I have it in my mind that anything over 75kg is too much for me to publicly announce about myself. Yes, me weighing over 165 pounds is too much. I have limits. Where did I get this limit though? I find that I sit normally, when working out a lot, around 170-173ish. That is close to 75kg, right? It's only 8 pounds away, so dropping weight to fit in the 75kg class seems to make sense.
So here I am at 173, with two weeks to go to my weightlifting comp. I've dropped this weight before, in that amount of time, so I'm not concerned. My coach told me not to worry about making weight for this competition, though! Why? I'm sure because it adds stress to the whole thing - and this is only my second competition ever. Ok - being competitive as well, you can see from the New England Women's Weightlifting Master Records, that there is an advantage to me competing in the heavier class (age 40-44). For about 2 months, I had the 75kg record until a world class lifter, who has since aged, came in and crushed my total.
But this begs the question...what is the right weight class for me? I'm tall for an olympic lifter. The 75kg+ category is unrestricted, as it would have me competing against people who are well over 100kg. Currently I sit at 78.6 kg. I guess in the masters lifting world the Sinclair scale works to my advantage. That means the more I lift and the lighter I am, the better advantage I have.
All that aside - I still have a hang up competing in anything over 75kg, which is what I need to work through. Which is funny. I think the whole point of this competition is to lift as much weight as possible - right? Which is what I should be focusing on, I think.
I'm still sitting on the edge of a decision - dropping weight or just lifting at the weight I am.
Sunday, January 31, 2016
Tuesday, January 19, 2016
Save your drama for your mama
Sigh....more drama and it also involves social media.
Last year I set out to try Olympic weightlifting and I partnered up with Risto Sports.They have a long resume of coaching and are best known for their wooden heel weightlifting shoes. I signed up for a year of programming and coaching. Being new to the sport, I believed I would get better, which I did. The programming was a lot of volume, but my technique wasn't really getting all that much better. Every time I went to train in Maine, the feedback would be that I just needed to improve my technique. The cues I received at the time, made no sense to me. I could not translate them into practice and of course my body suffered injuries. My shoulder hurt. I tweaked my neck. I lacked confidence in the lifts and I needed a break.
That's when I found 849 CrossFit and Weightlifting. I went there actually thinking that I could continue doing the Risto programming, but with some technique help. I was wrong. They wanted to do the programming AND I really needed to come lift at their gym. Which was great, for a time. I really learned about weightlifting there. I competed in my first competition with them. I learned technique. I learned the ins and outs of using Icy Hot and knee sleeves. More so, I gained confidence.
I also learned how much drama exists in the world of weightlifting. (Almost as much as CrossFit.) I'm not getting into details, but let me just say that Risto has impacted quite a few lifters in the area - good/bad/ugly/beautiful. I found myself in the middle of a swirling, twirling mess of "he said, she said". I agree with everything and everyone. All of it.
The reality is -- there are three sides to every story. I don't know who is right and who is wrong. It really doesn't matter. What matters to me is that I am lifting and doing it in a way that works for my schedule. Things change. Schedules change. Injuries happen. People come and go. I have to do what is best for me and my family.
But - let me be clear....just because you shared a moment with someone in life and you are friends on social media...it doesn't mean you're friends for life. I hate social media. I hate it when drama (that you didn't even start) results in being blocked, untagged, unfriended, ousted, and eliminated from conversation. It's so stupid and it kind of hurts. The social media aspect, in my mind, just exacerbates the drama.
I am a loyal person. I tend to welcome you into my world when we share something. In CrossFit it may be the suffering through a WOD, or in weightlifting it might be cheering you on as you PR the clean and jerk. Leaving the place we suffered together does not mean I don't still feel loyal to you. So when you reject me, or stop following me, or pretend I don't exist, it hurts. AND THIS IS WHY I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA!!!
The end.
