Today Charlotte’s roulette of unfortunate personal experiences is brought to you by the number one most feared word of fit folk everywhere. Nope, it’s not “thong”. Nor is it “Richard Simmons”. (Because that’s two words and, also, I happen to love him and his dance-tight clad legs.) It’s also not “Whirlpool closed for cleaning” although that really does strike terror into my heart because you know it’s not just routine maintenance that would shut down a jacuzzi in the middle of a busy gym day; you can bet your sparkly Richard Simmons branded thong (with attached tights) that bodily fluids are on the lam. (True story: One of the Gym Buddies recently witnessed a woman popping her man’s bacne in the hot tub. There just isn’t enough chlorine in the world to make that ok.)
The word is injury.
If you’ve been exercising more than a few days, you have probably had an injury. Perhaps if you are as klutzy as I am, you even have a collection of them. At this very moment I am sporting a nice bruise on my upper arm from walking directly into a stationary bike. That I had just finished riding. I also have at least 3 purple marks from where the Jelly Bean’s carseat whacks my leg when I carry her in that back-spraining monstrosity. I also have a blackened toenail where I tripped over a weight stand and a spot on my jaw that is still smarting from where I punched myself in the face during Saturday’s ultra sweaty Turbokick class.
To quote the ever-quotable Monty Python, these are merely a flesh wound. Sadly, I recently acquired an Injury with a capital I. The bane of exercise aficionados everywhere, these Injuries sideline you during events, wreak havoc with training schedules and are horrible for morale. Plus it makes me feel old. It’s my hip, you see.
During my last pregnancy, if you recall, I had to quit running at about 5 months along because of excruciating hip flexor pain. While quitting running helped some, the pain increased until by the end of my pregnancy I couldn’t lift up my legs to put them in my pants. I had to – and I’m not kidding you – use my hands and lift them sideways because while No Pants Day is regularly celebrated at our house it’s not socially acceptable to take that party out on the street. Thankfully after Jelly Bean was born, the pain went away and I thought I was back to good.
So good in fact that I resumed daily exercise with Jelly Bean in a front pack, at one week post-partum and returned to TurboKick at 4 weeks post-partum. The funny part of this whole story is how I kept telling the Gym Buddies I was going to take it easy because I didn’t want to get hurt. Specifically, I’d read a ton about what happens to the stomach muscles after childbirth and I didn’t want to make my diastisis (the vertical separation between the abs) widen, or worse, pooch out. I even routinely admonished Gym Buddy Allison whose baby is 1 month older than Jelly Bean and has the most glorious red hair I have ever seen, to lay off the ab work and focus on the Tupler technique.
But why would I take my own advice? It’s so much more fun to get injured! Plus it’s great blog fodder, right?
Which is how I found myself a month ago back to lifting my leg (mercifully just the left one this time) into my pants with my hands. Stairs were painful. Climbing out of the car was misery. And TurboKick – with all it’s kicking, duh – was excruciating. Did I stop? No. I just upped my whine factor. At first I thought the problem was with my kicking form. Then I thought I had strained a ligament by running again too soon. But neither stopping running nor modifying all my kicks to knee lifts (yeah I was awesome to watch) helped and the pain got worse.
Then it hit me: You know what I’d gone full-bore back into right after having a baby? Ab work. P90X’s special ab ripper workout was ripping my abs in a wholly unintended way. I finally figured out that my stomach muscles are simply not strong enough yet to do any move requiring me to hold my legs off the ground (like bicycles or Russian twists or pretty much all of the TurboKick ab moves). My hips were kicking in to help my weak abs and the pressure on my lower back and hips led to the injury in my hip flexor. Within days of backing off the ab work and sticking only to moves where my back was supported and my feet stayed on the floor, the pain started to get better. Now, 2 weeks down the road I’m pain free. Thankfully it seems that I caught the problem before I permanently hurt myself. But boy howdy do I feel stupid.
On another gym front, however, I did make a smart move. I found the awesomest bra ever! Actually it found me by way of a review from superfit blogger Mama Sweat. She and I have many things in common – running, Minnesota, books that are taking forever to get published – but thanks to our four (each) happily breastfed babies, we also share weirdly problematic boobs (They change cup sizes every hour! They leak! They sag! Unless they have mastitis and then they’re like rocks!). So when she blogged about her love of the “Handful” bra – how could you not love it with a name like that? (Tagline: Designed to flatter, not flatten!) – I knew I had to try one. This bra rocks. At first glance it looks as if it wouldn’t be very supportive, what with those skinny straps:
But I put that bra through the works. It held up (and held the girls up) great through running, kickboxing, weight lifting and everything else I threw its way. Want to read more about the Handful and enter to win one of your very own? Click through to my giveaway page!
