My story

For those interested, my story isn't complicated, but I find it interesting (obviously - I am me) and I am proud of where I am today.

I was born in 1992 and had a normal, active upbringing - out all the time making dens in the forest, playing with my friends, going to a karate club and then rugby. That is until the time I was 12 years old when I spreigned my ankle during rugby practice.

To this day I still don't understand it, but when I spreigned my ankle and couldn't walk for a week or two, I developed a pain in my back, which soon spread to my hips, knees and elbows. It got worse and worse over time and there were several years where I could not walk for more than a few minutes at a time. I do believe that even though it was bad, I made it worse when I was 14/15 as I was addicted to a video game called RuneScape and used to play on my pain so I could get time off school to play the game. This coupled with the fact I could barely move much just kept making the pain worse.

I had countless x-rays, bone scans, MRIs and physiotherapy. The only thing that showed in all of these investigations was a slight case of spina bifida occulta, which is actually rather common and most people who have it are not aware of it and it never affects them. The only reason I found out I had it was because of all the tests that were done. So that wasn't it.

As time went on and I got older, I reached 20 years old and the pain had subsided and was now only in my hips and knees. Thankfully it was not in my back anymore. To this day I cannot hear people talk about back pain without tensing up and trying to change the topic of conversation. It terrifies me. I can only imagine how my parents must have felt, seeing their son in so much pain for so long.

I began to think alot about my body and why it was the way it was. I had had a limp for 6/7 years at this point and over the the course of several years in my early twenties I had tried to walk without a limp. I think this helped a bit and I came to the realisation that I had spent so long in pain, and I had spent so long not walking as my body naturally intended. I also realised that this all happened during the crucial years while going through puberty and developing into adulthood, and that it was possible it had affected the development and shape of my skeleton and/or muscles. I had spent so long sitting and not moving that my important muscles surrounding my hip girdle and within my core had become very weak. My cardiovascular system was also well below the level it should have been.

I had read somewhere that every 15 years all the cells in our skeletons are completely renewed. Whether that is true I'm not sure, but it is only logical that over time all the cells in your skeleton would be replaced, just as they are in your tissues. It is also only logical that the way we move directly influences the way our bones, muscles, tendons etc. develop; our bodies adapt to the stresses we put it under.

From that point onward I told myself "in 15 years I will have a brand new skeleton and I am going to make it as strong and as symmetrical and as fit for purpose as possible." I understand that it doesn't quite work that way, but I'm sure you can see the logic and desparation behind my thinking at the time.

So I had gone to the gym intermittently from the time I was 16, providing the pain would allow, and when I got to around 22/23 I put alot of effort into closing my eyes, thinking about and trying to feel my body and how it felt, and then putting myself in static positions to try to teach my body to move properly. I couldn't take advice from books or online because there was no information out there that was vaguely related to my issues.

I did things like balance exercises, where I would squat down slightly on one leg, to engage the muscles as they should be engaging. I had to teach myself to walk with proper technique - that which felt as natural and as energy efficient as possible. I discovered the muscles and tendons on each of my legs were significantly different in flexibility, so I worked alot on that by learning to stretch. I noticed different parts of my body were tense and others weren't, so when laying in bed for years I concentrated on loosening some areas and tightening others... It isn't often found in literature about how we use our muscles, how each one of them fires during each movement we make and in what order and how it is controlled by the brain. It's very neurological and I had to learn how to do so many things again. We take for granted everything that we learn as we grow when we're a baby. It is hard to reinstate these natural neurological firings as you get older.

I learnt this all on my own by concentrating on different parts of my body and really feeling how they felt. I still get emotional when I think about the first time I ran in years. I felt free! No one person, profession or physiotherapist could have told me about this. My symptoms were too vague. I mean it took me years to figure out my body even felt a certain way!

So now I am the biggest advocate of exercise, good diet and most of all flexibility. Flexibility for me is the most fundamental, most important, most necessary and most life changing thing that has entered my life. Without stretching and mobility exercises I don't know where I would be or what my health would be like. I don't dare to think about it.

Another life changing moment for me was buying a bike when I was 21. I did this out of necessity actually - to get to work and back as I had no car at the time. It was a painful realisation. Every time I rode my lungs and throat would feel like they were on fire, my legs would be burning and I would be struggling to breathe. It would have helped if I didn't keep waking up so late for work and having to rush! But it only took several months to get to a point where I was enjoying my ride to and from work, and it made me fall in love with cycling.

So here I am, at 31, so unbelievably happy with where I am, health-wise and career-wise. I do sometimes still experience knee pain, but it is always something that stretching or exercise can fix. Always.

I recently had a scare where the doctor told me I potentially had arthritis in my knee, but lo and behold, x-rays showed no arthritis and it turned out to be the way I was positioning my knee as I slept in bed. A bit of knee strengthening exercises and a change to my sleeping position and it is back to full health.