Carpe Diem Baby.
Haven’t heard that song in a looooong time. Haven’t heard that band in a long time. Live win, dare fail, eat the dirt and bite the nail-I like that. Funny people moaning about post Black album Metallica not being very heavy. Post black album was when that band got heavy. They slowed down a whole lot, but they they were crushin the scales with lyrical weight and new found base lines. My opinion anyway. Don’t believe me?, compare Until it Sleeps or King Nothing with any of their speed metal tunes from back in the day. Way heavier. I like it all though…kind of. These days I find myself pretty sensitive to negativity in music. Haha, I find myself at the front desk of my gym A LOT more often than before asking to change the music.
The last week has been focused on back rehab, and all, I must say, is lookin up. I’m actually really impressed with Swedish physical therapists. I had my first official visit to one yesterday for my back(DEFINITELY not my first visit to a physical therapist) and I left feeling damn good. Damn good. Really positive experience. Thank you Ingrid. Thank you Frida for referring me. Couple of highlights:using deadlifts and even running(haven’t been able to run in forever) as therapeutic exercises and getting a new Mckenzie adjustment exercise-actually the missing link I’ve been looking for for a couple of years now. Thank God. And I do. Funny that it came in the package it did-as a ’set up’ to the other exercise…this is something that has a lot of meaning to me because lately I have been learning a lot of lessons having to do with just that-making things work by setting them up correctly and then doing whatever it is I have to do. Candida is a perfect example, prebiotics then probiotics.
In other news, I did only a minor crushing of the legs yesterday, given that I was being careful in regards to the back. I’ve pretty much made the decision to live and train for physical health first and goals/accomplishments second. In the back of my mind, I feel like the latter are still important to me, but they’re just not going to be achieved if I don’t get this body in working order. I mean, I was thinking about it yesterday and I have pain in pretty much all my bodyparts. A lot of us experienced trainees do.
I did a 473.25 deadlift when I was 15 and tore ligaments in my lower back, now have problems with herniating discs. Before that I had shoulder impingements and still do. During that same time I started developing forearm and bicep problems that I still have and still haven’t gotten diagnosed. I have periodic elbow pain. I just started getting occassional pec pain. One of my calves is half the size of the other and cramps roughly half the time I try to flex it. I’ve torn my hamstring once and my gastroc twice. Tears are no joke, bud. I think that just about covers it, but shit, that’s a lot. I’m actually glad I listed it all out just now. I’m just 25. That’s a lot. I need to take care of this body! People wonder why I live the way I do…I have to!
Last, I found myself in two somewhat heavy conversations yesterday and the day before, I believe it was. Yesterday’s was really heavy. Funny thing though, for one of the very first time’s in my life I left the conversation with a point to drive down people’s throats still in my throat. I said something that might have made me seem less positive in the eyes of others regarding something that was said at the very end of the discussion and after a moment, I decided to just let it rest. I think the others are more than capable of putting two and two together given everything else I said in the same conversation and given my energy. That was a bit of a test for me…to just be quiet. I need to do a lot more of that. Life is probably helping me by putting me in a country in which the language is still difficult for me.
The other conversation was about bodybuilding. Funny, for the second time in a couple of months I found myself quietly defending the very people I tend to dislike more than others-bodybuilders. It started with me saying my usual schpeal about how I tend to see bbers today and immediately think ‘what are you doing, why are you wearing what you are wearing, why are you acting the way you are acting, why have you decided to de-masculinize your own body and then try to pass it off for the exact opposite…what are you compensating for?’
So I got all that out of my system and then, surprisingly, I found myself thinking ‘wait a second, why does anyone do anything?’ ’what motivates anyone to do anything?’ Well the answer I’ve come up with is curiousity coupled with some kind of want, or in other words, lack. I think the reason most everyone does everything can be boiled down to trying to compensate for some kind of lack…the most enlightened of all people only lacking a sense of satisfaction or maybe even just fun-doing things just because they are bored…but the vast majority seem to do things because we are in some kind of significant discomfort based in fear and separation from what I would call the source, or God. Most people have spread out their compensation over a wide variety of acts and avenues to feeling good, but some have put all the compensation into just one or two things-which sets them apart from the rest, maybe making them stand out as weird or even dysfunction in a way…but I think all boiled down, they are not that different at all from anyone else in regards to their need to compensate. I think you’ll find that most of the people we consider to be the best of the best in anything share this single avenue quality. From music to sports, maybe even to charity.
Just some thoughts…
July 14, 2008 at 11:37 pm
It’s a shame to hear that you are in so much pain and have experienced so many bad injuries! I really hope that your rehab continues well. It sounds like you are doing a good job taking care of yourself, though. Treat your body well and it will reciprocate, right?
July 15, 2008 at 2:54 am
Right!