Regrouping Completely Sucks
‘Tis a
lesson you should heed,
If at first you don’t succeed,
Try, try again;
Alright – let me get a few things straight before I get
started. I am not complaining. My life is fairly grand compared to the vast
majority of humans on the planet. I have a loving family, a nice home, and a
well-paying job. But let me tell you this – trying to regroup when you have an
injury completely sucks. I had an earlier post titled
Regrouping Made Easy – a brilliant
read if you want to take a second to go back and check it out – I’ll wait……………….(10
minutes into the future) and we’re back. For those of you who have already read
it a few times and might need a little refresher on the general flow of what I
wrote, I’ll give you a quick synopsis. I banged-up my knee training for the
Society Hill Mudder last year, decided to do a double mudder (e.g. about 24
miles and 45 or so obstacles) on top of that injury, and as you might guess I
left some of my knee on the course. Brilliant – I know.
What is more brilliant is that I still haven’t been to the
doctor. I get enough crap from those around me so save all the doctor comments.
Yes I should go to the doctor, and I will (if it doesn’t get any better – which
it already has started to do by the way but we’ll get there). But my principal
focus was to get ready for the Miami Mudder this March, so what do I need to do
to keep working out?
This is where my regrouping efforts came in. I’ve read a
good many bad ass blogs that have all said to keep working out. Find a way to
make it work for you. Plus I knew if I quit I would lose all that I have worked
for in terms of cardio and overall strength. Not something that I am going to
do easily given that I’ve been working on this stuff for the better part of a year
now.
So I decided to regroup and think of some ways that I could
keep working out, really find some ways to keep the cardio going – I get all
the strength training I need from P90X – and I had the great idea of turning to
the pool. Well to make a long story short – I’ve completely shredded my left
shoulder. (Again – not trying to moan – just stating some facts. Hopefully not
in a moany type way.)
This gets a little into my tragic backstory from my youth (que
the
Heinz Doofenshmirtz music). I’m a lefty. A damn proud lefty at that. The
only one in my family except my niece, so I take a lot of pride in it. With
that said, I was discovered fairly early in life. No I am not a triple threat
or anything like that, but I can throw a baseball over the plate and am a
fairly intuitive athlete when it comes to mental games with those competing
against me. What I am really referring to is what a pitcher goes through during
a game – trying to outguess the batter – throw something they are not expecting
– control the game – all that power trip stuff. I was fairly good at it. Let me
rephrase that – I’m still fairly good at it.
The problem though – I was a lefty. Not many of us out there
in Junior High. My coaches loved that I was a lefty. I never threw the ball
particularly hard (if I did my shoulder would probably be in better shape). But
alas, I threw a lot of junk. Let me rephrase that – I threw a lot of junk for
strikes which of course always made the coaches happy which kept me on the mound
probably more often than my young arm needed to be.
Oh yeah – I have fairly par mechanics. I mean from the legs
down it is great. Short back step – good balance – strong leg kick – but terrible
arm motion. Just bad mechanics on the throwing arm. I spent hours standing up
against fences trying not to get my arm to slam into it when I pulled back to
throw. (I hate fences but that is for another post!) So to make a long story a little shorter, my
arm basically turned to crap. Had to take an entire season off when I was 15
and focus on physical therapy and cortisone shots for tendonitis in the elbow
and basically learned to thrive off Tylenol and Motrin in high school – didn’t
really like to go to the doctor back then either if it meant possibly not playing.
I guess not much changes as you age in some respects.
Everything probably would have been OK, if it wasn’t for me
learning about adult baseball, forgetting about what it means to throw everyday
as a pitcher, and how it is a bad idea to simply walk out to the mound and
start throwing the ball as hard as you can. But I won’t bore you with that episode,
I’m still angry about that idiocy myself. (A great 3 innings though – struck out
five – look at me the power pitcher, but of course couldn’t feel the entire
left side of my chest for the next 3 days.)
So now I can still throw. I’m good for a game of catch that
lasts 15 or 20 minutes or so, but after that things just don’t feel great, and,
yes you guessed it, I don’t want to go to the doctor. So I usually just stop.
Back to the present – regrouping made easy – start swimming –
keep working out at something that is non-impact on the knee. Got my swimming
pass, starting getting up in the morning and getting in the pool, and all was
going well. Knee felt good. Getting a great workout. And I mean what – it is
only a little tingle in the shoulder. I can push through that. I haven’t used
these muscles in awhile right. The next day a bit of the same – a little
twinge. A couple of days off – back in the pool for 3 more (really not that
fond of building up slowly as you might be able to tell) and gradually that
little tingle, that became a twinge, starts to hurt like hell.
Haven’t swam in about two weeks now. Actually haven’t tried
to do anything with my shoulder at all. No pull ups. No curls. Just me and my
P90X family doing pushups (can still get by with some of these), Yoga (shoulder
doesn’t feel particular great after this but I still don’t want to quit my Yoga
– stuff is addicting by the way especially after you nail the crane position a
couple of times – and lots of core work. Back on the Motrin and in general back
to the drawing board.
So regrouping completely sucks. You can image that I’ve been
pretty bummed. Watching my other team members keep pushing forward isn’t easy,
but I’ve had to just keep my head up for opportunities. And that is why I think
regrouping is supposed to suck. Regrouping essentially means you are not doing
what you originally intended. You’ve hit a detour and you have to decide what
to do. The road ahead could be too much and you can turn around for home or you
can take it easy, keep looking forward and just do your best to enjoy the ride.
I am trying to become a very class half full kind of guy!
For me things have started to work out. My shoulder is still
shredded. I’m honestly just trying to stay off that now but I’ve gradually
gotten back on the trail running circuit. The pain in my knee has become more
tightness than anything so I get a good warm up, don’t start off like the Road
Runner, and try to get a good workout. A decent knee brace also helps just to
make sure everything stays in place. I actually am back to 5 miles fairly
quickly and now running at a fairly good clip – 5 miles right under 50 minutes.
Thanks to Brian for getting out there with me and keeping me going. Nothing
like a mudda brudda you can run with – especially when we both don’t really
like to run. I couldn’t be more pleased. After a run, some more stretching and
the best cure-all of all time – a healthy bag of ice.
So I’m running! Doing my Yoga! Working the core muscles! And
tomorrow I am going to give it a go on my chest and back exercises. Not going
to jump right back into pull ups, but going to try to do some negatives and just
hang there…
So I’ll say it again – regrouping completely sucks, but
there is nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about it. Everyone hates
detours! They take longer. But you also might get to travel down a road that
you have never seen and who knows who you might meet on the way. I’ve met Mr.
Icy Hot but I have no idea who might show up next to help get me down the path
to my Tough Mudder.
I guess the lesson from this post is keep all that in mind.
Whatever Tough Mudder you are training for – be that Mudder simply starting a
new routine, eating better, using a new piece of technology in the classroom –
there will be turns in the road. How you respond to them is critical because it
is really really easy to quit and go home.
