Sigh…can’t live at the beach forever
What’s the saying? Feel the suck and do it anyway? I don’t quite recall, but that seems to be my workouts lately. After IGSF Worlds in Greece this year I decided to take about 5 weeks off and do non-kettlebell related workouts. Partly because I wanted to throw my kettlebells out the window at one point in my training, but mostly because I have either some awkward anatomy that makes where the bell hits on my left forearm hurt my wrist or I have a weird-o injury that flared up in about June of this year. My doctor has a theory involving weirdness of inner rotation of my shoulder and flared ribs due to laxity in my back that stems from some wicked tight hip flexors. (And imagine if I was still cycling and running like I used to when I was a triathlete training for a half ironman!).
My poor, sad left wrist makes me a little crazy because it is annoying enough that sometimes it gets irritated if I type too much (uh, can any one say NaNoWriMo is irritating it a wee bit…but then again 15K of words in 3 days might do anyone’s forearms in), but it also started acting up after a set of front squats last week. That one just made me say: SRSLY!!!!!
I understand that injuries need time to heal, etc, etc…it just seems that I have some that are uncooperative about healing! I also have a mysterious right Achilles that is not at 100% and I have no idea what I did to it. 18 months ago, I slammed my left Achilles in a gate, but my right? No idea what happened and Achilles are the SLOWEST to heal both due to proximity to the heart (less blood flow) as well as being a ligament…again no blood. So I decided to give my left wrist some down time before I launched into Long Cycle season.
All of this being said, I prefer kettlebell style of training. My preferred style would be mostly kettlebell training and 2 days of barbell work. Right now I’m only doing barbell work and intervals. I have to admit…I miss the ol’ ‘bells.
This weekend I was in the middle of an interval session and it just sucked. I wanted to stop. I really, really, wanted to quit. But I kept going. Inching the speed on the treadmill up with every interval and finished all 10 sets of running intervals. They probably weren’t as fast as I can normally do, but I still pressed on. I had to mentally take myself out of the situation and just tell myself…keep going. Intervals are painful no matter how you slice them, but usually I’m OK about relaxing and just pushing through them. This weekend I just didn’t want to be there.
Why do I spend the time to even blog about this? Because too often people assume that once you get into the ‘fitness world’, whether you are an athlete, trainer or just general exerciser…that getting the workout done every day is EASY somehow. Not really. Not at all. Muhammad Ali is quoted as saying:
“I hated every minute of training, but I said, ‘Don’t quit. Suffer now and live the rest of your life as a champion’.”
For me, I still need goals and training plans or I’m more likely to sit on the couch eating ice cream and watch Grimm than I am just to wander into a gym because I feel like it. Fitness and health are choices that we get to chose. When I was in-explainably sick in 2010 for almost 5 months, I truly gained a lot of perspective on how health and fitness are both choices as well as blessings. Not everyone is so blessed.
So, some days the workouts really aren’t fun to do, but it always feels great when it is done and having the capacity to even be able to DO these types of crazy activities is really an awesome thing. Now…go move that booty!
Wellness Habits 