The recovery benefits of training

     If six months ago someone would have told me that signing up for a trainer with Transform PT and lifting weights could help improve neck, shoulder and wrist pain I would have laughed. I have spent my life dealing with pain in my neck, shoulders, arms and wrists. It all started with a gymnastics accident when I was 11 years old when I injured my neck doing a front tuck. Since then I have had issues with herniated discs, bulging discs, degenerative disk disease, carpal tunnel, ulnar nerve issues, tendonitis, and bursitis from my neck down to my wrist and primarily on the right side of my body. In 2008 the pain got so bad I ended up having surgery to remove 2 herniated discs. A surgery that resulted in having a supporting piece of metal fused to my spine and a 9 month recovery. Then in 2010 I had surgery on my wrist to correct carpal tunnel and ulnar nerve issues.

     Over the years, when the pain got bad or my range of motion diminished for whatever reason (cold weather, exercise, lifting something too heavy, sleeping on it funny etc...) I would end up at the orthopedic doctor or neurologist and the treatment was always the same; heat alternating with ice, here take these pills for pain, muscle relaxers to help you sleep and anti-inflammatories for the swelling. For good measure I'd be sent to physical therapy which always helped for a day or two but the pain always came back and there would be no lasting effects. And when that course of treatment ran out I'd be back at the doctor still dealing with pain. I spent countless hours on my sofa or in bed trying to 'rest away' the pain. I bought a new bed, special pillow and even got a rolling book bag for work. I was convinced that the pain was something I just had to deal with.

     It has been 10 years since I had surgery on my neck and 8 years since my wrist surgery. And other than a stiff neck here and there I've been lucky to not have the pain I was dealing with before the surgery. But over the years other issues have popped up. Pain in my knees, tendonitis in my elbow and shoulders, and pain in my achilles tendon. Whenever some new pain showed up without cause I always blamed it on my getting older. And when I reached my forties my joints started to make noises I had never heard before. Again, I thought to myself, 'I'm getting older.'

     When I started training with Transform PT at Muscle Inc. I was actually dealing with shoulder pain from tendonitis and bursitis in my left shoulder. I had been going to the orthopedic doctor (again) and physical therapy (again) when my training sessions with Brandon started. When I went for my consultation with Transform PT I was told the trainer would work around an injury and not to worry. As we trained I began to realize that a lot of the exercises we were doing were the same as the exercises I was doing with the physical therapist. The only difference was I was doing those exercises with weights when I was at the gym. As a result, after three weeks I eventually stopped going to physical therapy.

     Training has changed my life in many ways. The most notable changes are in my physical and mental health. I am mentally stronger. I think more positively and I've learned ways to deal with stress that keep me from sweating the small stuff. I am physically stronger too. Aside from the accomplishments I've made at the gym (dumbbell presses with 25 lb weights almost went to 30 last night but the 30's were being used, barbell squats with 115 lbs and deadlifts with 135 lbs) I also recover from pain a lot faster. The shoulder pain I was dealing with when we first started training was something that diminished over time and now only bothers me when we train shoulders hard. But now I ice it and it recovers. Brandon explained to me once that the worst thing you can do for an injury is not move it. Of course you work around the pain but moving and working the injury gets the blood flowing which aids in recovery for the muscle. And our workouts over the last six months have proven this to me.

     A few weeks ago I woke up with terrible neck pain. Pain that was comparable to my pre-surgery pain. I could barely move my neck. The first day the pain was so severe I skipped the gym entirely. The second day I felt I needed to go to the gym even if it was just to do a short cardio workout on the treadmill. So I went. That night the pain in my neck had lessened. Just that short 15 minutes of exercise got the blood flowing enough to help my neck recover. By day three I was training with Brandon again. Now in the past I would have been on the sofa with my heating pad and by day three I would have been at the doctor's office. What a difference. Another time recently I was having pain in my wrist (I swear it was the weather. It had been a really cold, damp, dreary day). After training that day I put ice on my wrist for good measure. The next day I woke up with no pain. I've also noticed that since I've lost weight I have no pain in my knees and my joints don't click and crack when I first wake up in the morning like they used to.

     Brandon told me recently that training is making me younger. And I believe he is right. I can feel it.