I love Sunday sessions the most, I don’t have work straight after and I usually have had an early night on Saturday which means I feel just a little more alive in the morning.
Today’s session felt generally good, there were a couple of positions that I am being to feel a little more comfortable in such as the overhead squat and clean pulls, jerks still are a struggle. Perhaps more mentally than anything, I am so in my head about the femoral anteversion that I perhaps subconsciously look for problems. For example in a jerk position with my left leg behind I feel like the knee is dropping in and the ankle unstable. But is that just because I expect it to be unstable? I have always felt the rotation was worse on the left side but who knows?
Front squat felt pretty good as did power clean. Honestly I bloody love a power clean!
Next session is Wednesday with Ashtanga yoga on Monday possibly a little running also and a rest day on Tuesday.
A year or so ago I decided to start learning Olympic lifting (if you do a search you will find a post somewhere about it) then a tweaky elbow and a slew of family ups and downs meant that I just did not have the time, capacity or finances to learn a new thing. Obviously I continued exercising but the free weights and HIIT style workouts I was use to.
Late this spring I decided I wanted to try again. Due to time and caring commitments realistically it made sense to find an online coach. I looked at a HUGE number of websites until I found this one https://www.trainingweightlifting.com/ the content was informative, educated and well written, I really felt like this was someone I wanted to work with. I was right, the coach in question is Lionel Isaac a coach who has a lifetime of experience training, coaching and competing. Not to mention many an academic qualification (we all know how much of a nerd I am!).
After a brief online chat Leo agreed to take me on as client, I have to be honest I feel genuinely grateful that he did. I don’t think I have ever learned as much from a trainer or a PT. What I particularly like about Leo’s method is it is very technical and incredibly precise, there is no single aspect that is left out of any of the lifts and honestly I love it!
Right now I have had 33 coaching sessions with Leo, between 90 mins and 2 hours each and all have been highlights in my day. Without stating the obvious there are a few obstacles in my way when it comes to learning a new physical skill, firstly I’m 52 and in surgical menopause then of course there is the hypermobile ehlers danlos, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome and femoral anteversion.
As far as the being a touch on the older side the way I see it is that means there is all the more reason to learn a new skill. I firmly believe that it’s not just that we stop learning or experiencing the new because we get old but that we also get old because we fail to push our boundaries. We become complacent within our comfort zones, settle into routines and gradually find our capacity for the new becomes diminished. Plus all resistance training reduces the risk of both osteopenia and sarcopenia.
With regard to the slew of this and that my body has going on, I understand that various diagnoses mean I am classed as disabled, but I have always refused to see the various hurdles I have as reasons to not try anything. If anything the fact I am so naturally rubbish at athletics makes me more stubbornly determined to prove I can, what I lack in natural ability I have always made up in consistency and determination.
Then there is the fact that for me getting strong was life changing, I went from having chronic fatigue due to my lack of natural physical structure to having a close to normal level of energy. Joints sublax and dislocate less and my POTs symptoms are negligible as long as continue exercising. In other words some form of resistance work is essential to my day to day health so why not Oly style lifting.
With the ability to have 3 sessions a week with such an amazing coach I know over a year or so I will begin to feel stable and confident in the lifts. The biggest issue I have is that from what I understand in order to fully enjoy the sport at some point I really should enter a contest. It is after all a sport and sports tend to involve doing something outside the house with other actual people. The thought of that fills me with utter terror. I was horrendously bullied as a kid, my femoral anteversion was a large target for the bullying but so was my utter incompetence at sports. Sadly the more unsure I became of my body the less I ran, played or tried sports which meant that I continued to incredibly weak, slow and generally physically unstable. It became a chicken and egg situation where the more I was mocked the less I did, the less I did the less likely it was that I would develop any athletic skill and the weaker and slower I remained.
Sports days were a nightmare for me, being forced into races that I knew I would come dead last at every single time still leaves me with a feeling a dread that actually makes me feel sick. It was an exercise in public humiliation each year. If my parents had allowed me stay off sick I would have in a heartbeat. At the end of of a race when coming dead last…again what was worse than sniggers was the pity clap. Oh god, the pity clap makes me actually want to curl up into a ball. Usually it was part sarcasm, part “oh bless, poor thing can’t do better” the implication being not only bad at sports but just a bit useless generally. If you are someone reading this with any form of visible physical disability you likely have also had the experience of people presuming it extends to your mental acuity. That was very much a part of my experience with any kind of public physical endeavor, dread, followed by failure accompanied by pity and being treated as though I was mentally disabled.