Last year I set out to try Olympic weightlifting and I partnered up with Risto Sports.They have a long resume of coaching and are best known for their wooden heel weightlifting shoes. I signed up for a year of programming and coaching. Being new to the sport, I believed I would get better, which I did. The programming was a lot of volume, but my technique wasn't really getting all that much better. Every time I went to train in Maine, the feedback would be that I just needed to improve my technique. The cues I received at the time, made no sense to me. I could not translate them into practice and of course my body suffered injuries. My shoulder hurt. I tweaked my neck. I lacked confidence in the lifts and I needed a break.
That's when I found 849 CrossFit and Weightlifting. I went there actually thinking that I could continue doing the Risto programming, but with some technique help. I was wrong. They wanted to do the programming AND I really needed to come lift at their gym. Which was great, for a time. I really learned about weightlifting there. I competed in my first competition with them. I learned technique. I learned the ins and outs of using Icy Hot and knee sleeves. More so, I gained confidence.
I also learned how much drama exists in the world of weightlifting. (Almost as much as CrossFit.) I'm not getting into details, but let me just say that Risto has impacted quite a few lifters in the area - good/bad/ugly/beautiful. I found myself in the middle of a swirling, twirling mess of "he said, she said". I agree with everything and everyone. All of it.
The reality is -- there are three sides to every story. I don't know who is right and who is wrong. It really doesn't matter. What matters to me is that I am lifting and doing it in a way that works for my schedule. Things change. Schedules change. Injuries happen. People come and go. I have to do what is best for me and my family.
But - let me be clear....just because you shared a moment with someone in life and you are friends on social media...it doesn't mean you're friends for life. I hate social media. I hate it when drama (that you didn't even start) results in being blocked, untagged, unfriended, ousted, and eliminated from conversation. It's so stupid and it kind of hurts. The social media aspect, in my mind, just exacerbates the drama.
I am a loyal person. I tend to welcome you into my world when we share something. In CrossFit it may be the suffering through a WOD, or in weightlifting it might be cheering you on as you PR the clean and jerk. Leaving the place we suffered together does not mean I don't still feel loyal to you. So when you reject me, or stop following me, or pretend I don't exist, it hurts. AND THIS IS WHY I HATE SOCIAL MEDIA!!!
The end.
Sunday, January 17, 2016
Injuries and Anger
Honestly, the day after I sent in my $90 registration for the upcoming Atlantic States competition, my left shoulder said "fuck you". I've had shoulder problems before. A lot in fact. I grew up an athlete - softball and volleyball were my sports - so I was considered an "overhead sport athlete". Back in high school - I believe my sophomore year of high school, when diving for a volleyball, my left shoulder hyper extended and shot excruciating pain through my arm. The funny thing about that injury is that after that initial pain, there was none. Until....
Until I would wake up in the middle of the night with deep, intense aching. It would linger into the day. My volleyball coach told me to use that arm to try to get it stronger. So I would hit balls against the wall with my left arm. This pain lasted for nearly a decade.
While in massage school I took glucosamine chondroitin and miraculously the pain disappeared, forever. I was cured!! Of course, here's the thing. There is always a mind/body connection to pain. While in massage school, I was also working through all of the stress my body was holding on to. When I started, my shoulders were always raised toward my ears. A year later, they were relaxed and rolled back.
Fast forward...to my short lived days of rugby. I "may have" torn the labrum in my left shoulder, however the doctors never diagnosed that conclusively. I rehabbed that.... I also fell on my right arm and sprained the sternoclavicular joint after a late tackle. My A/C joint has never been the same. Then we moved to Massachusetts. I played softball. All was good until the end of the season when I could barely throw the ball with my right arm - same A/C joint issues. I quit playing softball and started doing bikram yoga.
Bikram healed me physically, but more so, emotionally. Imagine staring at yourself in a mirror for 90 minutes while moving your body through 26 postures in 105 degree temperatures. I found ways to move forward from the places I was stuck. I also felt like I could take on a more aggressive type of work out... and I found CrossFit.
