Broken But Still Strong

You know it's funny to consider, but once you've been bit hard by the exercise bug it is like torture to be taken away from it. While the rest of the population tries to see how little exercise they can get by with (Bikini Body in 5 Minutes A Day!!! screams the advertisement flashing in the sidebar of a web page I was on recently. Yeah. Right. And I've got a beachfront property in Arizona to sell you after you buy that one), those of us who are athletes scramble to find ways to move our body even when it's difficult to do so.

One of the things I like best about Crossfit workouts is that they're scalable. At any point, a group of people can be doing the same workout but at different intensities with different weights or subbing different exercises to still get a good workout. This makes it ideal for me at this time since I'm obviously unable to do many of the basic exercises (like anything involving my left arm of course).

Today's workout was one of the Heros, Crossfit's workouts that are named after fallen warriors. This one was Daniel, for Daniel Crabtree, killed in Iraq on 6/8/2006:

50 Pull-ups
400 meter run
95 pound Thruster, 21 reps
800 meter run
95 pound Thruster, 21 reps
400 meter run
50 Pull-ups

One of our members was having knee trouble, so she subbed rowing for running. I had to get creative for my workout, so I subbed 50 situps + 50 back extensions for the 50 pullups each time, and I did one-armed thrusters with a kettlebell instead of two-armed with a bar (a thruster is like a full squat and then you thrust the weight overhead). But just the same, it was a tough workout (especially since you consider that all of our runs here are hill runs!). Nice thing was, the arm doesn't bother me when running (as long as I take it easy and don't fall on it) and I felt strong throughout the workout.

Yesterday I was able to bike on the trainer with my left arm propped on a pillow. I think I'm gaining core strength since essentially I have to support myself on one arm right now. A few days ago I could only bike for 30 minutes with the one arm and yesterday I made it an hour. I tried swimming a bit on Saturday, I figured I would just keep my arm by my side and kick, but that didn't work out at all. It turns out that the water would move my arm in unpredictable directions, causing it to hurt. So water (even water running) is probably not going to be possible for another week or two. Luckily it seems like I can find enough that I can do to keep myself busy.

One of the reasons that I chose a Hero workout for our WOD (workout of the day) was to remind myself how precious these moments are that we're given. I don't know anything about Daniel Crabtree, other than what his friend wrote about him on this blog but I'm pretty sure if he could choose, he'd be somewhere running around enjoying life. Life's too short to whine about what we can't do, we're better off embracing what we can. Today's workout was a great reminder that though part of me might be a bit broken, the rest of me can still be strong.