Exercising While Injured – The Mentality Behind It

Hey guys! I wanted to share a few thoughts and insights on the matter of working out while being sick or injured.

Growing up I tried most of the sports that I came in contact with. Everything from playing soccer to orienteering to skating to muay thai – you name it! How often did I neglect the real needs of my body and practiced while being injured?

Let me give you an example.

You are playing soccer and you get really in to it. You do some move while dribbling and fall and hurt yourself quite bad. Your coach yell to you from the side “Just shake it off! Keep playing!”, and so you get up – feeling a bit roughed up – but keep going despite the injury – feeling almost proud for playing even though you are a bit injured. It was cool to play injured, that meant you did a good job. I’m pretty sure you are familiar with some situation like this.

The mentality to “shake it off” and to continue while injured or while it hurts is a BIG no-no in the gym! Now, I am not talking about when you step out of your comfort zone and heavily exert yourself, but I am talking about when something actually hurts – Stop it! That means something is wrong.

Sometimes it is better to rest a full week – or even two – at the time. If you workout at a semi high level, your body will not “suffer” from the lack of one weeks training. Sometimes we get so caught up on the very hours and minutes we work out per week that we forget to see the long term effects of what we do. Would you rather workout daily while suffering from injuries that you never give time to heal? Or would you rather take that one extra week off in order to have great workouts for the rest of the year?

Some food for thought. Have a nice evening!

 

WOD Cindy and the Iliopsoas

So firstly in response to some of the things I wrote about yesterday, about helping people around at the gym you instead of judging them. This young boyfriend was at the free-weight section of the gym with his girlfriend and her friend. I was occupying the Squat rack for some heavy lifts before my WOD. I glanced over at them, watching this poor young guy trying to teach these two girl how to do some dumbbell exercises. It was very clear that he struggled in explaining what he meant for them to do. Even though these two girls looked good, it was very obvious that they had never lifted anything slightly heavy before. i kept thinking again and again how I shouldn’t judge them for not knowing – everyone’s gotta start somewhere, right? –  and contemplated to just shut up and do my squats and minding my own business. But the little angel on my shoulder nudged me to do differently. I walked up to them between a set and simply asked them if I might come with a suggestion on the technique they were doing. They accepted and seemed quite relieved.

The two girls kept glancing over at the boyfriend and repeatedly told me: “Well, he told us to do it this and this way…“, and not wanting to completely trample the young guy (who now looked to me and asked me for some corrections on what he just tried teaching the girls) I simply gave some friendly pointers to all of them that helped them better understand why they should do the exercise in the first place and what muscles look for making a connection with. I walked back to my Squat rack and honestly felt quite good about the whole situation, about taking a step out of my Swedish “mind-your-own-business” bubble.

The CINDY WOD

I rested for quite a while trying to find a good place and a free pull-up bar somewhere. After finally getting to one I tried out some kipping and butterfly technique that I talked about in an earlier post. You can see the picture for the info, but here it is in plain text as well:

AMRAP 20 min (do As Many Rounds/reps As Possible in 20 min)

• 5 Pull-ups
• 10 Push-ups
• 15 Squats

My results were 13 rounds! Perhaps not the best one in history, and also taking into consideration the fact that I am doing these WOD’s alone and without music (I really need a training partner and some kind of good iPod…) I feel quite good about it.

The Pull-ups were much easier now that I somewhat learned to kip better. I still get out of balance and the rhythm too often, but I am learning by doing.

The Push-ups went quite fast until the end where I started to feel a strain in my upper peck/shoulder socket so had to be a bit careful.

The Squats, well here’s where the problem came in to the picture and where I also have a question to you reader to see if you might be able to help me. I felt the Iliopsoas (the hip-bender-muscle) already when I was doing the heavy Squating before the WOD, but now, doing fast Air Squats (Squats without and weights) the pain increased. It is a sting-like pain when I am in the bottom position of the Squat on my way up. Is it simply because I stressed that muscle too hard, that the muscle will get used to it after a few other sessions? Or is it perhaps because I didn’t warm up properly? I am strict with my form, with placing my feet right, pointing the toes and the kneed in the same direction etc etc. Any tips anyone?

So bottom line: Cindy WOD – 13 rounds (I finished on the exact 20 minute mark, he he). The picture above express how I felt after being done.

Cheers!

J.

Why Do You Judge Others at the Gym?

Go to any commercial gym. You know, that gym around the corner where just about everyone in your family old enough to lift something over their head can go. I know that I am not as strong or as big a body builder or in any way an expert on the subject of fitness, but too often I still find myself looking around at people at the gym and just shaking my head, thinking: “They have no idea what they are doing…“.

Is is pride that causes me to think that I’m doing things better than they are? Yes. Rightfully? Maybe, maybe not. Am I really doing things better or know things better? I don’t know.

Well, let me explain what I am after here.

Many people come to the gyms today merely because of the popularity of working out, young as old. Some of these guys have never set a foot inside a gym before and how in the world are they suppose to know what to do and how to do things?

I have lately been trying to focus more on not caring so much about what everyone else is doing, but rather focus on myself. That way I can keep a higher focus on what I am doing and not build up some kind of false ego that I am better than everyone else. Sounds easy, right? I don’t know if I am the only one guilty of this but I give you guys a challenge to keep this in mind for the next time you workout and not be so judgmental of the others at the gym. Be open and see if you can’t learn something from them instead!

“If you think that you know it all you are not teachable. And if you are not teachable, you will never progress.”

Love one another,
J.