Spirits and stiff joints
The other day I, along with some friends, all in our mid-70s, were discussing the fate, of all things, muscles in an ageing body. Our brains are no longer important. The topic came up after someone said wine was less harmful to the muscles than spirits like whisky, rum, vodka, gin etc. Everyone held forth with glasses of vodka and gin in their hands. None of us knew anything about physiology and the effect of toxins on muscles. But when has ignorance ever prevented any Indian from insisting that he or she is the last word on the subject?
Talk then turned to remedies, prevention and cure. Some insisted that yoga was the answer because it stretched and strengthened all the muscles including ones that you never suspected existed. Others insisted that if stretching and strengthening was all that was needed, physiotherapy was superior. What’s the difference, I asked. But I was ignored because I had stopped consuming alcohol some years ago and my opinion was therefore worthless in the context of our discussion.
However, I was deeply interested because, in spite of family induced abstinence, I remained as stiff as a skateboard. The absence of alcohol had no effect on my recalcitrant muscles. So yoga had been forced upon me by an anxious family. But it had little effect. I remained as stiff as ever. Thankfully, Covid intervened and the yoga master was not invited back again. He tried but I put my stiff foot down, saying no means no.
But the denouement came a month ago when I bent down to pick up a spoon and couldn’t get up again. I was straightened out very slowly, accompanied by excruciating pain. The family, both immediate and extended, unambiguously and unanimously decided that I needed a physiotherapist. So the young fellow who takes my 98-year-old mother through the paces with a benign smile on his face, was told to do the same thing to me also. Torture but smile as you do it because smiling has a therapeutic effect.
I asked the physio what his intentions were. He said he was going to focus on my gluteus maximus. I had no clue what that was but didn’t want to show him my ignorance. Later Google told me that it means “the largest and most powerful muscle in the human body, and is responsible for the shape of the buttocks and hips, extends the thigh, aids in lateral rotation, and stabilises the femur during movements such as walking and standing… . It’s also essential for maintaining an erect posture.”
Well, well, well, I thought to myself, talk about rock bottom. Or, as my grandfather used to say about my deficient education, the foundation has to be strong. So, after nearly 60 years, I have once again set about strengthening my foundation. Believe me, it’s not at all easy because it’s a vicious circle: strengthening requires stretching, and stretching requires strengthening. I asked the physio how he could tell what was actually happening in my glutes. In response he asked me to lie on my stomach and raise my neck and legs as far as they would go, and hold them there for as long as I could. I think I won the Olympic iron medal for both time and distance: about three seconds long and two inches high. That’s how I finally understood the difference between yoga and physiotherapy. In yoga you breathe while stretching, in physiotherapy you hold your breath. The rest, as the saying in Punjab goes, is ‘detail di gal’.
I have also finally understood the meaning of the 1970s pop song “Killing me softly with his song, strumming my pain with his fingers”. It’s what the physio does.
