You Only Have One Body, Take Care Of It

A lot of things have happened since my last post. That's usually the case when five months pass between blogs. I suffered a back injury in August and have been fighting the mental warfare it creates. The iron is my best friend and my worst enemy; regardless of the persona it takes on, it's always there to teach me a lesson. This go 'round it's taught me a few but the main lesson is "You only have one body, take care of it."

1. Have a professional check out your injuries sooner rather than later

If you're like me, you may be a workhorse. If you're in pain, you keep it yourself. If it's bad, open your mouth and "tell an adult."

I dealt with my shoulder for so long, pain during a workout seemed inevitable and normal. I'd rationalize it and push it away. It takes a lot for me to say something. My back was hurting before Nationals but I chalked it up to the intense training we had been doing. We hosted a seminar with Ryan Moody in August and still, my back was bothering me. I chalked it up to getting back into high impact movements. Throughout this time period I worked on what I thought the issues may be: hip flexors, psoas, stabilizers. I never wore a belt and thought it may relieve the pain. Nope. I thought maybe my form was causing it. I changed some things around and sought extra sets of professional eyes. Nope; all the mechanics were solid. Nothing I did helped.

Then Labor Day came. I had to work up to a heavy single for squat and deadlift. My back was hurting and I only got to 255 (far from heavy for me) and I stopped. Deadlifts went the same way. Very rarely do I not finish a session but I knew something was wrong. Still...I continued to lift. I took a week and came back to lifting.

I put 95 on the bar to squat and I had to literally bail at the bottom because the pain was so intense. I had the squats SS with kneeling jumps and I decided to try to do those instead. Those did not happen at all. I walked into my boss' office (it was vacant but a class was going on), crawled under the desk and cried. A 95 squat was NOT something that should hurt me. Did I seek help yet? Of course not.

I woke up one morning with pain radiating from my back into my leg rendering it numb. The pain had kept me up at night. It hurt to sit, to stand, to drive, to squat, to move, to bend. That was scary and my Sensei demanded I go see a doctor. That was the turning point for me. Something was sincerely wrong and no amount of stretching and rest was fixing it. I needed professional help. So I finally asked for it. With tears in my eyes and choking up every other word, I told my boss my concerns. He agreed and off to the doctor I went.

For the next few months we did everything we could think of to diagnosis and pin point the problem. My doctor is an avid athlete and understood all of my concerns. He sought out every avenue to relieve the pain and find the source. Adjustments, Graston, tons of tape variations, X-Rays, stretches, heat, NSAIDs, rest, nutrition, took out certain exercises, checked my arches, my spine, my SI...... It appeared to be a torn tendon and the inflammation needs to go down before we can move on. Even with rest, it's taking a while.

2. Listen to your health providers

When they tell you to rest....rest.

During this trial and error period I listened to the doctor....kind of. In the beginning it was insanely difficult. "Don't squat? Don't deadlift? What? How?" So I didn't. The pain stayed away during cleans which was odd as it was basically (used lightly) a deadlift into a squat...the two movements which killed me. Front squats killed me. Wall balls killed me. I PRed during this time period on my clean and jerk but the inflammation in my back had barely gone down. So we took out cleans. I was able to row for a while but the pain would resurface. Inflammation was still present. Out went rowing. Core work stretched that tendon so it went away. All that was left was bench, upper body, rows, Crossover Symmetry and beautiful curls/dumbbell movements. After a lot of trial and error, and being forced to sit during most coaching sessions due to the intense pain present from daily activities, we started making some headway and the inflamation lessened.

When the doctor said no lower body at all. I almost had a melt down. Who am I kidding....I had a melt down. But I listened to him.

3. Ask for help

For an independent individual, nothing hurts worse than having to ask for help. It took me a while to learn this iron lesson and I'm still working on it.

I never allow my athletes at weightlifting meets to load their own bars in the warm up room. Even when I was hurting I never told them. I loaded their bars. I did what I had to do. Driving long distances killed my back and I'd come home from a meet exhausted and hurting. I'd do it again in a heartbeat because I love it but if I was going to continue and get back on the platform, I needed help. A weightlifting meet was coming up and I enlisted the help of a friend to load the bars in the warm up room. Atthat meet I loaded one side of a bar and the pain started again so I had to mentally tell myself to stop and I sat. I allowed the friend to load the bars as I read out the weight needed for the bar. I still hurt when I got home but it could have been worse. 

Bending over hurt but at practices I started using a weightlifting "Vanna White" to demo positions or whatever it was I needed at the time for another athlete. Your team is a family and asking for help should be easy, not difficult, when you really need it. As the head of the family, I hated to ask but you lead by example and sometimes it takes an even stronger individual to ask for it. I asked one of our young lifters if he wanted to start shadowing us as coaches to help take some of the stress off my back but also to foster his love for the sport.

