The P's

Pity. What I've been feeling for myself lately.

Pain. Why I've been pitying myself.

Pathetic. Pitying oneself over a little bit of pain.

Patience. A virtue I have very little of, but that I've been trying desperately to summon.

Persistence. Keeping with my rehab plan, even though my scope of activity is very limited, and it's not the most fun, and I miss being part of classes. Continuing to show up and do the work and trust my doctor and take the time to let my back heal.

Progress. Getting to add in more activities that get me closer to being back in class. Not feeling pain while I do them. Setting realistic goals for my recovery.

Being hurt is the pits. It sucks even more when your own ego got you injured and you know it was preventable. But it is what it is. Feeling sorry for myself isn't going to get me better and back to lifting heavy things again. It just makes me feel worse about being injured. I'm finishing up my third week on a restricted activity plan that I can "blame" on my doctor, but in reality I had to ask him to restrict me because I wasn't doing a good enough job of it on my own. I tried imposing my own restrictions and planning to scale back, but in the midst of the workout I would inevitably start pushing past the limit I had set and causing myself more pain.

The first week I was really bummed about it. I could only use the Airdyne (which I called the Devil's Bicycle), strict press with really light weight, and floor press. I was seriously bored and envious of everyone else putting up PRs during testing week and really wanting to participate. The second week was a little bit worse because I started to get in my own head too much. I was letting myself get down about being injured, feeling sorry for myself, feeling like I was never going to get better.

I was starting to feel like I did when I broke my legs. Initially I was optimistic when they told me I would be out 6-8 weeks. It didn't seem so long. I could do 6 weeks. Then 6 weeks became 8, then 12, then 16. It eventually starts to get to you. It's easy enough for a doctor to say "let's give it another month" when he doesn't realize how tough it is to spend another month stuck in bed.

Then a funny thing happened about the middle of last week. I realized how stupid I was being. How ridiculous it was for me to be so bummed out about my little back injury when I had made it through something much worse before. If I could handle being stuck in bed for 3 months, not even able to bathe or go to the bathroom on my own, and then in a wheelchair for another 2 months, obviously not being able to snatch didn't seem so bad. The recovery from breaking 5 bones was much longer than this back injury will be (hopefully), so I needed to just buck up and get through it.

On Saturday I came in to do my workout excited because I had a few more things I could test out. I had a plan to maximize my half hour and I set to it. I was as intense and focused as I could be and didn't look at it as if I was doing wimpy rehab exercises. I changed my attitude and I felt better about the work I was doing. As I keep following my plan I've been able to see that I'm making progress and I know that eventually I'll be able to get back to where I was before my injury and hopefully the work I'm doing will make me even better. I don't even hate the Airdyne so much anymore.

I still really miss lifting heavy though. I was watching videos of some of my past lifts today and found the ones I took the day I got my last snatch PR. 100lbs was a big goal of mine and when I finally hit it, of course I wanted more. I tried for weeks and finally hit 102.5, but then I wanted 105. 105 messed with my head for a long time. Then about 2 weeks before the RVA Open I decided 105 would be mine before the day was over. I had gone for this weight so many times and had gotten so close, but I was frustrated. The day I finally hit it I was at the gym for over 2 hours and missed probably 8 times in a row. It made me feel good to watch my misses today because I realized how my persistence had paid off in that instance and it made me hopeful that I would get back to 105 again and push way beyond that number. It reminded me that I'm capable of a lot as long as I'm patient, and persistent, and stick with my plan.