Where there is a will......

Where there is a will, there is a way.  At least that's how the saying goes.  For the duration of what constitutes summer for me (May-ish to the end of July), my entire being was on vacation mode.  My mind and my heart weren't really willing and in it for a few months.  Now that my mind and heart are willing my body is giving me a big middle finger and not cooperating very well.

I feel like a giant ball of dysfunction.  Correcting all of my imbalances and inefficiencies feels like its going to take ages and a legion of therapists and I've got shit to do!  However, by the blessings of working in collegiate athletics, and having awesome friends, I have access to some pretty stellar and enthusiastic physical therapists/chiropractors that are happy to help torture me in new and interesting ways.  For example, I just recently experienced Graston therapy which, for lack of better description, looks/sounds/feels like what a pumpkin feels on Halloween.  It's like a scraping or combing of the muscle to get rid of all the junk that gets built up in there.  Here's a video (of someone else) getting it done: Graston.  And here is a picture of the immediate Graston aftermath for me.

Those aren't freckles...

I also had that same technique done underneath my shoulder blade, in the armpit area.  While it's mostly just some superficial bruising, the under arm one did actually hurt and two days later is still tender.  No pain, no gain right?!  It wasn't a miracle cure for what ails me, that requires more than just a scratchy-scratch to fix, but it's a small step on a road that will include daily physical therapy to get my body working right.  I'm more than willing to endure a little rough and rugged therapy on my way back to lifting heavy things.  

So what else is wrong with me?  Outside of a mildly dysfunctional shoulder, I'm also having elbow problems (same side - geeee think there's a link?!) and my usual struggle with crappy hips.  Shakira wasn't kidding when she said the hips don't lie.  All the ailments are things I can handle despite being suuuuuuper frustrated with not being able to lift much at all....

But where there is a will there is a way.......

I can't squat using both legs, my hips still aren't stable enough to allow for that.....but I can split squat my brains out which happily is also therapeutic!

I can't snatch or clean, my elbow won't fully extend nor bend.....but I can row which is also therapeutic!  

I can't push press or jerk, thanks to both my hips and my elbow....but I can do Turkish get-ups which is a magical thing that exposes pretty much every weakness I have and forces me to focus on minute details to perform the whole thing correctly.  Yeah my elbow is a little sketch while doing them but if focused on and done correctly it'll fix that shit! If that's not therapeutic then I don't know what is!

Yeah sure there are a whole lot of things I can't do right now but that's not the relevant part to this whole post.  The relevant part is that there are things that I CAN do right now.  Sure they may not be what I want to do, like snatch and squat, but in all honesty they are things that need worked on to come back bigger and badder!  So help me dear ol' Gods of Lifting but I will MASTER the shit out of the things I can do.  

Where there is a will, there is a way...so find it.