Dealing With and Injury

I can’t count the number of times I’ve been asked “so what now?” after my pec tear a few weeks ago. It’s a hard question to answer, obviously heal and come back…duh that’s the no brainer but this injury has done far more for me than give me a cool purple boob.

If you’re looking for an article that’s hard AF, as the kids say, and is going to tell you how to be a bad ass and train through pain or how pain is just weakness leaving the body keep looking. For me this was an eye opener. I suffered many injuries through college football including shoulder separations, meniscus tears, hamstring pulls and so much more. The difference is I could play through those. I could tolerate the pain and still perform every Saturday. This injury is a whole new beast for me, I’ve never been “sidelined” because I’ve never had a severe injury that actually limited my body’s ability. An injury where a muscle actually doesn’t work correctly.

Looking back on that day I did everything wrong, I wasn’t hydrated and my eating had been very minimal. Running your own business takes it out of you and I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tired, hungry and not really in the mood to bench that Wednesday night. Well 45 minutes later I was hitting my projected opener at 405 which was a smoke show. So I moved to my planned second at 435 and absolutely destroyed that weight too. I moved the bar up to 455. This was the worst idea I’ve had in a while. I had just hit a PR and I knew I should have walked away and saved it. But since I have been benching like shit in my past 4 meets I needed something to build some confidence. Well at around 7pm I was ¾ of the way up with 455 when the bar slowed and I felt two large pops in my pec. I knew that it was bad before I even stood up because I could feel the hot flow of blood to the area. Luckily it was just a belly tear and not a rupture, requiring no surgery just time to heal.

I was getting ready to try and hang my first big total, and elite total by USPA standards to qualify for the American Cup at the LA fit Expo in January. Everything was on track I was squatting high 600s on a regular basis in sleeves looking for 740 on my third attempt, benching 405 for 5+ reps and 425 for a double planning to put up around 440-460 and deadlifting 675 for a double looking for around 710 on my third. 1900. That was my goal. It’s not a gigantic total but its elite in every fed for my class and I was going to do it drug free. I’d had the number in my mind since the Arnold in March. Not only that but Relentless was going to be my last this year and I wanted to go out big.

I start grad school in the fall at the University of Minnesota along with an internship there now and on top of that I’m running my own business. Injuries have a way to make you look back and reflect on your goals. Being a great powerlifter is a goal of mine, but far from the only one. I hear the seasoned vets in the sport talk about how much they’ve given up for a total and I can’t picture myself doing that. Life is too short to pursue a number and let EVERYTHING else be discarded. I have decided that for the next 2 years of grad school I’m going to jump in with both feet and pursue becoming a top-level strength and conditioning coach. This has been my goal since my sophomore year of high school when I learned that strength coaches existed. I was blessed in college to have a very good coach that genuinely made a difference in his athletes lives. I hope to have the same impact in some athletes’ life that he had in mine.

I hear people preach about balance all the time, but it never really registered with me. I always thought my life was balanced. I thought I had a good grasp on time management and utilized every hour of each day. Looking back I wasn’t even close. Making the gym priority is essential in a meet prep or show prep, and it honestly just keeps me sane. I love lifting and being in the gym so it wasn’t hard for me to spend 15+ hours a week training on top of my 35-40 working in it, but it was taking away from everything around me. I will still be lifting heavy and next may I plan to compete again, I just need some time to heal and fix some weaknesses so I can come back stronger than I was prior to my pec tear.

So, to those who ask me “what’s next?” it’s pretty simple, I’m going to spend time building a life not just a total.