What its like to experience a joint surgery for the 1st time!
As most of you don’t know, I had a pretty extensive surgery on my elbow a week ago yesterday. It was all brought on by an old weight lifting injury that I deemed not necessary at the time to fix. The story goes that I was lifting with one of my buddies, who we will not name, but we were basically cruising through our workout program at the time. Of all of the exercises that most people like, I fell victim to the BENCH PRESS!! I was feeling good that day and we just kept adding some weight to the bar after a few sets.
I think the break down went something like this:
225lbs-10 reps EASY
275lbs-6-8 reps EASY
315lbs-4-6 EASYISH, but somewhat tough
So, we added another 25lbs to each side making the sum total of the bench press that day to 365lbs. Now, up until this point everything was feeling pretty awesome. Felt great, the weight was light, and I was jacked up to be lifting weight I had never lifted before. Not even in College.
I was looking for a lift off after I got pumped via the right song on my iPod. The light off happened, slight pause, then down and up. It was a bit of a struggle, but I got the weight without any help at all. WOOOHHH!!!!! I was thinking this was awesome and I just hit a PR that I’m not sure I will ever be able to hit again.,
BUT…… with that light came some slight elbow pain. I blew it off not rally thinking much about it. Life goes on, RIGHT? Well, after a few weeks, I went and got it checked out.
The Dr stated that I had some arthritis and and a bit of inflammation, so he gave me a cortisone injection.
COOL!
I was ready to start lifting again. Yeah I was, but I should have put some restrictions on it. I didn’t because who wants to do that. Not me for sure. I don’t want to go from lifting heavy weight to barely any at all. Thats crazy talk.
As time went on it progressively got worse. I lost most of my range of motion in my left arm. I could not extend it fully or flex it. It started to cause some pain and discomfort in my neck, shoulder, and back due to the unbelievable amount of compensation that was going on.
Fast forward almost 5 years and its still bothering me. I knew my limitations and what I could do that aggravated it, but I was trying to put off surgery for as long as possible like most people would.
Might have been the dumbest thing I could have done. More Arthritis and now a ton of bone spurs. The bone spurs were what was cause all of the discomfort in the elbow. It was like 2 spurs fighting against one another preventing me from flexing and extending the elbow. Lets be honest, if you want to see them, i have proof.
Now lets get back to how surgery happened….
I was working with one of my local Football Monsters and we were in the middle of a drill. I stated that he do one thing, but he didn’t hear me clearly, so he ended up barely tapping my left arm and it popped.
What popped? How bad did it hurt?
Im not sure what popped off, but I will state that it hurt worse than the time working at Hillwood Country Club that I almost cut off 4 of my fingers.
I got nauseated and immediately dropped to the ground. Thought I might pass out, but all I was thinking was not today.
I call my friend who was an orthopedic DR and he saw me immediately. That lead to a consult with DR. K at the fabulous Bone and Joint Clinic in Williamson County.
He stated that my elbow was so jacked up that it reminded him of a 63 year old man’s elbow. Tons of Arthritis and Bone Spurs that should not be showing up on a 33 year old MRI, CT, or X-Ray. If it were even possible, he stated that I might have to have an elbow replacement.
Well, surgery happened and the removal of the bone spurs happened. It was painful!! They had to go through my triceps to remove the 2cm bone spur that was lodged.
I lay this all out there the way it is, because I work with a ton of folks who are injured or have been injured. Ive never had to go through this myself, so its always humbling to know what most of clients have gone through to get to the point where they need my help.
I currently am working with my OT to get full functionality with my left arm, so I will be laying the therapy sessions out here on the table in the coming weeks as well.
So, I say all of this to state that even though I run a business and have been training for almost 9 years, I to have to face some type of adversity.
I have 2 Options: stay knocked down or get back up and punch adversity in the face and become better because of it.
When something hurts, go get it checked out. Don’t be like me. Im not invincible. If I would have had this treated years ago I wouldn’t be in this situation.
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