I’d noticed my right knee was a little sore. No biggie – I spend a lot of time running around after a pre-schooler. Or carrying loads of the paraphernalia that comes with a pre-schooler. Or carrying loads of shopping home. Or carrying that said pre-schooler.

All scenarios providing multiple opportunities for me to somehow bruise my knee without realising. So, I paid the soreness no attention and carried on. I’m still doing loads of walking and restorative/natural movement exercises and just powered on through.

On a recent talk I braved the cold and wore short leggings and noticed what you can see in the main photo. A very swollen and quite red knee…

Turns out this wasn’t a regular bruise. I sent photos to my physio friend who pointed out it requires a doctor visit, who pointed out that I’d sprained the thing. Just a mild sprain but no exercise for 2 weeks.

This was a message I needed to hear. I’d been so enthusiastic about this ‘natural movement’ journey I wasn’t listening to my body and was racing through the restorative exercises. These included lots of lunges. Which I was doing without much mindfulness, to be honest.  Which means I wasn’t paying attention to my alignment…

I think what happened is that while doing lunges with not great alignment, I wasn’t supporting my knee enough.  And while the doc said normal walking is fine (thank goodness! – we are walking a lot), heavy load bearing on the knee isn’t. 

Maybe I’ve been overdoing it, or need a reminder that I’m in this for the long term! No quick fixes, this is about getting more movement into the rest of my life. So, a few low key weeks of plenty of walking and a focus on core stability & alignment ahead…!