Been almost two weeks since I've been on here. Yikes! Sorry about that guys.
In all honesty, haven't had a whole lot to update with lately. I've just been trying to get my back in working order. It's been a long 2 weeks since this all happened and I'm really not sure if the physical or emotional toll was worse. The physical part was pretty bad. There were some moments where I wondered if I would ever come out of this. But the emotional part....ugh. I wish I was one of those people that take adversity with grace, poise and a smile on their face through it. But I'm not. My coping mechanisms are more similar to a cross between a hobbit and a hungry T-rex (yeah, picture that one). I tend to shut the world out, but if someone bugs me I bite their head off. It doesn't help I got my period in the midst of all this so that did nothing but add to the pain and emotional turmoil. There was a lot of wallowing happening.
I think I just got sick of feeling like everything has been an uphill battle. Every week there's been some kind of struggle and for once I just want to get through a whole week and feel like I really accomplished something instead of just keeping my head above the water. Yeah yeah I know, nothing worth doing was meant to be easy or else everyone would do it, or however they say it. But that doesn't mean I feel like duking it out on a regular basis. It's kind of exhausting. I don't need this to be easy, and I know better to think it should be easy, but I'm not trying to be an elite athlete here, just trying to do better so I don't know why this needs to be so hard. Life was a lot more peaceful and less disappointing when I was fat and unhappy.
Last week I went to the gym twice. I was finally feeling ready to at least go back, but wasn't quite ready to tackle a workout so I worked on mobility instead. I did this program called ROMWOD for the first time ever and I actually figured out that it was hard! I was sore afterwards but felt great. It's short mobility workouts between 15-20 minutes with a couple different poses that you hold for several minutes at a time. So not only do you need flexibility, but you need the strength to hold them that long, which for some of them I didn't. I did ones that focused a lot on the hips, back and legs. Then on top of that I did several rounds of anterior pelvic tilts, glute bridges, squats and some QL-specific stretches. It helped a lot to do the ROMWODs and the other exercises because it stretched my back a little, but most importantly it activated my other muscles.
If I've learned anything from this experience, it's that I'm still using my back way too much. After working on slow squats and glute bridges, I realized I've been going through the past few weeks activating all kinds of the wrong stuff. Which likely explains the lack of soreness up until now. It also explains why I've been feeling like my quads aren't keeping up with the work....because I haven't been using them the way I should. It kinda sucks I needed to get injured to figure it out, but better late than never I guess.
As always, I have to give huge props to my chiropractor and massage therapist. Without them I probably wouldn't have recovered as quickly as I have. They've been amazing at helping me get back on my feet and giving me ideas on how to avoid this in the future. I got to see them both today, and my pelvis is already moving a lot better and things aren't as tight anymore. I still have some residual tightness that'll need to be worked out, but I'm just happy to be on the mend again. Which means......*drumroll*......I got to actually do a workout today. Not that it was enjoyable in any way, shape or form.
The workout was:
4 x 8+8 Bulgarian Split Squats
then
15 min AMRAP
5 power snatches
10 wall balls
5 toes to bar
10 lateral over bar jumps
Remember when I saw front foot elevated split squats were the devil? Yeah Bulgarian split squats are the devil's mother. I was using an empty bar and I still could only do 4 reps at a time. BUT I will give credit where it's due - the single leg work was good for getting back on the horse. Because it was all quads, hamstrings and ass. It's virtually impossible not to activate those guys when doing these. But I still hate them with a wild passion. The workout was not a fun one to come back to. I decided to take it "easy" this time. I only did 55 pound snatches. The wall balls and bar jumps I cut down to 5 reps. I don't have toes to bar yet so I did knee tucks. Even with all those modifications, this was one tough mother. I was pretty concerned I was going to black out around the 9 minute mark. It was those damn wall balls. Even when I was in shape I hated wall balls because they gassed me so much. And lateral bar jumps aren't exactly my strongest event either. I have this irrational fear of jumping on and over things. Mostly because I'm terrified of tripping and falling. Because of this, I end up overestimating how high I need to jump and use way more energy than I should. I didn't count my rounds and reps because after the 1st round my only goal was to just get myself through it. I will say despite being nervous about my back, the power snatches felt pretty good. I kept it light and was careful about form. It wasn't easy and I was shaky, but the big thing is that it didn't bring the pain back on.
I plan on just taking this week one day at a time. Get to the gym as much as I can and probably do a lot of modifying. And making sure I stay true to my nutrition plan. I'm getting close to a goal of mine and it'd be great to meet it sometime this month. July can go down in history as a rough month, so here's to hoping August is a little better.
Until next time!
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