[RC] managing over 50 - shermanAt 58 I know it takes so much more effort to stay in shape. I do believe that riding keeps my core strong. I fast walk regularly, up & down hills, about 3 miles, try to do it 3-4 times a week. But recently had a muscle spasm that sounded like the same area that you talked about and after 6 weeks of constant excrutiating pain, chiropractic care, RX drugs (just so I could sleep) message, acupuncture, healing oils and magnet therapy, the spasm stopped and now, after 3 1.2 months, I still still have some nerve pain, tingling, numbness in the arm, but is slowly diminishing. When my shoulders and back was feeling so tight, I pulled out my 20 yr old Crystal Light Aerobic Champions Exercise tape and boy do I feel better after an hour with my old exercise buddies. Funny thing...they haven't aged (:<(. It's low impact aerobics so there are lots of high arm movements incorporated into the routines to keep the heart rate up. My back, shoulders and arms feel wonderful after a workout. All the body movements involved in riding and "living" don't usually include many repetitive high arm movements. I think that lack of regular full body exercise contributed to my muscle spasm. I don't recall any specific action that caused it. I still carefully lift 50# bags of feed, I flip the hay bales, I try to not "overdo" anything, instead do little pushes to improve or just to keep up. People respond differently to the different formulations of glucosamine/chondroitin. After about 3 mos, if one formulation doesn't ease the joint pain, then try a different formulation. I have good results with both Costco's and Trader Joe's least expensive, and so does my dog. And I do take a double dose of the MSM if I feel any inflammation going on. Also, if you sit at a computer be sure to do arm stretches frequently (stretch everyone!) Kathy p.s. can you rig up a pulley system to get that hay ring up the hill? =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-= Ridecamp is a service of Endurance Net, http://www.endurance.net. Information, Policy, Disclaimer: http://www.endurance.net/Ridecamp Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://www.endurance.net/ridecamp/logon.asp Ride Long and Ride Safe!! =-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
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