Getting injured wasn’t necessarily a failure, but how I dealt with it was. Again, and again, and again.
Fail 1. August 2017. Getting broken.
When I first hurt myself at the end of August last year, I decided to ignore it. I was just a few weeks out from the World Championships, and I convinced myself I’d just pulled a muscle. It would be fine. I’d be fine. Hey, I’m a big tough lifter.
Fail 2. September 2017. Making it worse.
When the Worlds got postponed because of the earthquake in Mexico I kept on training at the same intensity, when I could, because no one knew when the competition would be rearranged. And I was still determined to hit the qualifying weights for the Commonwealth Games. I didn’t give myself any time off, even though it was getting harder to ignore the pain in my arm. There were some days it was just cutting out, or I couldn’t get enough push to walk upstairs. (Yes, it was my walking stick arm). No amount of ice, tiger balm, heat pads, more stretching helped. I got very angry and tearful during training sessions, and tried to train harder when I could to make up for the failures. And sometimes it worked. I hit more than one bench PB in these weeks. Which was exactly the opposite of what I should have been doing. I am too stubborn for my own damn good.
Fail 3. September and October 2017. Lying about being broken.
I was less than fully honest with my coach. I had told him about it hurting but reassured him I was fine. A bit worried, but fine. I convinced myself it was no big deal, which meant that I was being relatively truthful. Stupid, but kind of truthful. No, that’s still not true. I was lying my arse off. The pain was keeping me awake at night, and I still said it wasn’t too bad.
Fail 4. October 2017. Oh look, more lies.
I went ahead and entered a domestic competition. During warm up my arm just failed, and I got myself pinned under just 60kg. I wasn’t quite sure if I was just terrified, or in a bad way. So with the support and assistance of a couple of other lifters’ coaches, I unracked it again to see if I could hold it. Nope. I withdrew from the competition about three minutes before my flight started. And then cried a lot, all over everyone.
No, withdrawing wasn’t a fail. That was a pretty sensible thing to do, though horrible. The fail was telling the BWL team manager that I was fine, just a tweak, no big deal, I’d be fine for Mexico, and convincing myself this was true.
Fail 5. November 2017. Considering carrying on.
I had a long meeting with my coach, who rightly left the decision with me. My failure was even thinking that it was smart to carry on, and risk a full rupture at any time. But within 24 hours I came to my senses, and withdrew from my first Para international.
Fail 6. November 2017. Over optimism.
I figured I would be all healed up within two or three months, and could get back to where I was with no bother. Ha. No. The hope meant I crashed even harder.
Fail 6. December to June. Wallowing.
I had a lot of feelings. I ate most of them. Not true. I ate all of them. I ate misery cake, and twice my own body weight in toast. I couldn’t train at all. I put on a lot of weight. I went into hiding. And I kept doing these things, and doing them in ever worsening cycles.
I wavered between believing I’d be fine, and fretting I’d never lift again. I kept trying basic movements, and then being furious I couldn’t do them. Not even a push up. Not even a push up against the kitchen counter. Pull ups? Not if my life depended on it. I should probably have talked to my doctor about depression.
Fail 7. The whole year. Beating myself up.
The one thing I never failed at was beating myself up for my own failures. And then of course had to throw in some extra self-sabotage to make myself feel even worse. Yeah. That eating thing, and endless games of could-have-should-have to keep me awake. What I should have done? Talked to someone who knows how to deal with this. Sports shrinks exist for a reason, and I should have found one.
Fail 8. Now. Impatience.
I’m now working hard to try to undo the damage of a year of inactivity, wallowing, and eating, I am impatient. It’s a daily self-lecture to be patient, to take my time, to be kinder to myself. My body weight is dropping, my training has finally started up again. I’m starting to look less like I’m made of over-proved bread dough.
I have to give myself the talk every time I walk into the gym: “no, this is not where you were, but it’s where you are now, and this week is better than last week. These weights are tiny, but they are many times more than you could move for months.” Thinking ahead, weeks, months, years is dangerous. But it’s hard not to do that. I’ll keep trying to look at today and tomorrow, and not next year.
What was the injury?
A partially ruptured bicep tendon. From the initial tear or fraying, I made it much, much worse by continuing to train on it as though it was fine.
When I finally stopped, it was clear how much damage I had done. For the next three months or so, I couldn’t turn my palm even close to upwards. I couldn’t hold the weight of a kettle. An empty kettle. I couldn’t reach behind me to put a coat on without a lot of swearing, and a lot of extra time.
I managed to damage the front delt on my other shoulder around this time too, by overcompensating from the lack of use of me left arm. I can’t even remember how.
This was compounded by fairly intense general joint and tendon pain. It wasn’t until later that I discovered that this can be yet another of the fun, fun symptoms and side effects of menopause. (Starting HRT in the Spring made it go away. It also stopped me crying every day. Turns out I wasn’t as much of an emotional wreck as I feared—that was hormonal.)
As things calmed down, we tried introducing some very light rehab movements. I had to stop, because things were getting re-inflamed and it was clearly not healed up enough yet.
What’s happening now?
I met with my ever-patient coach every few weeks to see where things were. On the third time around of trying rehab exercises I got through without any pain. Testing things out, I was finally able to move a barbell again.
So we’ve started on a long, slow, careful programme to try to rebuild my strength. I’m five weeks in, and can finally move a barbell again. I am slowly getting more of my range of motion back. Fingers are firmly crossed that I will continue to make progress, and be aware that that might not happen as smoothly as I would like. And if things hiccup, I need to not jump straight back into fail mode.
What happens next?
I’m not sure, and I need to work out how to be OK with that. I very much hope to be able to do a competition before the end of the year so that I can qualify for the GBPF British Bench in 2019, and keep some options open. But that depends on getting my body weight down and by bench weight up in good timing without hurting myself again. And I have mixed feelings about competing unless I am genuinely competitive again, and lift enough.
Para competitions? Not until (if) I can get fully back to where I was, or beyond there. I’m not ruling out an attempt to get to the next Commonwealth Games, but I am trying not to count great-great-grandchickens.