Riding shape, that is (lets not talk about any other kind of shape, ok??). Last weekend I was able to ride Fri, Sat, and Sun - it was heaven. However, my muscles were decidedly not so blissful, particularly my right peroneus longus. On Saturday I was riding the friend's trainer's retired grand prix horse and our lesson was quite long and tough. My right ankle started giving me some serious pains and it really felt like it was just going to shatter. I finally had to ask to take a break by taking my feet out of the stirrups (I was quite embarrassed, I'm not the type to give in to pain, but it was at the point where it was a real stability issue and I was worried about damaging a joint). Feet out of the stirrups helped relieve that pain, but it made me more aware of my burning muscles everywhere Else that were being worked by this horses' awesomely big trot, now without stirrups! Needless to say, I had some recovery in order over the week.
I pulled out my trusty Netters and between that and some avid UpToDate reading determined I must have strained my peroneus longus. I think the excessive time in dorsiflexion and using too much leg not core to try to control my posting must have caused it; I was tender to palpation all the way up my lateral calf over the muscle belly and sharply painful on eversion and plantarflexion (surprising to me why dorsiflexion caused plantarflexion pain, learn something new every day).
(not a lovely Netter image, but you get the idea)
And thus almost two years of medical school is almost, slightly useful, but I still needed textbooks and le internetz to diagnose myself.
I leave you with some photos of my fuzzy little munchkin:
I started to do some clipping to get ready for spring, but unfortunately misjudged the ears, they're a little lopsided!
Luckily I left the rest of the fuzzy quite Fuzzy- it's been super cold this week.
He loves this rope, he'll entertain himself for a good 20min at a time (impressive for him) lying on his back and snuffling and chewing at it.
