Walk like ein Deutch

Lately my physical therapy appointments have been a lot about trying to be creative, and come up with new avenues for aiding my recovery. I have already tried most of the "normal" physical therapy strategies, and while certainly some of them are still helpful, a big part of neurological recovery has to do with challenging oneself with variety. I am now over a year and a half into recovery, so it takes some thinking outside the box to come up with new challenges that are at the right level and promote incremental improvement. I am lucky to have (and to have had previously) excellent physical therapists.

My current physical therapist likes to search for new and unusual things in this catalog. A few weeks ago, she found something that she thought might be good for me to try – German Nordic walking poles with wheels. When you search the Internet for these, you don't get a ton of information, and most of it is in German. But they were on sale, came with a good return policy, and did look like fun.

Just look at how much fun these people are having

I went ahead and ordered them, and they arrived in about a week. They came with very few instructions, and most were in badly translated German. I brought them to my next physical therapy session, and we played around with them a bit. They definitely provide a full body workout, and although a bit awkward, also offer a bit of balance assistance. My physical therapist was impressed with how my walking seemed to be more upright, balanced, and even.

It is still quite challenging to walk with them, but challenging at the right level, so I think I'll be keeping them. See how I almost look normal walking with these, besides the fact that I am dragging curved poles with wheels behind me? You almost wouldn't know I was working on recovery, and might think I was just part of a strange German fitness fad!