You can imagine then that the idea of doing anything in public in particualr a contest does not fill me with much joy. In fact sitting here typing even thinking about it brings a welling of that nauseous terror to the pit of my stomach.
Still at some point I want to do it, for me, for my daughter who has as many health issues as I do plus some worse ones her genetics through in for good measure and because I can do better. Because I always was more capable than I showed and if one person had taken me in hand, helped me develop some running ability helped me build some structure I may never have developed chronic fatigue. I can’t say I wouldn’t have been bullied because once it starts it very often never ends but maybe it wouldn’t have been so bad that as a teen I would go to bed praying fervently and in all sincerity that I just…would…not…wake….up again. Finally I want to do it for each and every person who experienced growing up not trusting their own body or is capability to do anything athletic, When the truth is they likely absolutely can, those of us not naturally gifted may never set world records but we can learn new skills, improve our health and longevity and have huge fun while doing so.
I don’t know where I am going with the Olympic lifting but I have always firmly believed that a new skill learned is of value in itself. Mostly I am enjoying the process.
For the moment I am going to plod along with 3 coaching sessions a week and give myself time to grow in ability and confidence, there is no rush to get anywhere or achieve anything. Right now it’s about taking time and enjoying the process.
If you are interested in learning Olympic Lifting I thoroughly recommend Leo both his coaching and books and resources.
This is particularly for those of you who are struggling with energy limiting disorders that generally are helped by exercise.
An example would be uncontrolled Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. With POTs the uncontrolled heart rate spikes and dysautonomia means that a person’s body is working twice as hard just to exist.
These are two heart rate graphs of a client with uncontrolled POTs one shows a POTs attack while sleeping, the other a day at university. No exercise was done the heart rate spikes were due to sitting up.
If your body is working as hard just to exist as someone’s body would do when undertaking a busy athletic day add in anything on top and it is simply exhausting.
The good news is a combination of strength training and low heart rate cardio can reduce symptoms to the point where the body works close to a normal person. An increase in muscle strength and efficiency helps blood flow work more effectively particularly when pooling. Cardio conditioning increases the stroke volume of the heart. This in turn reduces attacks helps the heart regulate when tachycardic moments hit.
Overall exercise has been found to expand blood volume and plasma volume and increase cardiac muscle mass and heart size. These in turn have been associated huge with improvement in symptoms.
Above is after 6 months of training, you will notice the heart rate is lower here during exercise than it previously was just during sitting. It is also lower and more uniform across the entire day.
More importantly they now are able to live a life close to the one they want. They make plans without worrying about crashes and spend a day busy yet still have a little energy left over.
Although it’s a different (often related) condition hypermobility spectrum disorders can also have a similar impact of daily energy.
Here the lack of functioning connective tissue leads to a general instability within the body. Connective tissue is not limited to the joints but throughout the entire body. When it doesn’t function joints are loose and the entire body lacks structure.
Again this means simply existing is exhausting. However strength training and muscle development can help counter balance the lack of structure.
In both situations the end result is an increased energy capacity and an ability to undertake a normal day/life without utter exhaustion.
You can’t cure underlying health conditions, but with the right help there is a strong chance that you can control them. A regular routine of movement designed to be suitable for your body might allow you to regain your life.
If you would like a female personal trainer, yoga teacher or Pilates instructor in Alnwick Northumberland who is well versed in different types of training including working with health issues please get in touch.
We have had days out a plenty. One of which was comic con
So much fun! A trip to Athens with my eldest which was lovely to spend some time with him before he officially became a married man!
There have also of course been downs. I had a pancreatic cancer scare. Thankfully all ok! My daughter had a precancerous breast tumor removed. Her tumours are always terrifying as she has PTEN harmatoma syndrome which means she grows tumours both benign and cancerous. She lost her thyroid to cancer at 10 years old. Thankfully after surgery she is ok although her chronic fatigue was quite bad afterwards.
All of the various ups and downs led me to overdo and after 6 months of 14 hour days I was exhausted, had a never ending sinus infection and then a chronic fatigue crash.
I am picking up now and later in the week will write about my experiences with having a crash after symptoms were under control for years and what it taught me.
That’s about all for now!
If you would like a female personal trainer, yoga teacher or Pilates instructor in Alnwick Northumberland who is well versed in different types of training including working with health issues please get in touch.
Sam Kelly Fitness 