A week ago, I was in the gym and getting myself set up for a set of Bulgarian split squats. Nothing out of the ordinary, I have done them many times before. As I propped up my back leg on the weight bench and held the 25-lb plate in front of my body, my right QL (low back muscle) completely cramped up. The pain was excruciating. I was stuck in the most inconvenient position possible in that moment. I had to do the Harlem Shake just to get my back leg back on the ground. I stood there in shock. Am I hurt? How badly? OH NO... I tried to shake it out. I stretched. It finally stopped cramping but it felt hurt. I'm injured. Blahhhh. I tried to do some different exercises and finish out my workout, to no avail.
I am a Licensed Massage Therapist. What I will say is even if I had never worked a day on a client, the knowledge of snarky muscles and what to do with them has well been worth the price of admission to massage school. I jumped onto an ice bag as quickly as possible and used ice the first 36 hours. Then I borrowed a TENS unit from a relative and applied that for the next two days off and on. After that, gentle movements and shifts in posture, testing the boundaries of the pain. 6 days in I went to the Chiropractor and verified I did not actually injure my SI joint or my spine. He tested my range of motion and stretched out my muscles. He attempted a gentle adjustment which didn't seem to yield a release in my low back. We agreed that it appeared to be down to a grumpy psoas muscle at this point. The psoas is a deep abdominal muscle that can refer pain to the low back. I need to get a massage still from a therapist trained in this type of work, it is a specialty. But I seemed to be functioning ok overall.
So today I decided I would go to the gym and attempt a workout. When I planned my day, I decided to try to pick as normal a workout as I would've done before but to try to avoid really activating that muscle as a primary focus. So I picked a circuit that involved running, plank to push up, and a lot of bi and tri weights. I did pretty good. The planking aggravated it the most, but nothing more than just being very aware of the muscle. I also attempted the stepmill for 45 minutes with success.
The workout went as well as possible. And I am so glad I went. Here is what I didn't anticipate:
Coming off of a huge weekend two weeks ago at my first figure competition, I had to be really focused to segue into a normal fit lifestyle and not abandon the routine, succumb to binge eating or just eating the wrong foods all the time, maintain an intense fitness program without the intense goal, and love myself through the transition because it can be an odd, isolating one. So a week in, I'm injured and shouldn't go to the gym. I had instant anxiety from that. The gym isn't just a commitment I've made to my body and physical goals, it's my THERAPY. I work out a lot of emotional and mental topics in my mind as I focus on my next physical move in the gym. I NEED the gym and what it gives me and brings to my day. I was very uneasy and stressed all week. I found I wanted to eat all the wrong foods. Sometimes I did eat something I wouldn't have normally. It usually made me feel sick. And bloated. And even worse about the whole matter. I was depressed. And unhappy. And scared.
So one would think, once I "cleared" myself to go to the gym, I would've been chomping at the bit to get in there, right? NO. I was TERRIFIED. I put it off for a couple of hours before I finally had to make the decision or my day would get away from me and the opportunity to go would pass. I had to reason with myself...the very thing I was anxious about by NOT being able to go to the gym: losing fitness level, backsliding physical progress, weight gain, softer physique, losing my momentum and mojo to keep up the pace daily....were the very reasons I needed to go to the gym today. One week will not destroy everything I've done for the past 4 months. But making daily decisions to not support the workouts and the nutrition that got me to this point would absolutely start to add up now. Today presented an interesting turning point: if I decided not to workout today, it wasn't because I couldn't. It was because I simply chose not to...
So I went to the gym. I felt like I hadn't been there in years. I felt a lack of confidence as I really wasn't sure what my body could accomplish today. I desperately hoped I was not going to discover that my injury was going to take much, much longer to heal. I did what I did when I was prepping for my competition...just looked at my exercise log and start doing the exercises and filling it out. One. Step. At. A. Time. Just focus on the next step, Melissa. Next rep. Next set.
I got through my workout. And I will go back tomorrow and get back into the swing of things. Working out this morning has already lined out my nutrition today accordingly. I'm on track with my water intake. And I've been more productive with my work. Because I FEEL better. It's amazing as steadfast as I am in where I want to be and so sure of all the activities I subscribe to to get me to my goals each day, that a wrinkle in the routine could cause such a wave of uncertainty and fear. And that those fears lead to self sabotage that would take me an entirely opposite direction from where I know I want to be. And that I would give an ounce of energy to listen to those fears. It's a sign that there are elements of the "old" me in there. The one that is scared to succeed because she fears she can't handle the feelings, opportunities, responsibilities that come with success. The one that feels maybe she doesn't deserve it. Or can't keep it. The one that finds it easier to agree with the critics sometimes than to keep fighting for what she knows is right for her. I have to remember that may always be an audible voice in my head, a feeling that I have, and there is a library of fears that may surface any old time, in any old place, without warning. And I am deciding, right here and now, to hold that girl's hand and walk with her into the unknown of success. Because she deserves to be on the other side of fear, where life is truly lived.
Count your wins today, be grateful for the lessons that you learned, and decide to take the next step for yourself. You are worth it.
In health,
Melissa
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