elfs | "My diagnosis is... you're forty. And you've got no butt."

I do not love driving in the rain at 6:45 in the morning to reach my physiotherapist by 7:00. The physio's close, less than three blocks away, but the schedule meant that I'd have to drive into work, thus killing another writing day. This was my first appointment, and the physio proceeded to work me through a series of poses and exercises, and her diagnosis was more or less what I described in the subject. "You're forty. And you've got no butt."

Apparently, my problem is exceptionally common in men my age. I just walk wrong. I use the inner thigh muscles to climb stairs, rather than the whole leg, and the outer muscles, including the ones in my buttocks, have begun to atrophy with age. Eventually, this catches up and starts to pull the kneecap out of line. So now I have a new set of exercises to do on a daily basis to pull the outer muscles in line with the inners.

Joy. Six weeks of daily exercises and weekly physio, then another trip to the doctor's see if I'm improving.

She did say she was pleased to see me come in when my pain was low and intermittent. Most guys, she said, wouldn't come in until it was constant and unignorable. I said that it was new, it wasn't getting better, and I wasn't going to let it get that bad. From age 40 to 60, men who don't exercise regularly lose 1% of their muscle mass every year-- and with it, 1% of the body structure that uses food energy rather than convert it to fat. Our major task during these years is to exercise to retain as much muscle as possible, as much functionality. Knee dysfunction would seriously hamper that project. She was pleased with both my appreciation of the task ahead of me and my apparent determination to be up to it.