Frustration
Thursday, January 31st, 2008Frustration comes in many forms. For those of us trying to change our bodies, we know this all too well. For me my frustration comes in the form of fighting injuries. Since 2003 when I started my first Body for Life challenge I have done a great job of injuring myself while trying to work out. It appears that no matter how slow I take it in the beginning, I find a way to injure myself. So the first couple of challenges were more like 2-3 week sprints instead of a 12 week challenge, mostly because I would find a way to hurt myself. Right now I can not count the number of times I have "tweaked" my back and had to take a lay off from my goal of transforming my body. Trust me I understand I am not as young as I used to be, but I am not that out of shape either, so I had to dig deep to figure out my problem. I found it in the beginning of 2005 and I realized that after a few weeks I was feeling so good at being back in the gym that I would over estimate my gains and over tax my body making me prone to injury. I was very happy with my "A- Ha" moment and then… I had to have knee surgery! It turned out that somehow I had torn the meniscus in my left knee as well as I had some scar tissue call Plica in my knee. The Plica is from when your knee forms, everyone has it, but it doesn’t bother everyone, just the lucky fee like me. Somehow this scar tissue moved or with the tear in my meniscus was interfering with my knee, so it had to come out. I was very unhappy, I was on a roll, I had made it through the first 5 weeks of a BFL Challenge and it had to be put on hold for my surgery. I was determined though, this wasn’t going to slow me down. So post surgery I worked my body as best I could outside of my rehab for my knee. I worked with my PT for weeks until my knee was ready for bodyweight squats and other weighted exercises. I was feeling great. Things were progressing along and eventually I was able to start with Leg Curls, Leg Extensions, Leg Presses and Weighted Squats. I was doing cardio in the morning by either walking, running (on and off a treadmill) or on an ellipitical. My weight was coming down, I was eating clean. Weeks went by like this, my knee felt ok and it felt even great at times. The fall of 2005 had come and gone, I was down to close to 190 for the first time in almost 8 years, my goal weight of 15 at the time was very close. Christmas and New Years came, I took a little time off for myself to enjoy the holidays and I felt great. 2006 came and I was right back at it. I hit the year anniversary of my knee surgery and things were going very well. I wasn’t lose much weight, but my bodyfat was dropping. When I had started it was over 25 percent and now it was down closer to 15. I felt great. Then it all came to an end, one day while I was running I felt a slight pain in my left knee, I didn’t do anything, didn’t fall, didn’t twist, nothing, just pain. The next day I was eating breakfast and I turned to do something in the kitchen and a load POP noise came out of my knee. I thought this can’t be good. But there wasn’t any pain, it was leg day so I was being conscious of it, so I just went about my workout. Everything was fine, I didn’t have any issues and my knee didn’t hurt at all. Great things are fine no worries, until a few days later when I went to run up the stairs at my house, I felt like a bolt had been pushed up from my shin through my knee cap into my knee. Ok I had to admit something was wrong after that. I emailed my surgeon and got an MRI set up and sure enough there was a "cartilage defect" in my knee. I had to set up another surgery, but it was the middle of the summer and I didn’t want to deal with it at this point, they told me I would be fine to put it off, since from the MRI it didn’t look that serious. Sometimes my friends, MRI’s are wrong! I put off the surgery until October and when the surgeon got in there he found that my knee was a mess. He had to do the more complicated micro fracture procedure. Which meant 6 months to a year of rehab until I am at full strength again. Heck it takes athletes who get paid to take care of their bodies over 6 months to get better from this (ask Chris Webber, Amare Stodumaire, Jason Kidd and no Greg Oden just to name a few). It was a grueling process to rehab and still is. But I did it like clockwork everyday. I had good days and bad days, but I was on my way. Fast forward from October until July of 2007 and the injury bug hits me again… This time I tweak my back, lifting weights.. Well this rant has all been because it has been over 6 months with back pain, all from a muscular injury. My low back, glutes and hammies are tighter then a guitar string and every day I am in pain. Yes, I have blogged about feeling better with PT, Yoga and Pilates, and true I have felt better, but never have I felt 100 percent. So I am frustrated, but at least this rant made me feel better.
View all comments | Leave Comment