When it comes to fitness, do you “walk your talk” ? Or has anyone else ever get an injury from not taking their own advice? What’s your scariest fitness word??
Oh dear! I'm glad you nippled it-er-nipped it in the bud and you're feeling better!
It's inevitable that whenever I tell a client how Pilates will prevent a strained back, I hurt my own back a few days later.
I can't think of a scary fitness word, but seeing the container of wipes used to clean the gym equipment empty REALLY scares me!
For a while now, I see my self as either injured or ready for further punishment!!
Of course I take my own advice, not one else does! Besides, I like having a fool for a patient 🙂
I knew there was a reason I wasn't doing AbRipper X! After almost 8 months of no ab work, holding plank for 30 seconds kills me let alone 349 of Tony Horton's craziness.
What injuries haven't I had? I have bum knees (that have 1/3 the amount of cartilage of a normal person). I've had 2 knee surgeries to remove scar tissue that only created more scar tissue (and put me in a wheel chair for 6 weeks.) Most recently, I had a nasty bout with plantar fasciitis that left me crying any time I used my foot to walk.
My scariest fitness word is "rest day", ok that's two words but it scares me because I still haven't figured out what it means or how often I should take one. It seems like some people still work out on what they call a rest day and some people do nothing. To me rest means rest, not run 3 miles instead of 6 but then I wonder if I'm just being lazy. ARGH!
I 100 percent take my own advice—now. I didn’t when I was first injured and kept pushing myself. Well, fast forward five years and I’m battling not one but two injured knees and can’t even walk a few blocks without pain. I wish I took the “get some rest, don’t push it” advice seriously a long time ago. But now I’m obsessive about healing an injury when it happens. I try to tell others the best lesson I’ve learned since injuring my first knee all those years ago (it’s better to rest for three weeks than not walk for three years) but I think it’s easier to say when you’ve been there, done that. So, yeah, no one ever listens to me. But at least I do!
Injury is definitely a scary word. I just had to have an MRI for some ongoing hip issues of my own (bone spur from an old injury). Physical therapy isn't working like I had hoped. It sucks to be limited in what you can do, and I am a horrible patient. I know I should be "taking it easy" but that's easier said then done!
I've been making offerings,dealings and ritual sacrifices to an injured knee for over a year now (I still don't quite know how I injured it). I try and be good, although I will admit that there are times that I just try and ignore things and push through them. Yeah. Dumb I know. Don't do it. I'm terrible at taking it easy and lack of activity for me means a few extra pounds and I don't like it, but I'm slowly figuring out what I can do. I'm learning to work around it 🙂
The Core performance workout is supposed to be good for joint and core strengthening…I can't wait for my fitness bands to arrive so I can start it and see what it does for me…
Scary word for me is knee pain.
Sometimes I'm VERY bad at not taking my own advice. We're all a little hypocritical from time to time!
Until now, I never thought about how doing abs work might affect a woman who just had a baby… but that makes complete sense. That's interesting!
I take some of my own advice & some I don't! I am decent at being injury free but saying that, I do work myself pretty hard so ya never know!
My scariest fitness word – injured! I hate when I can't work out!
Injury is definitely a scary fitness word…
I'm all for telling people to rest, but when I sprained my foot, I ran on it two days in a row, and then went to Turbo, where it hurt so bad by the end of class, I couldn't get down the stairs to go home. Oops!
Right now, my scariest fitness word is…I'm not even sure I can type it…"Bed rest." I'm terrified that something will happen and I won't be able to exercise for the next four months. (Plus another month or so after the baby's born…) Can't even think about it, yikes!
I've been trying to be good. I'm nursing a pretty-pretty princess heel that got angry at me doing 14 miles on worn out shoes, so I've been taking care to chill on the running. With the healthy eating though – I can't seem to take my own advice. It's hard! Something just isn't clicking in my head…grrrrr…
Oh thanks for the Love Charlotte–here I was feeling so sorry for your hip (because that's one more thing we have in common–while pregnant I would fall over if I tried lifting one leg) and then I got all excited when you dove into the bra. I have two now and might splurge on a third… but I have to share MY latest crossfit injury: A rope burn from sliding down the rope that's hanging from the ceiling. That was so fun, it's worth the big scab on my ankle. And better than the gal who had to go to the doc in the box after hitting her head with a dumb bell while doing one arm Snatches. I can't wait to see what that looks like on Sat:-)
Scariest fitness word = LUNGE. Oh how I loathe thee.
I injured my hip last year as a result of overuse through running, and old shoes. I've never put ab work into that equation, but it's an interesting culprit! I'll have to keep that in mind.