About The Speaker: Deb joined a gym and hired a personal trainer to help her lose her peri-menopausal 40# in 2006. That sparked an interest in fitness that led to her becoming a NASM-certified Personal Trainer blogging about her love of lifting and the challenges of post-menopausal fitness at Weight for Deb.
Two major injuries slowed the workouts for two years as she recovered from shoulder surgery and a total hip replacement. During this time, she researched movement imbalances and injury prevention, receiving an additional certification in this specialty. She will be leading the FitBloggin13 Round Table discussion on Dealing With Injuries.
Deb Roby (Discussion Leader): Let’s go around the room and discuss our injuries. I am a certified personal trainer specialize in corrective exercises to help people not get injured. Deb had shoulder surgery and had her left hip replaced.
Sitting cross-legged is not good, and could cause injuries to the hip.
What did you have to give up when you are injured?
Had to give up power, and will never run again
Andrea had to give up running due to a high ankle sprain that never healed correctly.
Katie: Had to give up everything, had surgery 7 weeks ago.
Melissa: Has been injured several times, had to give up marathons that she was 90% trained for, does Pilates PT
Tiffany: Sprained ankle, has been injured for 5 weeks, hopes to be running again soon
Tamara: Work as a personal trainer, has had repetitive train, gives up a couple weeks of teaching. Currently has Achilles tendonitis
Chris: Knee injuries from overuse, had to give up long distance running
Susan: Had an ankle injury for a long time that finally healed, now dealing with a hip injury that has plagued her. She isn’t quite sure what it is. Had to give up Yoga and sitting too long. Running doesn’t hurt as much as walking does for her. Had to give up a half marathon that she wanted to do. It is very painful to put on her socks and shoes
Vee: Dislocated knee caps, and it didn’t get diagnosed for a year. Its been a 2.5 year process of rehabilitation. This year is the first time she can go back to the gym and walk properly.
Poppy: Plantar fasciitis. Just here because she didn’t want to go to dance. (crowd laughs)
Kimberly: Very bad joints, Had several knee surgeries, cannot sit cross legged. Plyometrics isn’t good, but is trying crossfit tomorrow. Running is hard and knees would swell.
Crossfit pays doctors bills
Shara: Frequently injures hips, knee issues, no surgery yet. Sprained ankles from running trail. Had very bad shin splints while running.
Krista: Is a runner, had hip issues and always knew how to manage. Sprained ankle that is very painful—should be wearing boot but is doesn’t look good in shoes. Can’t run with favorite mommy group anymore. Dog dislocated her shoulder. Can’t do Yoga and can’t rotate out. Just figured out that she can do her Hula hoop
Deb: Wait that’s another question!
Megan: 13 surgeries, Did PT to diagnose her back when it was actually her face that was injured. Had to give up holding her children. Had back fused when baby was 2.5 weeks old. Couldn’t pick him up, couldn’t take care of him. Giving up holding them was hard because they didn’t get it. Usually has kids stand on a chair.
How did your injury inspire you to want to come back stronger?
Deb: She was 2 days away from bench pressing 135 pounds, when she hurt her hip she was about to enter her first power lifting competition. She failed, didn’t finish, but she keeps going!
It’s about finding ways that you can do things, for example not strength training on the machines but strength training in the water. Also not comparing yourself with the person that you were before.
Many of us think about the time before we were injured and the time now.
You have to let yourself heal so that you can get back to being happy doing your activity. Its so hard to let yourself have that time to heal. It Is harder mentally to get over an injury physically. You start to feel a bit better and you think “Oh! I can do this!”
Deb: Let’s all get up and get behind our chairs. We will do a side step walk around the room. Lean with your heel. You want your toes to go out. We are going to strengthen the side and lead with the heel.
*all attendees start side stepping around the room* Do this as a part of your warm up before you do any exercise.
Anyone else have any inspirations?
Tamara: For her it’s her clients. Most of her clients have injuries. It may not be from something traumatic, but they all have individual injuries. Walking the walk.
Kimberly: Her personal trainer has a lot of injury experience, so that makes it easier for her to adapt to her injuries.
Anyone who is have surgery should be eating more calories and protein for recovery.
Do we want to talk about the depression?
Crowd *yes*
It’s hard because you want to get well right away. Having a surgeon that cares about you is extremely important
Finding the right doctor is key. Sometimes the wrong doctor can actually make things worse.
How about the other kind of depression, when you r body is used to high movement and all of sudden you have to rest?
You miss moving, your body is so used to it. People always tell you to rest and get over it. Your body craves the movement, and muscle atrophy is real. It takes a super long time to get your muscles back where they were.
When you don’t workout, you tend to get upset at other people that you can do it. And social media doesn’t help either when you see “great run!” tweets.
It is a very humbling experience to finally give in and say “I can’t do this anymore”
When you are injured it is amazing how FAR everything is. Basic tasks become extremely difficult.
How many of us are reluctant to say—I need help?
It’s embarrassing especially when people look at you and think you are well. Everyone is just like “What is WRONG with you?” If you don’t have a visible brace or cane, your injury is not “real”.
Any positive things learned?
More compassion and patience for people. It’s a long process even when it doesn’t look that bad. It takes time and dedication and hard work to overcome things like that. People don’t understand the recovery sometimes. People felt hurt that you can’t hang out—but sometimes you can’t function.
Being injured helps you have compassion for yourself. Being injured has make you sick in other ways like depression which can translate physically.
Like the commercial with the little black cloud over you.
Deb: One thing that she got before her last surgery, she wanted to be as strong as she could be before the surgery. She learned to like the pool because it doesn’t hurt. The pool is an amazing resource. An hour in the pool and you don’t feel like you do anything, the next day you feel it.
Sometimes you have to do the things you hate to keep you from getting injured. Take the extra time to stretch and do required exercises because it’s worth it.
Will highly recommend Pilates reformer for strengthening your core. (If your PT say its ok)
Will finish up with one last pose—will need a little space—this is a yoga pose, airplane pose. You need your lats to be strong so you can take deep breaths.
It’s been really nice hearing that other people are in the same positions.
Thank you all for sharing and coming.
[…] My first Fitbloggin’ session was Dealing with Injuries at 8:00 am on Friday (there was a bootcamp available at 6 am, but I opted to do my own workout during that time). It was interesting hearing everybody’s story about their injury, what they had to give up because of it and how they coped. I think it helped me realize I’m not alone in dealing with the frustrations of being injured, and hearing about more severe injuries definitely put my pesky knee and ankle pains in perspective. You can check out the live blog of the session here. […]