Lessons of Adversity

I was laying there in bed, just wishing that I didn’t have to get out of bed because my head was pounding, my right arm throbbing, and oh feeling  a little nauseated doesn’t help. No, it is the flu, cold, or any new disease. It is the normal process of dealing with oral reconstructive surgery that I have been going through for the past year.

Why tell you this? I find every injury and situation has taught me a lot about training, attitude, and how to coach people better. It is also my hope to share my own challenges because I know many of you are facing similar situations and you are putting forth everything you can into finding motivation to train. 

Trust me when I tell you I understand the such challenges. Coming from someone who absolutely LOVES to train, push themselves, I have found the last year extremely challenging. However, I have found some techniques that have made it a little easier.

1. Train! That may seem weird or easy for me to say, but there are days where I feel like it is an accomplishment getting out of bed and being able to work with my clients. Yet, I feel so much better to train, but how do you get to that point? My first rule is to find anything that allows you to train, that might be simply going for a walk, do some biking, yes, get on the horrid cardio equipment at the local gym. More times than not simply doing a simple workout will improve both your physical and mental well-being. 

That also goes for your strength training. The sandbags have been a great means for to do a lot with very little energy. Performing brief circuits very frequently has been an important way for me to keep my metabolism and strength gains stable. In fact, recently I was in Chicago for a conference and was able to train with my good friend Nick. Nick is one strong guy, especially for his bodyweight. I felt less than adequate because Nick always displays amazing energy and enthusiasm and lately I have been working hard for both. 

Barbell back squatting was on the menu for the day and to be honest, it was one of the last things I felt like performing. At a bodyweight of 180 Nick was performing clusters with 335, most impressive! Me on the other hand? 335 for most my size should be a relative easy weight. However, I hadn’t barbell back squatted probably in six months or so. I had to move to sandbag squatting variations to take pressure off neck and hoped to take this time to strengthen my trunk with the sandbag variations. In addition, I moved to more single leg work as my form of keeping my leg strength up. 

I was inspired by Nick’s work though and although I could tell my body was more than off I wasn’t going to let him completely show me up! Getting underneath the bar I was a little bit nervous about what the results would produce. It wasn’t just about my body, but what if all this other work really didn’t transfer, after all much of my ideas weren’t practiced by elite or very experienced lifters. When I walked out of the rack though I felt strong, stronger than I typically had with this weight on my back in the past. While I didn’t have the endurance to perform many repetitions, I was extremely excited about the transfer that I had experienced and that when this surgery was done I would reach new heights in my training. 

1. Nutrition is MOST Important: This can be equally as challenging, food often tends to be emotionally based as well. Think of when you have been most down, MOST people will often let their nutrition go. This is also a challenge considering when you aren’t well only certain foods sound good. Yep, there are days where the only thing that sounds tolerable is crackers or soup. So, what do you do? What you have in the house is of utmost importance. For me, that meant having flaxseed based, gluten-free, crackers on hand. It meant having homemade vegetable soups ready to go made out of the crock pot. Don’t worry though, I am not perfect either, but making these plans will go a long way in making you not fall into many of the common pitfalls.

Nutrition isn’t important for the reasons you may be thinking. Sure keeping yourself in shape is important (especially for those that are going to be having to deal with surgery), more important is avoiding the cycle that often occurs with feeling horrible (both mentally and/or physically). The cycle usually follows feel bad>eat badly>feel even worse. Poor nutrition increases inflammation in the body and can keep one’s mood low. This is a recipe for disaster!

Good nutrition can do exactly the opposite. Various foods can act as an anti-inflammatory, improve healing, help mood, and keep your conditioning from getting poor. As I mentioned it isn’t always easy, but if you are determined to stay on the right path you can always make better choices. 

1. Set new goals: Yes, sometimes new goals feel like “getting out of bed”, “being able to workout”, or a host of others. Realistically, new goals can be created and progress can be made. For me the opportunity to focus on some new sandbag training goals have been very helpful. That is really where the “3 Rounds of Hell” originated. There is incredible value for so many with this challenge, but for me it was about developing a goal for myself to keep improving my power and stamina. This leads me to creating new programs and testing these methods to continue the growth and evolution of this system of training. 

This isn’t about making anyone feel sorry for me, rather, hopefully giving inspiration to others that may be going through their own personal challenges. One of my biggest inspirations was my step-mother that fought Stage IV breast cancer for seven years. No matter what came her way she had a positive attitude. Even when it was obvious the cancer was winning she never showed a poor attitude, in fact, she was doing charitable events for breast cancer awareness till she could no longer get out of bed. That type of persistence and attitude has given me the perspective that no matter how lousy I feel day to day, that is is all temporary and the majority of my life will be spent feeling great and hope to help other find methods that help inspire them to live healthier lives.