I hiked in the Tetons.
Injury Diaries, Part 11. Vacation hikes and the miraculous work of dry needling.
August 1, I woke up in a tent at a campground on the north side of Grand Teton National Park, ate a breakfast burrito that was crisped on a camp stove, and took a hike with my roommate and her friend.
We were in the Tetons for five days, camping, exploring, and in my case, failing to sleep in a comfortable position. My neck locked up that first morning and I ended up making a pit stop at the Target in Jackson, Wyoming, for a pillow after night two.
This trip had been planned since February or March. From early in my surgical recovery, I had “hiking in the Tetons in August” as a goal. Hopefully, my ankle would be ready for a few miles by then.
My roommate — yes, this same roommate — the mastermind of the trip, had a 14-mile hike through a canyon scoped out. It was her nonnegotiable. By June, though, it was obvious that I wasn’t going to be able to complete it. No big deal. My friend, who joined us on August 2, didn’t have any interest in hiking 14 miles. The two of us would do a shorter trail or something else entirely.
My ankle was feeling good, way smoother and more mobile than it had a month earlier. Two physical therapy visits prior, on July 15, I showed up complaining about stiffness in my ankle. Any time I tried to squat or simply drive my knee forward, it locked up.
My physical therapist pitched the idea of dry needling the area. I immediately agreed.
I’d had dry needling before: When I was dealing with low back / sacroiliac issues in 2018, a chiropractor incorporated dry needling into my treatment (chiropractic treatment did not resolve my issues and I have since become a physical therapy advocate). In 2020, when I hurt my knee playing tennis, my physical therapist at the time also used dry needling.
This time around, the effect was immediately noticeable.
First, my therapist poked two needles into the front of my ankle, where it was stiff and locked up. It hurt, guys. Like, it always feels weird when the needles go in, but this time, they must have been traveling through some gnarly tissue because getting them all the way in took some effort and I had to grit my teeth and scrunch my face to keep from yelping with pain.
I can’t remember if my PT used the electric current on those first needles or if she just let the needles rest in my ankle, but after a while, she pulled them out, had me flip over on the table, and stuck four more needles into the back of my calf and ankle. This time, she used the electric current on two different needles. The current forces the muscles around the needles to spasm, with the goal of wearing them out so they’ll fully relax. It’s a bizarre experience — a forced muscle cramp, but your brain doesn’t understand why it’s happening.
Afterward, my therapist had me do some ankle mobilization to see how my dorsiflexion had improved. It was way better. I didn’t have that locking sensation when I drove my knee over my toes. My ankle felt the closest to normal that it had since surgery.
It stayed that way the next two weeks. The days leading up to my Tetons trip, I squatted with my feet flat on the ground, no heel elevation, without difficulty. I went to PT the day before we left for Wyoming, and my physical therapist asked if I’d like more dry needling.
“I don’t think I need it,” I told her. “I think that did the trick.”
She ended up having me do more bounding and shuffling and changing direction instead. I worked up a sweat from what felt like slow motion running. “How does that feel?” she asked. “It feels fine in my ankle,” I replied. “I’m just out of shape.”
The next day, we drove through Wyoming. We gawked at the Tetons when they appeared like a jagged wall on our drive, backlit by the sun, and we set up camp around dusk. The following morning, after an ideal camp breakfast, we left for a 3.8-mile hike to Taggart Lake. I brought my ankle brace in my backpack just in case, but didn’t end up using it. We took a long break at the lake — jumped in, ate lunch — and my ankle and foot felt rested enough to go without it on the way back.
In an effort to stick with my physical therapy exercises over vacation, I brought a yoga mat to stretch on. That afternoon, I spread it under a tree at our campsite and started to stretch my ankle, but I didn’t get very far before I was distracted. The mat stayed under the tree for another day or two, before I rolled it up and stashed it on the bear box. I’d intended to at least do my stretching, but who was I kidding?
Sunday, August 3, was the big hike day, and because we only had one car, that meant it was an early morning for everyone. All four of us (now that my friend had arrived) got up bright and early and piled in the car to get half of our squad to the trailhead. There, my roommate tossed me her keys, and I drove my friend back to the campsite so we could actually get ready for the day. We were late for a nature walk, where we’d hoped to learn about the regional flora (though it all looked the same as what I see in Colorado), so we gave up that plan and opted to hike around the short side of Jenny Lake instead.
On the far side of the lake, after seeing from a distance what we were told was a brown black bear eating wild berries, we pushed through some steep elevation gain and hazardous-to-the-ankle rocky trails to soak in Hidden Falls and enjoy the view at Inspiration Point. My lungs were challenged on the way up; my legs felt it on the way down. My foot and ankle were fatigued by the end, and they welcomed rest when we rode the ferry back across the lake.
I’ve been back in Denver now for over a week, and I’ll be honest: skipping my stretching for five days took a toll on my ankle mobility. When I got back, my ankle was the stiffest it had been since the dry needling. But resuming stretching has already helped me regain most of my pre-vacation fluidity. I turned down dry needling again this week because I can tell that stretching will do the job. (Though I might change my mind by next time.)
I’m back to much of my normal activities. Long walks, hiking (aka long walks through the woods), lifting. My PT exercises right now are focused on explosion and absorption. My physical therapist has encouraged me to see what jogging feels like (“but don’t just go out for a run.”). This week, I did a tough leg workout that put me out of breath and left me sore for days. My ankle is not normal, and I’m not sure it will ever be, but it’s coming along. And I’m eager for the next thing.
Barring something incredibly exciting or interesting happening, there will probably only be one more installment in this series — and that’ll be when I’m able to run again. Let me know what else you’d like to read about in future editions of Women’s Barbell Club by completing this survey.
Previously in Women’s Barbell Club…
Recommended Reads
Do You Need to Drink Electrolytes? (New York Times)
These Are the Most Common Myths About Building Core Strength, According to a Physical Therapist (Outside)
The Virtue of Integrity (The Atlantic)
What’s coming next?
Something reported on the way for September.