For the first two years of CrossFit I suffered from impingement in the left shoulder. Then it was some weird pain in my A/C joint when I jerked. Now...now it's probably rotator cuff tendinitis or bursitis in my left shoulder. Doctor's don't help, unfortunately. It's not like it's an obvious injury - a break where I need a cast, or crutches. It's an overuse injury and one that I could load up on NSAIDs and continue to work through. Of course that would make it worse down the line.
I guess it is time to pay attention again. Time to look inside and figure out what is out of balance. At 41 my body tends to rebel a bit more than it used to and the reality is that I am pissed about it. I am angry. I was feeling good. Training was going great. There have been times when an injury might have let me off the hook a little - lessened the pressure I put on myself. Not this time though. I'm down right pissed and that is the reality. I'm pissed I didn't find weightlifting at a younger age. I'm pissed that my body has limits. I'm pissed that I let this happen AGAIN. I'm pissed I missed the warning signs. The pain makes me mad and it makes me withdraw from the world. I'm angry that lifting my son hurts. I'm mad that I can't sleep on my left side. I'm pissed that there is chaos in my house and clutter. I'm mad that I look for ways to escape. (More on that in another post...)
In the meantime though, being angry isn't doing me any good in healing my injury. Sigh. I want to click the "easy" button, or wake up after a long sleep to find there is no more injury...
Until I would wake up in the middle of the night with deep, intense aching. It would linger into the day. My volleyball coach told me to use that arm to try to get it stronger. So I would hit balls against the wall with my left arm. This pain lasted for nearly a decade.
While in massage school I took glucosamine chondroitin and miraculously the pain disappeared, forever. I was cured!! Of course, here's the thing. There is always a mind/body connection to pain. While in massage school, I was also working through all of the stress my body was holding on to. When I started, my shoulders were always raised toward my ears. A year later, they were relaxed and rolled back.
Fast forward...to my short lived days of rugby. I "may have" torn the labrum in my left shoulder, however the doctors never diagnosed that conclusively. I rehabbed that.... I also fell on my right arm and sprained the sternoclavicular joint after a late tackle. My A/C joint has never been the same. Then we moved to Massachusetts. I played softball. All was good until the end of the season when I could barely throw the ball with my right arm - same A/C joint issues. I quit playing softball and started doing bikram yoga.
Bikram healed me physically, but more so, emotionally. Imagine staring at yourself in a mirror for 90 minutes while moving your body through 26 postures in 105 degree temperatures. I found ways to move forward from the places I was stuck. I also felt like I could take on a more aggressive type of work out... and I found CrossFit.
For the first two years of CrossFit I suffered from impingement in the left shoulder. Then it was some weird pain in my A/C joint when I jerked. Now...now it's probably rotator cuff tendinitis or bursitis in my left shoulder. Doctor's don't help, unfortunately. It's not like it's an obvious injury - a break where I need a cast, or crutches. It's an overuse injury and one that I could load up on NSAIDs and continue to work through. Of course that would make it worse down the line.
I guess it is time to pay attention again. Time to look inside and figure out what is out of balance. At 41 my body tends to rebel a bit more than it used to and the reality is that I am pissed about it. I am angry. I was feeling good. Training was going great. There have been times when an injury might have let me off the hook a little - lessened the pressure I put on myself. Not this time though. I'm down right pissed and that is the reality. I'm pissed I didn't find weightlifting at a younger age. I'm pissed that my body has limits. I'm pissed that I let this happen AGAIN. I'm pissed I missed the warning signs. The pain makes me mad and it makes me withdraw from the world. I'm angry that lifting my son hurts. I'm mad that I can't sleep on my left side. I'm pissed that there is chaos in my house and clutter. I'm mad that I look for ways to escape. (More on that in another post...)
In the meantime though, being angry isn't doing me any good in healing my injury. Sigh. I want to click the "easy" button, or wake up after a long sleep to find there is no more injury...
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