The thing they don’t tell you about disability is your mobility is reduced = you are homebound = you can’t move as much = other conditions develop. My left calf has been hurting for a few weeks now on and off and I think I know exactly why but the hard part is doing something about it. I’ve been doing stretches and they help but not a lot.

On top of which my gym days are completely over, even if I could get equipment to use at home I could not use it meaningfully. Sometimes even picking up and putting stuff down is too much.

Navigating this completely new situation has been tough over the past year, I want to be more physically active but how can you be when even the slightest effort above putting a frozen pizza in the oven can trigger an episode.

In a fit of despair I asked deepseek. I wasn’t expecting anything but I figured, let’s just see. can’t hurt.

it suggested some exercises with more or less accuracy. at first i thought, i could never do those, they’re too much (yes even the less intensive exercises). I was completely despairing. the more i told it i can’t do these, the more it devolved into suggesting nonsense like “imagining” im doing the exercises.

From someone who used to go to the gym several times a week this is very tough to accept that you won’t be lifting barbells anymore. I felt like those low-impact exercises, even if i could do them, would barely do anything. I was just doomed to waste my muscles away, compounding back, calf and triceps problems from not using my body physically on top of the disability. That was it.

but truthfully i was just in a bad spot. For the past 3 days ive been having nonstop episodes again, i think because im doing too much and borrowing energy from tomorrow but anyway.

so a few minutes later i went back to the chat and looked the suggestions over. I had specifically requested exercises I could do sitting or lying down. And since i was lying in bed, i figured, let’s just try this one and see, it doesn’t seem to be asking for too much effort.

It went surprisingly well. Okay, not completely well, but it was manageable and it did relieve some pressure in my lower back. It was what deepseek called “hip rocks”, pushing your hips down onto the floor as hard as you can with your knees bent and feet on the ground, and then alternating with pushing your hips up in the air and holding the position. Not quite hip thrusts since this is more isometric and you don’t push as high, but it was low-effort enough for me. Normally you would do something like this on the hard floor instead of a mattress so you have resistance when you press down, but i can’t do that.

After that one went fine, i looked at the other exercises. it had suggested some stuff for calves that didn’t really do anything for me (but i have weird calves), chest exercises that I really didn’t get with like a doorway, and an upper back exercise with shoulders that also seems to help.

by the end i was happy i did them.

so i started asking it for more exercises for what i wanted to target - my neck feels stiff too, i wanted other calf exercises (nothing that I liked though tbh except from my stretches), and now i have a “program” of sorts: I just have to do it when i get in bed, and the other ones I can do throughout the day (like the corner stretch for your chest which i do in the bathroom, though i don’t really get that one)

i only started yesterday but i already feel better, both physically and mentally. my neck is still stiff but i can tell this is helping my other muscle groups already.

i dont bother with counting seconds or reps. i couldn’t even handle that tbh. i just do it for as long as it feels good or i get too tired.

Like i said the accuracy is eh. it gets the gist right but for some of them kinda devolves into hallucinations. i looked up the names on youtube instead and found video explanations that were a bit different. They worked the way deepseek provided them, it just was a bit tough to follow.

now i just need to find a sustainable way to manage weight.