So its been a whole lot of ups and downs over the past few weeks. It goes without saying that life can get in the way of even the biggest plans and there is no exception to this rule, even for P90X. A few weeks ago we went to Ireland for a 3 day vacation and upon my return home I had a major final paper due and a field placement orientation to complete. I hear people say there are no excuses, but I beg to differ, as I don't get paid like the athletes that preach an all or nothing mentality. I was not going to spend time working out in a hotel room in Ireland, nor was I going to put 40% of my grade into the back seat for vanity's sake. What I did though was find a balance and move on with my life. I would say that I got 4 good workouts in that week, but I did skip days. The days we missed got pushed forward so we will end up doing the program for longer than 90 consecutive days. We moved workouts around, did them exhausted and ignored the eating plan because 3 days in Ireland was not going to be spent with out beer, fish & chips and other delicious food. There is no point in traveling if you cannot enjoy it and enjoy it we did.
A few weeks after that was my birthday. Again, I wanted real food for my birthday. We went to Brugge and had yummy frites with oh so yummy samurai sauce (my favorite frite sauce) and curry ketchup (my second favorite). I took it off because it was my birthday and even Natalie Portman took off her birthday from her year long stint of ballet training for Black Swan. If she can, so can I.
With the celebrating done, vacation and stress of finals done, we are back to a schedule. I am feeling stronger and I am actually beginning to enjoy weight lifting. I can tell that I am getting stronger for sure. I have also started to notice that my derby injuries are coming back to haunt me. As most of you know, shortly after the move to DC I went shoulder first into a wall and ended up with an AC separation. Since I was never one for push-ups anyways, I never really noticed the long term damage. Now that I engage in push ups, pull ups and the like almost daily, the fact that I did such damage is very obvious. It is weaker than my other shoulder and while I am building up strength I am also coming to terms with the fact that my right shoulder cannot do what the left one can. When I wake up, during stretching or sometimes for no reason at all I will get a huge pop or cracking sound in my shoulder, sometimes so loud that it startles the dog (and me). Inside it feels like my whole shoulder has relocated itself. Sometimes it hurts, sometimes it doesn't, but even the reminder of how painful it was when I did it makes me sick to my stomach. I make sure to push myself, but only to the point that it won't make working out impossible for me the next day. I am getting stronger and with that getting smarter and more in tune with my body.
I also did some damage to my right knee last year. After a solid 3+ years of skating at 3-4 days a week it was bound to happen. That injury has never really felt 100% better and now that I am in a country with much better health care costs than the US, I plan on getting another MRI. I still believe that I tore my meniscus. During my first MRI it looked at my ACL and PCL, both of which I pulled, but I am almost sure if they did an MRI to cross section my knee vertically and not horizontally, the results would be different. Even after all this time, to touch the inside of my right knee is still extremely tender. Needless to say, P90X has put strain onto my knee once more and some days the pain is fairly, well, painful again. I loved derby and always will, but there are new skaters and new leagues pop up every 5 seconds and, as we know, quantity never equals quality. They are buying shitty equipment and posting "cool- look at my bruises photos" on facebook and those photos are of their knees all bruised up which makes me want to find them and slap them upside the head. I know that many leagues have little to no guidance, especially here in Belgium, but I wish someone would tell them 1) knee bruises are NEVER "cool" 2) invest in some decent gear. So, that is my rant and rave and if you are reading this and you play derby and your knee pads cost less than $60 (Very MINIMUM), you don't own knee gaskets for under your pads and you don't replace your knee pads AT LEAST once a season you are sealing your fate of serious knee injury. The majority of skaters don't stick around long anyways, so they might as well gift themselves a consolation prize of good knees for after their short derby careers. For the few that do become the few quality skaters, knee problems will be inevitable because of the amount of falling that takes place so also be good to yourself and buy great knee pads so you can kick ass for many seasons to come.
Well I think that is about all. I hope that life keeps calm for the next few weeks so I am able to get back into a routine and see major results by the end of second month.
In the words of Tony- Do your best and forget the rest.
