A week or so before Christmas I tweaked my glute and left leg. I hoped it was a minor strain – which has been a regular consequence due to my age, active lifestyle and unrealistic obstinacy regarding my physical capabilities at times.
Then, on Christmas eve, it got worse. I recognized it was a sciatica flare up from some of the symptoms I had last year when a sciatica injury took me out for a week.
This time, I did something different.
I did nothing.
I stopped working out. I took a few days off of swimming. I walked the dogs shorter distances. I spent a lot of time either standing or lying in bed because it hurt to sit. I made zero attempts to “push through the pain”.
Fortunately, after a few days my symptoms diminished and I felt good enough to resume working out.
But…
Before my sciatica flare up I had been dealing with a nagging shoulder shoulder injury for several months. I think I injured it when the dogs lunged unexpectedly after after a biker, a bunny or a deer and yanked my arm backwards. I’m not certain about that. It could be a result of repetitive motion stress from working out or swimming.
This shoulder injury has been particularly difficult. It gets slightly less painful at times but limits my strength, my range of motion and my daily activities. Sometimes I cannot lift my arm without pain. It wakes me in the night. Many times, I can’t reach behind me or overhead without pain.
I keep hoping it will eventually get better but it’s reaching the point where I’m actually thinking about going to see a doctor. That’s how I know it’s bad. I hate going to see doctors.
The sciatica flare-up combined with my shoulder injury got me thinking about my extensive exercise routine. For the past 7 years, I’ve focused 100% on bodyweight exercises based on gymnastic’s movements. The results have been pretty stellar. Up until last week, I was certain that I was in better shape than I’ve ever been in my life. Overall, I was convinced that I looked better, moved better and was stronger than ever before.
That changed last week.
This ongoing shoulder injury made me reexamine what I’m doing. I am not a gymnast – nor will I ever be. Other than some basic low skill movements like cartwheels, handstands, pullups, holds and floor crawls, every exercise I do is a scaled back version of what a gymnast might do for a warm-up. I haven’t progressed on these exercises in years. I’ll never be able to do an iron cross, a backflip or even a basic tumbling routine. It’s not in the cards for me at this age and realistically, never was for me at any age.
More importantly, I seem to be re-injuring my shoulder every day.
After much contemplation, I decided to change my entire workout program. Before I transitioned to my current routine, I had spent 5 years doing functional fitness workouts: kettlebells, weight lifting, sleds, ropes, carries, sprinting, plyometrics, HIIT and more. These were a lot of fun. They were challenging. I rotated through hundreds of different exercises each month instead of following a strict, unchanging routine like I have now been doing for more than 6 years.
Pain is a great motivator. While resting during my sciatica injury, I decided it was time for a change.
I ordered a suspension trainer and some kettlebells. I created a program built around the functional fitness workouts I used to do. I eliminated a huge swath of gymnastic exercises that make my shoulder pain worse or that I simply suck at doing.
It’s been a stimulating project. I enjoy planning new routines, developing templates, creating an expansive exercise list and anticipating how good it will feel to get started.
I was psyched.
After a few days or working out, reality hit me hard.
I am not in the “best shape of life”.
Exercises that I used to perform with speed and intensity now feel awkward and clumsy. I’m shockingly weak too. What I remember doing with ease just 8 years ago is now impossible.
WTF?
How could I be doing handstands and levers on paralettes, skin-the-cats/dips/holds on rings, and 70,000 pull-ups during the last 7 years and now can barely perform basic exercises with light weights?
I had no idea how much strength I lost by not lifting weights.
It’s been an eye opener.
My plan was to start slowly and focus on slowly building up over time so I don’t get injured. That is a good plan. I just overestimated my starting point.
I’ll get stronger over time. But I can’t make that time go faster.
I don’t expect I’ll ever reach the strength, intensity and performance levels I was at when I was in my 40s. That’s OK too. After all, I’ll be 60 in 2 years, if I make it that far. My goal is to look good, feel good and maintain a high level of activity, functionality and mobility with minimal pain while maintaining a lean, muscular physique. That is all achievable – just not in a few days.
Despite my disappointment with my weak and uncoordinated start, I know that I’ll see significant improvements after a few hundred workouts. It’s like anything else I’ve ever learned to do in my life. At least in this case, I don’t have to relearn everything. I just have to give my body time to get used to the new exercises, work some neglected muscles and slowly build up my strength.
During the past 7 years, I was in the best shape of my life – for swimming and performing the workouts that I was doing.
I just assumed I had maintained a higher general strength baseline. Clearly, I was mistaken.
That said, it’s been a learning experience. For my future workout program I’ll be sure to include some of the bodyweight exercises, mobility work and gymnastics movements I do now so I can retain those capabilities.
Apparently Use It or Lose It applies to me too. It turns out that the heaviest weight I lift is my ego.
And so, I’ll keep stepping and plowing forward.
