it is bordering on child abuse and most certainly retinal abuse.
I don't understand it. There are plenty of places to stretch that are discreet. I am sure I have mentioned in previous blogs the bizarre exercises that people in Singapore do in public however, I genuinely don't think they are doing this out of any sense of exhibitionism but simply because they don't care what anyone thinks and I do like that. So, while I do walk past a variety of exercisers doing things like hopping arabesques, chicken head nodding, arm flapping and pelvic thrusting (all true), I think they believe they are getting a good workout even though they look like berks but it is all about the exercise and there is no element of showing off.
Therefore, as a westerner I find the behaviour by Mr Splits very peculiar.
My husband and I discussed this in depth and I was trying to fathom this exhibitionism as it has to be bordering on a type of arrogance. My husband being the type to never make broad brush statements about any particular nationality believes it is because he is Dutch and that is why he is arrogant. Of course like all good racists I should preface this with "some of our best friends are Dutch".
I don't buy this as every Dutch person I have ever met has been lovely. My husband agrees and only puts any display of arrogance down to the fact they are tall.
I think I concur with this theory as I know if I was tall I would be a complete asshole. The reason I am so self-depracating and diffident is because I can't reach most wall shelves. Who would have the confidence to do public stretching when you have to ask a 12 year old at the supermarket to get you some bread. But this Mr Dutch is not tall so I think he is just an exhibitionist.
We think he might actually be friends with the owner of the swim school so we unfortunately cannot kick him when he is bending over and my goodness, the temptation is overwhelming. When you see a huge big black speedo bottom in the air and a poor little girl standing at head height with it, all you want to do is kick that sucker out of the park.
Our solution to this is to get our daughter to complain to her instructor that he is putting her off her butterfly but given she is a chicken she will not do it and we will have to put up with this fool for a further three weeks before we leave for the UK.
I don't really care what anyone thinks of me but I don't really want to be despised or get kicked in the bits by a stranger but maybe I am the minority here. I am the only one too embarrassed to stretch in public and now I have busted hamstrings whereas everyone else in this country has no problem clucking like a chicken or having someone hit them in the face with a kettle ball in public if it means they do a good warm up prior to their real exercise.
Of course my hamstring problem could just be due to the fact I am going to be 40 this year and my body is increasingly readying itself for inevitable paralysis. Either way, I had better get over it.
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