...travel exercise for long drives... I'm curious - what exercise did he prescribe? Something for while you're driving, or for stops along the way?

I have a long-chronic hip spot that is too tight to allow good leg position when I am driving. It pulls against a muscle trying to roll the leg in to get the knee straight... the result is persistent knee pain from screaming tendons and ligaments. While I drive I need to rely on one hip muscle behaving differently, and then I can also do this stretch every time I stop for a pee break. (Since I also need to drink more water, it's a great combined strategy.)

This is particular to my own anatomy/weak places, but it's a stretch football and hockey players do called an IT stretch. They do it on the ground, but she showed me a few other ways runners do it, standing and/or using a low table as a support.

There are lots of ways to stretch the IT (or any joint or muscle); a PT can show you ALL of them from a range of positions. The trick is to pick the ones that work for you AS THEY ARE PRESCRIBED. At the place I'm going, then they print off a drawing to remind you what goes where and in what direction the force is applied.

My main-PT Tina showed me one version awhile back in the pool. Today it was her boss (Ms. MJ) driving this bus, with footballer/skier (Mr. Jay) helpfully doing various other demos with her on the floor while Hardi showed the pic and I talked about how my eyes and body had responded so excitedly when I saw it in hockey. It's just the nest cool thing I can feel that I need to do.

A few they've shown me: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_c55IYpoGZQ

I guess this is all just Applied Anatomy, but it's new (and FUN) to me.

~S~