Keep Going, Keep Growing

What happens when you get hurt?

You sit down, assess, get help, and take it easy.

The fear of being re-injured, whether you twisted your ankle or tore your ACL, is REAL.

Going through any sort of injury can be traumatic, and your body learns from that event in order to not make the same mistakes again.

There are four fear responses, and whichever one you choose could be the difference between getting back on your feet or staying down forever.

In terms of injuries, let’s twist them to make a little more sense.

Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn.

Fight: You are frustrated. You’re angry. There is never a good time to get injured, but you have shit to do. Maybe you lash out at those around you, maybe you push through the pain even when you know you shouldn’t

Flight: You may deny that you were injured altogether. Maybe you live a life of avoidance, choosing not to do things for no specific reason…

Freeze: You don’t know what to do. Maybe you sit there in shock, too scared to move. Too scared to ask for help. Too scared to confirm what you know to be true.

Fawn: You don’t want to inconvenience anyone, so maybe you insist that you’re fine. You don’t need an ambulance. We wouldn’t want to admit that we’re human and have faults. Maybe there’s a big game coming up and you don’t want to let your team down.

For me, I almost always freeze.

I’m so scared of being injured again and again that every little thing, every little bit of pain causes me actual fear.

In a more recent scenario, I was weight training and tweaked my neck slightly. It was a sharp pain, but slightly different than when I had done it before (many times). As always, I froze, too scared to move my head and possibly cause more pain or further injury.

I asked for help, crying and hysterical. I convinced myself that something was so wrong and we almost called an ambulance. Someone came to pick me up and we booked an emergency appointment with a chiropractor before going to the hospital, just in case it was a false alarm.

That chiropractor didn’t need to do much, but he told me something that nobody else had before. My fear had caused me to seize up, tightening my muscles further until it caused me pain to move my neck. If I hadn’t reacted that way, I probably would have been able to walk away with a slight pain in my neck and slept it off that night, but the pain lasted for another two weeks.

This time it was all in my head.

Now I also have other scenarios where it was the opposite.

I’ve had many instances where I insist that I’m injured, and nobody believes me until it gets so bad that nobody can ignore it. Nobody can ignore a baseball-sized hematoma on a skinny ankle or a broken bone on an x-ray.

So, for me, I had to unlearn my most common response to fear to no longer cause myself more pain.

Injuries are relatively common when lifting weights, especially if you don’t know what you’re doing, you don’t know your limits, you are not aware of your surroundings.

Some activities carry a lower risk of injury, such as dance, golf, walking, and swimming.

Some have a higher risk, such as contact sports, running, CrossFit, and weight training.

So what about those who are using activity as a form of rehabilitation? You’ve already got the injury, you already carry the pain with you wherever you go. How do you get better and make it less likely to happen again?

Firstly, ask for help.

A gym can be a dangerous place. You wouldn’t believe how common it is for me to take a lap around the gym while working and see people using the equipment entirely wrong. And not the type of wrong where you could argue their side because maybe I don’t know everything (I already know that). The kind of wrong that makes you feel bad for them, try to help, and raise your eyebrows when they insist they don’t need assistance.

Don’t be the person who refuses to listen to another person’s point of view because they assume they’re right. They might just have a point.

Sure, they may be a meathead who assumes you don’t know what you’re doing because you’re a woman, but I’ve found those are less common than people who genuinely want to help by offering advice because that’s the only way they know how.

Secondly, get a free consultation.

Most gyms offer a free consultation that you can ask about on the tour. This is usually with a personal trainer as a way to sell you training, but it can also be really useful for verbalizing your current situation, what you’re struggling with, and getting some advice.

This is how I got started in the gym, and though I didn’t go in with any hope of ever getting rid of my chronic pain, the trainer that I met with (the fitness manager of the gym) told me that he’d helped other people like me, and it can be possible to decrease chronic pain through exercise.

Call me gullible, but I believed him.

After a while of working with him, spending more time in the gym, and talking to people, I realized that so many more women could have reached their goals so much sooner if they started training for strength rather than for aesthetic.

Now don’t get me wrong, you are allowed to have whatever goals that would make you feel happy, but the method to get there is usually pretty simple, with some slight differences along the way.

Your goal is to lose weight? Get off the treadmill, go lift some weights, and eat your protein.

Your goal is to get toned? Get off the treadmill, go lift some weights, and eat your protein.

These are two of the most common goals that women have when coming into the gym.

Now, over time, these goals usually change a bit when they start to realize that training for strength, ditching the treadmill (not entirely, heart health is still important), and eating more protein is usually the way to get what you want.

And sometimes what you want changes along the way too.

Do you know what’s more empowering than being skinny?

Being able to lift a lot of weight.

Being able to walk up the stairs without feeling winded or sore the next day.

Being able to pick up your dog to put her in the car.

Being able to keep up with your kids in an impromptu game of soccer.

Chronic pain seems like the end of the world when you’re living that reality.

It isn’t always a death sentence.

Only if you freeze. Or flee.

Fawning and fighting won’t help you either.

Did you know that 20-30% of patients with hip fractures die within a year of their injury?

This is mostly due to the fact that they fall down, and they do not get up again. Whether they can’t or they won’t, they give up on themselves.

For those who exercise, rejoice! Regular exercise can significantly decrease the risk of falls and associated injuries thanks to improved balance and coordination, increased muscle strength, and enhanced proprioception (self-awareness).

Now for those who already had the fall. Those who gave up because a doctor told them they’d never run again. I was you. I’ve had clients who were you.

Guess what we’re doing?

We’re running again. We’re living pain-free again. We changed our story from the one someone wrote for us, to the one we wrote for ourselves.

I hurt my back. I lift heavy weights now.

Lisa tore her Achilles. She runs now.

Ashley tore her ACL. She can leg press more than most men.

He lost his arm. He does push-ups.

These are all real people in my gym who use exercise as not only an outlet, but also as a way to change their lives. To recover. To get better. To do the things again.

The next time a doctor tells you that you can’t do something, don’t take their word for it.

Get a second or third opinion. Don’t stop until you find someone who can give you what you want, or something closer to it.

If you convince yourself that you can’t do something, you surely won’t be able to do the thing.

I’ll never lose the weight.

I’ll never run a 5K.

I’ll never be pain-free.

These are all things that I’ve told myself once upon a time and here I am. I’ve done all of those things. And I’m going to keep doing things to make it less likely for me to crawl back into my cave and hide again.

Exercise is hard.

Losing weight is hard.

Running a race is hard.

But you know what’s harder?

• Being in pain every day.

• Keeping the weight on.

• Staying exactly the same.

Pick your hard.

Being pain-free isn’t as easy as it sounds. My injuries are still there. If I stop exercising, lifting weights, and getting stronger for a week or two, I feel it again.

It’s hard to come to terms with the fact that there is no permanent solution to most things in life.

I cannot go on a diet, lose 20 lbs, go off the diet, and expect the weight to stay off.

There are no results without consistency; at least not consistent results.