I had my drop off the cliff moment with my injured shoulder earlier this week. It had been gradually getting better, with a few hiccups, over the past couple of weeks. Then, all of a sudden, I woke up a few days ago and didn’t need to take anything to reduce the pain. As I warmed up and worked out, my range of pain-free motion was significantly improved. After my workout, the soreness was nearly nil.
That’s the first day in months that my shoulder didn’t ache.
Something is working.
I’m fairly confident it’s a combination of not swimming, not doing the intense gymnastic exercises I’d been doing and diligently rehabbing with shoulder specific exercises. I’m certain that my new more well rounded exercise program is helping to balance out my shoulder girdle as well as my entire body.
Yay!
I am getting considerably stronger. The first few weeks I was quite disappointed with myself. I was discouraged that my capabilities had deteriorated from both my injury and 7 years of specialized training that left me surprisingly weak when I picked up the kettlebells again.
It’s great to be able to swing some heavier weights around.
At the same time I reduced my cardio and endurance training substantially. Instead of swimming for an hour every day, I do a hill hike for 30 minutes every other day. On alternate days, I do intervals on my Echo bike for a total of 15 minutes (yes, you read that right – 15 minutes).
In other words, I dropped my focused cardio work by 50-75%.
I expected I would miss it – I don’t at all. I was worried I would get fat – that hasn’t happened.
Instead I seem to have more energy and renewed enthusiasm. Go figure.
With the benefit of hindsight, I can now see I was burnt out. I was overdoing it. My shoulder injury was an obvious sign of this. Less obvious, until I stopped, was this feeling of having to psych myself up each morning to “get going”.
I don’t feel that at all anymore. It’s such a classic sign of burn-out that it’s cliche.
My new routines are still beyond what most people would consider reasonable. When I was working and my wife was alive, these weren’t possible due to time constraints, work requirements and my personal responsibilities.
Most people in my situation – retired with plenty of time and few outside commitments – still wouldn’t choose to center their day around fitness. It’s my hobby and my passion. “Normal” people pursue different interests and balance their time accordingly.
It all makes sense to me.
Although I hadn’t wanted nor planned to make these changes to my daily routines, I’m really happy I did. On a regular basis, I’m discovering more and more reasons why.