I meant to post for the Weekly rundown last week but really wasn’t up to it. After starting this injury being positive and having a plan and a focus, I was caught up by negative emotions and just wanted to hide under a blanket.
I’m still there, sort of. Just not all the time. My usual, productive pissed-off energy, that is always triggered by an injury, is lurking in the background. And I’ll be back, but differently.
So what about the foot? It’s very confusing. It’s been slowly improving – but then I get setbacks, and some mornings I have so much pain that I think it’s in pieces, and then I’m almost pain free in the afternoon. FYI, I’m still waiting for the MRI but I’m 100% treating this as a metatarsal stress fracture.
Moving on with fitness activities
How do I stay active, while having a useless foot? It’s almost impossible not easy but I do my best. I’m going to keep challenging my body, and work hard on keeping my fitness level as good as possible, but in ways that will allow my foot to heal.
I can’t row because you’re supposed to push off with your toes. Honestly I don’t know if I’ve done that because our machine has flexible foot plates, but I’ll skip it just in case. So right now I have no cardio training options at all. We’re talking about getting a spin bike of sorts but will have to rearrange the house a bit to have space for one, so maybe in the autumn.
I’m very restricted with core and other exercises. Have you ever thought of how many exercises require you to bend and put weight on your toes? But I’ve looked up workouts for people with foot injuries, and found some very good moves that will challenge hips, glutes and core, and I’ll add them to my Sunday routine.
Other than that, I decided to focus more on some other good things in life. So why not add some, let’s call it fitness activities for fingers and vocal cords. I decided to use the time I normally would go for a run, and spend it on music. Getting back into a practice routine is a great feel-good activity for me, my guitar needs more TLC than I’ve been giving it recently, and we’ve been asked to do some gigs again in the little pub in town this summer, so there are songs and tunes to brush up and we want to add some new material too.
Here’s a summary of how the week went in terms of fitness activity attempts.
Monday
I made a few more videos of simple strength exercises for my inlaws. I had felt quite miserable in the morning, but after lifting some weights, even just a few reps, my mood was restored.
Debbie wrote a while ago about choosing your sport, and my sport is strength training. That’s where my passion is, where I’ve made progress, and what has given me self-confidence, a feeling of achievement, and a body I’m beginning to feel comfortable in, both in terms of health, wellbeing and appearance.
At the moment I’m almost certain I won’t be returning to running. I know this sounds awful but I feel it’s not worth the trouble, and I don’t even know if I’ll be able to truly enjoy running again after this. I don’t ever want this kind of injury to happen again, it’s disrupting everything that is important to me (except music). Being unable to continue with all my good work in the gym is extremely upsetting, lots of the progress I’ve made will be undone when my foot is healed. I guess I was naive with how strong your body needs to be to run, and what a high risk sport running is, even when you’re just starting out.
I’m fine with that. If I can get back to my normal weightlifting routine, challenge myself there, go for long walks again, and perhaps get that spin bike for cardio training, I’ll be happy.
Tuesday
Gym day. I was happy with all my chest work and did some good work on shoulders too. I’ve stopped documenting what I lift. There simply is no point doing it when I can’t do my usual programs. Or maybe I should, for upper body. But for now I’m just happy to be able to continue training even if I can’t do everything.
Wednesday
My foot was a horror show on Wednesday morning and I was certain that I will be forced into a walking boot and to do nothing for at least a month. I can tell you straight away that I’d never even go out with such a thing – how is it even possible to get around in them? I’ll prefer crutches.
Then in the late afternoon I was almost pain free.
To distract myself I decided to start that music practice I mentioned, and had a blast playing Tony Rice licks and some phrases I use to practise playing across multiple strings. One of them is simply the B part of “Gold rush” and it’s a perfect warm-up for the fingers and the brain. Later, I finally started learning to sing “Tear my stillhouse down” by Gillian Welch which has been on my to-do list for a long long time. It was a quite good day after all.
Thursday
I did some stretching, hip mobility moves, and did my usual rotator cuff exercise. The foot was still quite bad. I’m trying to chase the hospital to which my MRI referral was eventually sent. Let’s say the information on their website isn’t particularly helpful and I’m rather annoyed.
Friday
My foot was much calmer again.
It was the gym day, but I seemed to lack energy and oomph. With this current injury I’ve been able to keep up my performance in the gym and not let it be disturbed by mental lows, but maybe I was affected anyway by the recent pain setback. However, I did my best ever performance with dumbbell row so that’s something to celebrate.
Saturday
Music and random house jobs. That’s it.
Sunday
I did my new program for glutes, hip flexors and core, and threw in some kneeling press-ups too.
To end this week, I want you to stop for a moment and be grateful for what your body can do. Never take your body for granted. What a joy it will be when I can walk normally again! And what a privilege it is to be able to move the body without restrictions.
I hope you are doing well and had a fabulous, active week! This post is linked to the Weekly rundown linkup, hosted by Kim and Deborah.
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