Post injury hiatus

Hello guys and girls, once again it has been a little while, my apologies. It has been eventful week and a bit.

In my last blog I mentioned that I had to take a break due to my eczema. Well, the following day I managed to have a skiing accident which wasn't too friendly on my head, neck and arm! According to my physio it did something to one of my ligaments near my sternum which my body wasn't too happy with. So that little break from walking and the gym became slightly longer! This would happen of course right before I go away on a skiing trip just to shake up my confidence but hopefully it will be fine.

If you are following me on social media you might have seen some progress updates in terms of the steering mechanism of my walker (if you are not then you can find me on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube). After much dillying and dallying with not only gear sizes but also programming, we finally got a working prototype this morning which you can see in the video below. I don't think I have spoken in a video for this blog before but for anyone that has never heard me speak these are my dulcet tones. Thankfully Cassie is there to make everything a little bit clearer, although I may have to upload it without subtitles but I promise there will be some soon.

Another thing that happened today was me getting back in my walker after what seemed like ages! I must admit I woke up this morning and wanted to take the walker outside and see how far I could go, it was just something I really wanted to do. That however might seem like running before you can walk, especially as I was bit apprehensive about what I would be like after two weeks of not getting in it. Fortunately I haven't forgotten too much and although it was not as pretty as previous walks, it wasn't half bad. I am hoping to get back in the gym on Monday and have a really positive week before I go away on my skiing trip to Andorra. So until then have a good weekend.

Power Steering... (Geeky blog)

Hi Ladies and Gents. Sorry it's been a while, I have been having really bad problems with my eczema and skin of late and have had to take a break from the training and fitness stuff. I made the decision after getting in the walker last week and in the end having to come out as the itching round my neck was immense.

I have taken the opportunity to focus on the steering of the walker and think up a way of taking the direction locks off and replacing it with something better. As you might remember the direction locks prevent the front wheels from turning so that I can focus on my walking and not worry about the walker going everywhere while I am in it. Unfortunately my walker had to have a different kind of locks which means that it is always on as opposed to ones that you can turn on and off. This poses a problem when I need to start to turn whilst in the walker as even when I walk in a straight line, the weight of my hips makes the back wheels of the walker slide and therefore turn into my desk. At the moment I feel that I am at a stage where I don't feel that I can do without the direction locks but the inability to turn (and fit through the door as the direction locks stick outside) is hindering my progress.

Here comes the geeky part. I have had an idea with the hope of creating a steering mechanism for my walker, so that it can go straight when it needs to and turn when I need to. They way that I aim to do this is by creating a rack and pinion mechanism on the front of my walker that I can use with a electronic servo, and two buttons to control it with. Basically this is kind of similar to what you might find in your car albeit a much more basic version. I am hoping to use my 3D printer to design and make the parts and, for the tech-savvy amongst you I will be using a Arduino Micro as a logic controller. If all goes well what will happen is I will be able to press a button on the left of the walker and the front wheels will turn left. The longer you press the button the more it will turn.

I mentioned at the very beginning of my blog that I often have crazy ideas, let see if this one pans out.

Somewhat disconnected...

Guten Tag to my German readers!

It has been a funny old week, a week of feeling disconnected from my body. I do have some days where my brain asks my body to do one thing and my body just says no thanks but usually it does not last this long. This made going to gym on Monday and skiing on Wednesday unsatisfying sessions. Fortunately my walking was still relatively productive and it is becoming easier to walk with my head up right. Next week I might try and move the second bar of my walker (the bar that is above my hips) forward more to help bring my bum in. I have a slight concern that this might make the walker more wobbly as I will be a little bit taller but we will see.

This morning's session at the gym was more successful as well and I felt like I did a fuller work out compared to Monday. One of the things I was keen to try out was trying to work on my core strength, as I had noticed on Wednesday that I find it difficult sometimes to lean forward into turns when I am skiing. By using a weightlifting belt around my chest I was able to use the weight machine to lean forward and lift the weights. Ideally sit-ups would be a great option but I don't really manage to do them very well. The video below gives you a better picture of what I mean about the chest exercises (as well as my pull-up method).

Have a good weekend!

Mind over... Head?

