Overcoming Adversity 2017 Part 1

2017 was not a great year for me physically. Please, before you criticize, I realize there are many people who went through far worse. However, I wanted to share when I went through, how I handled it and what I learned.

I started out the year in the low 190’s in terms of bodyweight. I’ve been heavier and more muscular, but overall low 190’s was pretty solid and I was fairly lean. I was never the strongest person, but I was deadlifting 405 pounds for 10 reps, squatting 365 for 5 reps. I was also fairly athletic, doing back flips and palm flips at the gym where my son does parkour.

In early March, I began a two week battle with diarrhea. I became intimately involved with several toilet bowls.

Well, not as intimate as that cat, but close. I went from 192 to 179 pounds in 14 days, losing nearly a pound a day. Granted, some of that was water weight, but my lower food intake and inability to workout guaranteed that some of it was muscle as well. I did bounce back into the mid 180’s but that was all the higher I ever made it.

A little over two months later, near the end of May, I began to have issues with increased stomach acid. I dropped all caffeine and acidic foods. Two weeks later, no improvement. It was beginning to be crippling, it hurt to eat to the point that I barely wanted to start a meal because I knew the discomfort it would bring.

One evening thirty minutes after dinner, my stomach was so upset that I vomited. That was the end of the line for me, I usually do not take medication, but I knew I needed something. I spoke to a physician friend who stated that the diarrhea and the stomach acid were related. She explained that the extreme change in gut motility (the diarrhea) led to an increase in stomach acid production. I likely did not feel it for two months because I had a healthy stomach. However, after two months of increased production it had finally worn away my stomach lining to the point where it started to become uncomfortable. She explained that I needed some medication to stop the increased production and allow my lining to heal. I took a generic version of Prilosec and it worked like a charm.

Several weeks later, now mid June, I noticed my left shoulder nagging me. I stubbornly pushed through it for a bit knowing we had vacation coming up and I would have a full week off. However, vacation did little to allow it to heal. I was frustrated and fueled my workouts with ibuprofen and pushed through the pain in between workouts. That was not a smart decision since I did not know what I was dealing with. The pain got worse until I had to give up anything which involved pressing or putting the shoulder in an extended or awkward position.

Unfortunately for me, this meant giving up many exercises I loved; such as bench press, overhead press and squats. No problem, I could still do deadlifts, rows and arms. I did my workouts like this until late August and then my shoulder began to hurt on all of those exercises as well! I was literally down to exercises where my shoulders were not bearing any weight, such as leg press and some ab work. As someone who loves to be in the gym, this was torture!

At this point, I scheduled an appointment with a doctor. From early September until mid December, I attended many appointments, saw two separate orthopedic doctors, had X-rays and MRI done, received cortisone shots and did physical therapy. I had a doctor tell me my collar bone was broken previously and that was partially the cause of bad mechanics in my shoulder joint (over active left trapezius and scapular winging) only to tell me 6 weeks later upon another x-ray that it was NOT broken, I just have a funny shaped clavicle. That was frustrating, everyone makes mistakes, but I am paying him lots of money. I expect him to know if my bone was broken or not. I was told that I have AC joint separation and a minor SLAP tear, but that they were likely not the cause of the pain. But if they were not the cause, why didn’t the first cortisone shot help? Why wasn’t PT helping? Why wasn’t resting helping?

It was very frustrating. I realize some part of being a doctor is just guess work as they often didn’t have any better suggestions than I could find on Google. By mid December, it had already been 6 months of avoiding many exercises. I trained what I could, but my body weight gradually decreased due to my lowered training frequency and intensity. I was hovering in the upper 160’s in the morning and barely topping out at 172 at night. This is the lowest I have weighed since I was a teenager.

Did I mention that in mid October I contracted Lyme disease? That knocked me out for a week with fever, fatigue and additional joint pain unrelated to the shoulder. Bronchitis caused much fatigue and congestion for me in early December. As I write this it is mid December. I hope to finish off the year without any more complications.

So, over the course of 2017, I have lost over 20 pounds of mostly muscle completely unintentionally. I have likely lost tons of strength on my favorite exercises; squats, deadlifts, bench press and overhead press. But I don’t really know because I haven’t been able to incorporate them back into my program at a serious level.

However, I am staying positive and I am optimistic about my future. Why? First and most importantly, I cannot let the physical world define me. My purpose comes from faith in God. My purpose does not change with how my body changes. I will not pretend I didn’t have moments where I was frustrated or upset with my regression, but ultimately, the state of my body matters little in the grand scheme of things. I can still love my God and my family. I can still attempt to help others with my knowledge and passion of training.

In Part 2, I will dive into what I learned from the experiences of 2017.