I’ve been struggling with a shoulder impingement for the last 8-10 weeks. After a couple of months of my hip pain every time I squatted, I started focusing more on weaknesses in my shoulders, and in hindsight, overtraining my upper body. We then moved house and when I picked up the last bag, I felt a shooting pain down my left arm.
Fast forward a couple of weeks - I had a lot of pain in my left side.
After eight weeks of rehab, we’re moving again, which is very exciting!
I was all ready to do my first competition since COVID. I was up for seeing how my mental game had changed over that time and was looking forward to my first pairs competition with my training partner, Tom. Things were looking positive as I was starting to get more range in my shoulder and less pain.
Then I went to my physio and we talked about whether I was better enough to compete. Looking at the workouts, there was so much squatting and pressing. The two main movements that still caused me problems. She didn’t tell me not to do it but reminded me that I’d put in the work for weeks to get to this point and if I pushed it, I could go back to the start and continue having a miserable time in training for the next few months.
I knew I needed to withdraw, but I really wanted to go and do it.
Fortunately, I have a great friend and client that I knew would be a great fit for the team to make sure Tom would still have great fun. And that was the most important bit of the puzzle - that it be fun! Because that’s why we were doing it in the first place. Of course, it was also a target for getting stronger, but mostly for the fun.
I still went up for the weekend, and damn, it was so fun. I had repeated moments of being grateful that I had learned to listen to my body and hadn’t chosen to be stubborn. I knew that it would’ve been too much and I probably would have spent the weekend crying or being angry at my body and then would have ruined everyone’s weekend. I also got to be a focused coach for my clients, it felt awesome to see them hit PBs or do more than they thought they were capable of.
So how does this long story impact you?
This is your reminder to do the hard shit, the stuff you don’t really want to do, the stuff that deep down you know is the right thing.
Go with your gut.
Sometimes there are things we really want to do, no matter the consequence, no matter how crap it may make us feel. Or we’re in a social situation and it feels easier to get pulled into a situation that we don’t feel totally comfortable with.
If it’s going to make you feel terrible, is it worth it?
Honestly, yeah, sometimes it is.
Sometimes it’s worth the night of “screw it, I’m getting drunk with my friends”. When that’s the thing that is going to help you blow off steam, enjoy time with your buddies, bring you joy.
But sometimes, it’s worth holding back, depending on how many occasions like that you’ve had or see coming up, depending on your current mental state, and depending on your goals.
I often think about it as, if the word “should” comes up in my head, it’s probably not the one to do. For example, when I’m broken down from the week, I’ve trained a decent chunk and then think “I should go to the gym, but I really want to go to bed” - I need to go to bed. “I should go out with friends”, “I should drink” - but none of these things make me feel excited or happy, instead they make me feel anxious and uncomfortable. I generally take those as my sign that something is off and I need to listen to my gut for the thing that’s going to have a positive impact in the immediate and longer term.
There are so many situations where we have choices we come up against that it could be easier to go with the crowd, but the feelings you have are valid.
So, listen to your gut and do what’s right for you!
Comments