After last week's video a couple of friends of mine gave me a few tips about keeping my head up whilst walking, which not only helps with looking at where I am going but also reduces the stress on my neck and body as a whole. So on Monday morning I decided to see how difficult it would be to walk my with head up, as so far my head has been helping me keep my balance when walking and to coordinate my feet in a more controlled fashion. When I keep my head up however I have realised that I feel a lot less stable in the walker and my walking becomes a lot less graceful, if you can imagine that! I felt like a fawn (baby deer) when it tries to walk for the first time. After a few attempts the walking did improve and thinking about now, it was a case of mind over matter. I think the walker tipping in the last few weeks had made me fearful of the instability of it, making me slightly cautious.

What did help me though was some feedback that I had received from my friend Jade, who pointed out that the walker might be slipping because of the floor surface (where I had been thinking that it was because of the lack of the walker's wheelbase). So again it was a case of mind over matter which again gave me the confidence to go for it!

Catch up time

Hello ladies and gentlemen

I know that it has been a bit of a hiatus but I am back again.

Since we last spoke I have been taking my mp3 player to the gym and I have been surprised at how much it has helped me, not only with my focus but the timing of my reps. I created a playlist full of tracks that will help me keep up a faster pace as when I have my own music on, I tend to use the bars (musical structure) of the song to help me with my consistency. It is great since I feel like I get a bit more control and coordination.

One of the exciting events that has happened in the gym of late is that I have managed to start doing pull-ups, which I have never been able to do before (due to lack of opportunity more than anything). Though I am not able to get my chin anywhere near the bar yet but hopefully with time that will improve. I am tempted to hold the bar in a more conventional method as at the moment I have my wrists facing me, however I am afraid that this will create spasms in my arms and I will get stuck.

Back home I have been getting to grips (literally) with walking in the office and I have decided to go bare feet so I can be at one with the earth. I am kidding but this gives me more grip and balance whilst walking at the moment. Speaking of balance I have decided to kit out the walker with my ankle weights in the hopes of preventing it from tipping. However as you can tell from the video below the back wheels of the walker keep sliding. I have been thinking about maybe getting another walker with a wider base for when I do the actual walk to help with stability but that is something that I will think about nearer the time.

In terms of walking progress it has been great. I can now do a number of stints without sitting down, although I have been informed by Cassie that to complete my 10k walk I will have to do the length of the office 2500 times... whoopee...

ideally what I would like to do is plonk myself on a big long stretch of space and see how far I can go at the moment. Walking bare feet in Watford however might not be a great idea!

Have a good one!

Woah...

I just tried walking in the office for the first time and it was a little bit hair raising! I decided to start off with ankle supports and my trainers on so that I would have grip on the laminate floor but still protect my ankles, and as soon as I got in the walker I felt like I was on skates. The thing wanted to go flying! Obviously with the walker having wheels and not as much friction as it did on the carpet I found it very difficult to control the pace and the weight balance. I found myself trying to keep up with the walker instead of the other way round. However there were a few runs where I felt more in control, right up to the point where the walker decided to try and tip to the right.

As my trainers are quite bouncy and quite have a good grip I went to put my left foot down but, instead of putting it down gently, it went down with force and as I my right foot was already down the walker decided to go into "ski mode" (Knight Rider reference). I don't think it would have actually tipped over but I am glad my helper was there. It did knock my confidence though a little bit so I tried taking my trainers off but in the end the excitement had already taken its toll.

I think I will try putting some weights on the walker to hopefully give me some piece of mind.

Onwards and upwards.

Taking strides

Another week gone and another week closer to next year's target. Apart from today it has not been a bad week overall especially in terms of walking, though I haven't made it into the office yet! After overdoing it a little bit on Wednesday I had to take yesterday off to allow the temple that is my body to recover, and although I thought I was ready this morning to go back to the gym I soon realised that I was a bit eager! It did not help that the music in the gym was not really something I would use to motivate myself, not that I have anything against music of three decades ago. I will be making a playlist to take to the gym from now on. I did take the opportunity to get in the cross trainer type thing and managed to get my body into a more upright position than ever before.

I finished the day off back in the walker and used a technique that I discovered on Wednesday, which is to walk like I am pushing a wheelbarrow. Because of the walker is front heavy and the fact that I lean over, if I get my feet too far in front of my body I lose momentum. So what I have discovered is that by getting my feet as far back as possible so that my body is at an angle and then take smaller steps I can get more of a push off and also keep taking steps one after another, like a stride. I am not sure if this will have an effect on my back but at the moment it feels great because I can repeat the walking over and over again. The biggest thing that has stuck with me this week is something that Cassie said which I don't have to walk like other people, as long as it is good for me.

Have a good weekend :-)