Looking Up From The Bench

I will preface this post by highlighting that in a physical sense I am doing well for being less than two weeks out of surgery! My pain is minimal and manageable. While I don’t feel normal, I really can’t imagine doing any better so soon after. I am very thankful for this and glad that my body has allowed me to resume working out and doing some of the normal activities in my daily life. I hope that it continues to heal well over the coming months. However, emotionally this week has been difficult. There are two main reasons this is the case. One, in a sense I am still grieving the loss of my athletic season for the year. I know that sounds silly. But I pour my heart and soul into training and it is my passion and a huge major purpose in my life right now. To have it be taken away again is just really tough to process. I also know this injury will impact the course of my athletic career (although hopefully in a positive way), which is extremely scary as I don’t want to give it up. ...

Is the pain of this task worth it? We all think this in various stages of our life whether it be a tough school assignment, a difficult job, or in what I want to talk about today, a hard workout. During the days leading up to surgery I had an immensely challenging time seeing the value in pushing myself or doing really uncomfortable workouts. I was very aware of the fact that any progress I made prior to surgery would in a way be lost during recovery. When healing, maintaining intensity or the same level of fitness just isn’t possible, and can’t really be the main priority. No matter your best efforts, in certain ways you watch your fitness decline. Additionally, most workouts I could do with intensity were those that I consider weaknesses, specifically rowing. I had the opportunity to maintain a great level of “cardio” while waiting for surgery thanks to brutal rowing workouts that allowed me to really push myself. The day before my rotator cuff repair I had the option to test a ...

I think most of us feel a sense of nostalgia or reflection upon an anniversary that marks a significant change in our lives. One of these occurred for me this week as my brother’s birthday took place once again on September 15 th . This year marking what would have been his 30 th birthday. This naturally brings up some emotions and there were two streams in particular I wanted to share; most of my focus on the latter. First, I felt a sense of loss, fear, and worry about the future. What will happen as I get older? What if I am alone? What if I don’t have the help I need? He will not be here to conquer life with and has left me by myself. While I am independent in a lot of ways, I certainly rely on others maybe more than the normal person my age. So, this is scary. I think these thoughts sometimes occur as I realize that I am experiencing more and more life without him. The memories I have of our precious times together seem more distant, not just because time has passed, but ...