Both yoga and tai chi have documented benefits for joint mobility and pain, but it is particularly the flowing movements that help, which makes tai chi an even better therapeutic option than yoga. For me, though, the decisive factor was simply that I could do almost all the tai chi moves with very little or no pain. The weekly class I took was outstanding, and, in sharp contrast to the yoga classes, I was the youngest person by a decade or so. Meanwhile, that fall I reluctantly pulled out the hiking poles and started using them. “So poles: I hate them. But I know they are a necessity, so I am going to learn to make them work,” the log from a trip to hike Phelps, Street, and Nye in the High Peaks noted. (It also said, “Nye is the most anti-climactic peak ever,” an undeniable truth that every 46er knows.) On New Year’s Eve we hiked Porter; the snowscape was magical—each individual pine needle on every branch encased in its own snow/ice sheath, moody gray clouds interrupted by bursts of sun that made the snowcovered landscape sparkle, and, as always in the High Peaks, an endless horizon of mountains. By February when we hiked Tabletop, log entries evidence that I was making some peace with the poles. Some. “Poles update: Left them in the parking lot at the High Peaks Info Center. Oops. Figured it out less than a half a mile in, went back to get them. So still not quite there yet emotionally.” In the fall of 2017, we planned a hike across Giant and Rocky Peak Ridge. The ridge has unusually good views, thanks to a 1913 forest fire, and some people consider a fall foliage hike there to be the single most spectacular hike in the Adirondacks. In addition to the tai chi regimen and the hiking poles, we now added a third strategy to help with our aging joints: diclofenac. Diclofenac is a prescription-strength NSAID (nonsteroid anti-inflammatory drug) frequently used for arthritis but favored by our orthopedist for various things in place of ibuprofen or naproxen. Carol and I had both used it for acute injuries, with good results. We now planned to use it prophylactically, like we had ibuprofen for past backpacks. We started a day before the hike and continued until a day after. The proof of diclofenac’s effectiveness was in our MVP awards for the Rocky Peak Ridge hike: “Diclofenac, though it makes us sad to go Big Pharma, for the #1 spot,” the log recorded. The process of figuring out what adjustments to make—and what adjustments I was willing to make—continued into 2018. That spring we upgraded to foldable hiking poles. They are simpler to stow, which means I am more likely to actually use them because they can be easily tucked away for the steep scrambles where both hands are needed and pulled back out just as easily when the terrain changes again. I also gave up on tai chi. I had no doubt that tai chi was helping me. But the class was an hour and a half from my home, and temperamentally tai chi was about as ill-suited to me as anything could be. As a longtime gym rat, I was used to gripping onto a barbell, lowering it to my chest, and then grunting it back up with an intense burst of energy and, often, a few cuss words. My mind was completely clear of everything except the bar and the task of raising it. But when I tried to slowly and gracefully move my arm from my left hip up past my right shoulder, while turning my feet, my mind wandered and questioned whether tai chi was really “doing anything.” Rationally, I knew that it was. But, it turned out, that was not enough. I needed something that was also compatible with my personality. Serendipity intervened and redirected my efforts in a way that became a game changer. In the spring of 2018, I suffered a debilitating ankle sprain that landed me in physical therapy, and the therapist I ended up with had a holistic approach that evaluated my entire body. From there he helped me build a daily exercise program that addressed the hip pain, the tendinitis in my foot, and my knee pain in addition to rebuilding Making Peace with the Poles Physical Therapy, Daily Exercises Are Game Changers Dorothee on Rocky Peak Ridge, 2017 Reluctantly Relying on Big Pharma Carol and Dorothee on Tabletop, 2017 SUMSUMMEMR E2R02402| 34 | 25
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