A New Year and A New Bird

Yesterday, I fulfilled a long-time dream of seeing these beautiful birds - Waxwings. Due to the cold weather they have been coming inland in their droves and Hertfordshire has not been excluded. It was a dull, dank day, awful for photography, but I was very pleased to get a few half-decent record shots, this being one of them. What most surprised me about these birds is the beautiful sound the flock makes as they perch and feed. It's quite unique and one I shall certainly remember. I was chuffed to bits to finally spend an hour with them. I'm hoping for some sunshine tomorrow and the chance to catch up with a flock again - two variables which are hard to pin down!

The new year has started off steadily. The Tuesday hospital gym session went well although I was bone tired afterwards. I don't think I've been so tired in a long time. The technique of regularly stretching out the LHS lower back seems to be managing the chronic irritation/spasm. However, it has been particularly bad the past 3 days for no obvious reason - hormones perhaps!?! Who knows. I'm icing it as I write!

The right upper/inner thigh tightness and pain remain. I had to take painkillers on Tuesday night for it to be able to sleep. I did discover at the gym session that I have been doing the hip adduction exercise wrong for the past 2 years, which isn't going to have helped this issue. I had been taking the leg across the front of my standing leg rather than simply bring it in to end at the standing leg. Anyway, the way I was doing it was continually aggravating the right thigh problem. Below shows how I should have been doing it:

I read some interesting stuff on the net this week about 'hard gainers' (skinny people, like me, who find it hard to put on muscle and fat). It essentially said that a little exercise goes a long way for hard gainers. They need more rest and recovery time between significant exercise because it takes longer for muscle repair and recovery. It's helped me to see that I probably was doing too much and only promoting injury and hindering muscle growth. The way forward is definitely "Less is More". I am deliberately doing less walking/cycling now and concentrating my efforts on the once a week gym session. As ever, it would have been useful if the NHS had given me this kind of advice/info 2 years ago...!

Not much else to note. I do feel stronger. It did take a good 3 days to recover from Tuesday but I'm hoping it's all down to hormones this week.

Here's to more opportunities to see Waxwings now....