Getting over a ski injury

Two weekends ago, while skiing, I fell on an ice patch, landing on my butt. It was at the very top of a rather large mountain, and as I sat splayed out, with people stopping to ask if I was all right, and me saying “Sure. I think so,” I was worried about whether I had it in me to ski down. The thought of putting any pressure on my left butt cheek was a bit of a stretch.

Fortunately skiing involves very little sitting, so I inched my way cautiously down, one bit at a time. And, ten minutes longer than I would have otherwise planned, I made it to the base. It was the last run of the day. We got in a car and drove the two hours back to the Denver.

Not me, but the general idea

But the real pain is what cascaded from the butt bruise a week later. Overcompensating, I put pressure on my right leg, which threw my back to the left, which, combined with sitting at desks wrong, gave me intense upper back pain.

Yesterday, instead of going to the gym, I spent at least two hours in a combined effort to foam roll, do yoga, and apply heat. Today it’s feeling better, and hopefully each day it will feel better than the last, but I worry. 

I’m 35 right now, and having repeated back pains is something I’ve spent years working out trying to avoid. It makes me worry I’m working out wrong. I’m not in alignment. And rather than all of this working out helping to strengthen me, I’m instead hurting myself more with each work out. Throwing myself more and more out of whack. I’m not sure.

Every time I injure myself, it’s one more thing I’m worried about injuring again. My right shoulder. My left scapula. My wrists. My right ankle and occasionally knees. And now, for the first time, my butt cheek. I want to push the limit, but I don’t want to destroy myself in the process. It’s a tough balance, and I don’t know where I’ll land.

 

Abs-olutely Ridiculous

I made a promise to myself nearly four years ago. I made a few promises, but this is an exercise themed blog which hasn’t been updated in roughly two lifetimes, so let’s stick to exercise themed promises. The promise was, ‘get abs.’ 

It was a ridiculous promise. Let’s be clear. 

It was more of a goal to aspire to, knowing that even the promise of wanting to get there was an aspiration in the right direction. Or maybe I didn’t  realize quite how impossible of a goal this was for me. Or maybe I have false ideas of how the human body works because…movies…

Seriously? What 👏 The 👏 Fuck?

Or maybe I have a loose standard for what ‘abs’ mean.

But here’s the thing, it was a list of goals that I’ve tried to work through one at a time since I wrote them down. And I don’t want to give up.

Skiing a black diamond, the first item, was much easier than I thought it would be. As far as goals go, it’s right up there with “one day I hope to eat ice cream.” It’s doable.

But getting abs? That’s not a thing normal humans are meant to do. And yet, somehow, not because of this goal…but because of something else, working out has become an obsession. I went from P90X to P90X3 to regular YMCA visits to Class Pass to a year long affair with Les Mills to finally landing in an overpriced boutique gym. 

I’m in the gym an hour a day, five to six days a week. Somewhere along the line it became my main hobby. I’m rarely at improv anymore. I don’t write every day. I don’t remember the last time I regularly drew. And if I’m to be honest with myself, I’m not even working on videos on a daily basis. But working out? It’s become the rock that’s sustained me. I try to do it every single day. And if I continue on this path, who knows what I’ll be able to pull off?

The next step is diet. That step is hard. I need to take a long hard look at why I’m doing this. Why this is the priority. I need to understand what’s driving me. It’s been a while, but perhaps I’ll reflect a bit here.

Two final thoughts. One – the other goals on the list are much, much harder, so this is kind of a litmus test of my self control. And two – I’m pretty sure I don’t actually want anyone reading this blog now and I have no idea why I’m posting it. I’m okay with that.