It's been said before and will be said again, I have an addictive personality. I discover something, fall in love with it, and then consume it with abandon. This reflects across all aspects of my life. Along with this comes an on or off issue. If I fall out of love or make a conscious decision to abstain it's gone or stops until I decide otherwise. This creates other problems such as having a realistic perspective on the present situation. I recently went back to school and this had a massive impact on my spare time. Coaching at Crossfit London had to stop while I found the time to study. Study time also ate into my training time. Not training, for me, has an impact on my emotional state. The positive effects of physical exercise on mood and self esteem are well documented. But if you have a personality such as mine it can lead to bingeing. A word we see in red top dailies but normally in conjunction with some teenager antics or shock survey about the state of our youth.
Where am I going with this? After a a not too short but long enough period of inactivity I decided to make a concerted effort to get back in the gym and put a whole months schedule together to provide structure and inspiration. You would think being an experienced coach I would consider things such as the relevant loss of conditioning and strength, age and current general wellness. But honest and independent thinking about yourself is hard. It is a psychological fact that we exaggerate our own achievements and struggle to give a realistic statement about our current potential. Look at PB's we record them and refer to them and measure our achievement by them but be honest how many actually reflect your present status. If we measured our age in PB's (year 30 being the best, or any age in the prime band) we would soon recognise that we are inevitably moving away from our best.
So having completely ignored any rational thought about how to approach my return to the gym I enthusiastically jumped in the deep end and started sprinting, while wearing a 10kg vest. I think that is a suitably stupid analogy. By the end of the week I was wonderfully sore all over and feeling proud I had worked hard. The following week the pain arrived. It started with a stiffness in both shoulders in the morning. It felt like The muscles around my shoulder girdle were in permanent contraction and I was loosing mobility. Sleeping at night was fast becoming a real issue, painfully an issue I could not lie on my sides and had to sleep motionless on my back. Lack of sleep was making me a very grumpy bear.
I applied the classic cure all method of rest, ibuprofen, do nothing and wait. Writing this down is like saying it out loud. I cannot believe how stupid I have been. Would I advise a client to do this? No! Why would I treat myself so badly. With the other issues mentioned above perhaps I have self loathing issues too! Anyway after about 3 months (yes really) I went to see an Osteopath who also happens to be a friend. I already had a good idea my left shoulder had impingement issues, my right shoulder similar but worse and different. In fact we suspected a tear in my right shoulder the pain was that sickening and I have a very high pain threshold, as most men do.
Byron has an almost superhuman ability to look at you and tell you what is wrong (OK it's years of experience and training but still always impresses me) and then poke the affected area with an acute accuracy. After my first treatment I could feel the tension lifting in my shoulders, the muscles relaxing. The inflammation would remain but I was now treating this and it would reduce. Immediately afterwards I had a very strange experience where I felt absolutely exhausted and actually struggled to get home where I just crashed out. This was explained as my moving from a near permanent fight or flight state into a rest and digest state. Just over a month of treatments complimented by re-hab in the gym I am ready to return to training, Crossfit that is. I have been able to run and maybe I will write about my return to distance running another day.
I am still recovering and have lost a lot, possibly all of my conditioning and massive amount of my shoulder mobility. I am still sore and tender in spots but massively improved. I am following a mobility program and about to start a simple strength program this week. My conditioning side at the moment is focused on running speed drills with a sub 6' 45" minute mile for 5k's or less and sub 7'30" for over 10k's. Fast dynamic shoulder movement is still not possible but it is getting better.
I do not write enough in this blog or maybe I do who am I to judge that? But I do intend to share my experience of getting back to Crossfit in the hope that it can both encourage and advise others. Today is day one. Standby, 3,2,1.......
