Pain is a good teacher. Unfortunately, it’s a very harsh teacher.
I thought I was ready to jump back into working out and getting my bike riding in, etc. It seems as though I was a bit overly-optimistic as I spent a few days last week in pain. I guess I wasn’t quite ready to dive back into a full training load yet. I’ll have to ease back into it I guess, but taking my time is frustrating!
It’s better to come back weak and be able to regain my strength than it is to rush my healing process and risk never coming back. I will wait some more, I just wish that I could do so with perfect patience.
The plan for this week: “Get back into the swing of things”. Return to the Program Minimum for June. Alternate focus/intensity between Getups and Swings on the days of the program, but do both on Work days:
- Monday: Warm up (Wall Squats, Halos, Pumps; Indian Club swinging); TGU 5 mins; Swings for Volume
- Tuesday: Warm up; TGU 10 min; Swings @ half of Monday’s load
- Wednesday: Active rest: Warm up; focus on skills (Clean, High Pulls, Snatch)
- Thursday: Warm up; Swings for Volume; TGUs while smoked (5 min max)
- Friday: Warm up; TGUs 10 min; Half of Thursday’s swing load
- Saturday: Active Rest: Warm up; skills again
- Sunday: “full rest”: Warm up only.
Will try this for the “Month” of June and see how it goes. I’ll blog my workouts as needed, and update if there’s any changes. What’s the goal with this? Goals are the following:
- Get back into moving the metal
- Have some fun while adding some variety into my workouts
- Begin to rebuild the stability in my shoulders
- Get strong(er)
- …
- Profit
So there you have it. There will be bike riding in there too, but this is just my strength regimen.
I’m hoping that this week will see my glorious return to both class and cycling. I’m really, really looking forward to sweating again: it’s been almost 2 weeks since I’ve done anything more significant than take out the trash (which I guess is pretty significant some times), and I’m feeling fairly antsy. Almost like I can’t sit still it’s bugging me so bad. But, I’m going to wait.
Why wait? Why not pick up my 16kg Kettlebell and go to town? Why not grab my sandbag and do some Squats? Jump right back into where I was in the “New Blood” routine from Convict Conditioning? How about going out back and swinging around my Indian Clubs for a while? Are you starting to see the problem? I’m suffering from a lack of direction in my training, to say the least. I’m not sure where to pick up again, and not really sure where I should (re)start my training on. I know I’ve got the following goals in mind:
And it’s that last “???” that’s the problem: other than being on the bike, I don’t have any other goals this year. Maybe that’s really fine for some folks, but I’ve got a hankering to move up to my 24kg Kettlebell, and eventually tame the 36kg one that’s just waiting to have me do something other than just deadlifting it. I’d like to build on my fitness advances from last summer, and get back into the swing of things and improve my strength and co-ordination, really loose the gut once and for all. But that’s not all: I’ve also got my martial arts to think about: I’m working towards being the first Black Sash to come out of my school, as well as my SanDan to consider. I’ve got things in front of me, and I”m not sure which direction I should be pointing my energy…and that’s the problem.
So the take home from all of this is two-fold:
- I have a lot on my plate
- My plate has many options
I feel like I’m standing in line at a buffet restaurant and I can ‘t make up my mind what I want. My options feel like:
- A Martial Artist who also cycles and dabbles in Weightlifting
- A Cyclist who also practices Karate, GungFu and dabbles within physical culture
- A Physical Culturist who also happens to be a Martial Artist who likes to ride his bike
- A fitness professional who can’t make up his mind what direction to go in himself
that last one is where I’ve been. I’m not sure to what level this navel gazing is going, but one thing is for sure: I’m not going to be good for anyone or anything until I decide what I’m going to do and really devote my energy to my goal.