Even coaching group classes hurt me because I can't sit still and I want to demo and do it all for the class. Unfortunately, the inflammation was present and coaching just one class put me in pain the rest of the day. Coaching 3 classes and I was toast. I had to sit more and stop myself from running around the room like I usually did. However the only way to stop that was lessen the class load I carried. I had to ask my boss' help for that.

4. Mental health is just as important as physical health

You are your own worst enemy and when you have an injury, be your own hero and use that brain for good. You're going to need all the allies you can get.

The biggest battle I face during an injury, especially a prolonged one, concerns food and eating disordered thoughts. To ask for help in this arena is the hardest thing I have to face because I have to face myself. The barbell kept my ED demons at bay; it made me ok with not knowing my weight or with how my body looked because I was strong. Take that away from me and the demons crept back in. After the injury and the lack of lower body movement, the demons took hold. I started to not eat. When I did eat, I felt intense guilt, remorse and shame. I avoided mirrors. I avoided social interactions. I made up reasons not to hang out at parties or dinner. I refused to wear jeans. I refused to do my hair. "What's the point?" I'd think: I'm nothing without squatting. I imagined I gained so much weight which was untrue. I avoided scales. I told doctors and seamstress not to tell me numbers aloud. I bought bigger clothes that swallowed me. I wore sweatshirts to hide myself.

I knew this was not healthy behavior as I had seen it all before at various stages of my life. So I asked my Sensei for help. Food overwhelmed me and I chose to be ignorant about it. This individual gave me an overview of what foods did, we talked about why I felt how I did and how to fix it. I began a self imposed recovery process where I would look up a fact about a food/health/body parts daily and report back. If I felt ugly and hated myself, I would have to wear human clothes. I would have to go try on jeans. I would have to do my hair and go in public. I would force myself to look in the mirror. Take pictures.

I'm still working on this. There are days I literally cried over my food. I've been caught crying in the garage over dinner because I didn't want anyone to see me eating. I've talked out loud to the dog about a plate of sweet potatoes and steak telling myself what each one did for my body and why I needed to eat it. Some days I spat food out because it was disgusting to my brain. I thought "I didn't work out hard why do I need to eat?". Well, without food, your body has nothing to work with and it can't heal. Cliche and corny but food really is fuel.

This is still a work in progress and the hardest lesson to learn. I'm embarassed to talk about it because I feel like people see me as this overweight individual who can't possibly have an ED. And that's the problem with society. I wanted to share this in case anyone else is dealing with the same issues. It's OK to talk about it. It's ok to take action to fight against it.


5. If you injure one part of your body, you have others to focus on

There is ALWAYS something you can train and work on. Always. Training makes you happy so continue to do it! You're mental game will be much better if you do.

When my shoulder was injured, I worked on legs and cardio. When my back got hurt, I focused my attention on my upper body and bench press. I worked on shoulder and scap stability/mobility. I did a Smolov program. I focused on BP form and what do you know? My shoulders felt the best they have ever felt and I PRed my bench press and strict press (and my bicep curls). I even power snatched my old max one day; something doctors told me I'd never do again.

Be thankful for every day you can train. For every day you can do what you love. The iron is there waiting to teach you. You don't have to hide from it even if you aren't at 100%. There were days early on, and even now, where I'll see someone doing a barbell movement I get sad. I get emotional. I miss it. I visited my hero's facility at one point and I had to walk outside and shed a few tears because I was so overwhelmed. The barbell isn't just a sport. It's a way of life. It's my therapy. It's my happy. It's in blood. I can't get it out. Nor would I ever want to.

Where there's a will, there's a way. When my back heals my upper body is going to be ready to claw our way back to Nationals.

6. Throw yourself into your passions

If you follow me on social media it's wildly apparent I love my job, I love weightlifting, and I love coaching. This injury has further pushed me into coaching on a deeper level. I've focused on programming. I've gone down the YouTube rabbit holes more times than I can count (and more frequently).

I threw myself in Mississippi Weightlifting Club. The first and only USAW sanctioned weightlifting club in Mississippi that I founded with Tyler Smith has picked up steam. We've brought home medals, team awards, qualified an individual for the American Open, traveled to North Carolina to be around some of the best in the industry. I threw myself into our social media. Into creating seminars. Into one on ones. Into traveling to learn from others in the sport.

In doing so it's allowed me to not only keep my love of the sport alive but helped me spread it. It has kept me hungry and looking forward to the future. I'll still have just as much passion and vigor when the injury heals.