So for now I’m going to practice patience and see what develops…
Yesterday was a good day, pain wise. I didn’t feel like I had to take my pain meds before bed or really any time after my afternoon dose. I thought I could do all of the following:
- Take out the trash: ~ 75lbs, dragged on wheels
- Bring in the cat food: 25lbs bag
- Bring Fuji bike into bike shop for repair: 21lbs
all on no pain meds, beyond a dose around 3:00 yesterday. Well, I sure showed myself what “overdoing it a little bit” feels like this morning. I wouldn’t say I’m in pain per se, but I’m not in no pain either. I was going to try to ride my bike into work today, but with the fact that I took pain meds (just ibuprofen, but still pain meds), I think I’m going to skip it. No sense in causing myself any setbacks just because I’m impatient. Yesterday showed me that I can still do some fairly light weight carrying, which bodes well for the Booksale this weekend, but I don’t want to overdo it by subjecting my groin tear to direct contact with my bike saddle.
One more day of driving into work isn’t going to kill me…right?
Yesterday was mostly pain free. It wasn’t completely pain free, but I only took Ibuprofen twice and again before bed. Things are starting to really improve I think. Today, I’m going to try taking out the trash and see how that feels: if it’s fine, I’ll try riding my bike to work tomorrow (slowly of course). Going to take my Fuji up to the bike shop tonight to have them try to fix the front shifter, which is messed up 20 ways to Sunday. This is going to be one of those it’s either going to fix it 100% or it’s going to cost me a fortune to fix situations. I’m betting on the former, since we’ve had to do this before…
I’m hoping to be able to start riding regularly again soon, since I’ve got my LiveStrong Challenge coming up, as well as the Ride for Life. And there may be an extra challenge to the LSC, we’ll see…
Woke up this morning in no pain. This is a good sign! I’m hoping this will translate into being able to do everything that I wanted to this weekend. I’m still not planning on rushing the healing, since doing that in the past has only lead to trouble for me. I’m taking it nice and slow, and will enjoy the recovery process.
Well the good news is that this morning the area that I thought was where my “hernia” was doesn’t hurt at all. The bad news of course being that my groin hurts, but it hurts in the “classic groin pull” sort of way, so that’s something, right?
My plan is still to let this thing heal all the way before beginning any serious training again, but man it’s going to be a long road if I’ve got to keep giving it complete rest in this manner. I’m hoping to be back on my bike by the end of the month at the latest. Here’s hoping, right?
According to the surgeon, he doesn’t think that it’s a hernia, just a torn/pulled groin. 3-6 weeks and I should be back to normal. I’m hoping that he’s right, as the alternative is the so called sports hernia which sounds like even less fun.
The surgeon seemed to think that if this doesn’t go away on its own that we should reevaluate, but my gut is telling me that this will go away with proper rest. I hear tell that if I don’t rest appropriately that I’ll know it, and I shouldn’t do anything to strain myself for the next few weeks. I’ll be taking the rest of this week off from class, and returning next week with some minimal activity there (only the Chi Kung that I’m working on)… but more on that to follow soon 
Today’s my (first) consult with the surgeon. Hopefully also the last. My hope is that they’ll be able to either schedule me for tonight or some time tomorrow for the procedure. I can’t sit at a desk for any extended period at the moment, so I can’t work, so that should be a driving factor…I hope.
There’s a fine line between “pain” and just sheer discomfort. As a martial artist, I have an acute understanding of both experiencing and dealing pain. As part and parcel of the training, we get to feel the technique applied to us and at least I then know how it more or less feels.
So what does this mean? Well, it means that I have a better understanding of pain and what my tolerances are for it. I get to have the fun of really knowing the differences on the pain scale. Usually when it comes to having a Chin Na applied to me or a Jujitsu technique, I understand how long the pain will last. The problem with my hernia is that first of all the pain isn’t intense, it’s just constant — constantly annoying. It’s not really bad pain, more like a 2-3 on a regular basis, so long as I can focus on something else. So that’s what I’m doing today.
Yesterday I spent too much time “overdoing it” as you might say. Today, I’m taking it easy. Three more days until I can see the surgeon to discuss my options. It is my sincere hope that you, gentle reader, never have to experience this for yourself. I believe that there are some things that everyone should feel. This isn’t one of them.
