Dealing with Fitness Disappointment

As you all know I am working on the Under Armour What’s Beautiful Campaign through Fitfluential LLC, and just last week I revised my own personal goal.  In case you missed the post I’ve changed my goal to:

To find balance, both in life, and in fitness by focusing on yoga, taking time to breathe, and enjoying life.

I felt like writing this post after some recent realizations that I can no longer do things I use to be able to do.  It’s no secret that I haven’t been that well this past 3 or 4 months, it’s also no secret that I’ve been struggling for a couple years now to find a balance between teaching enough classes to make an income, and not teaching too many classes to avoid over training (clearly that is still a work in progress…).  I’ve known for quite a while that my strength was dwindling.  You see, it’s hard to maintain muscle mass when you are a cardio teaching machine partly because you are teaching cardio all of the time and partly because you are tired from teaching all that cardio and don’t get in your own strength training.  And you should assume that all of the “you”’s in the previous sentence are talking about me personally and nobody else .

I have been trying to do some strength training at home a few times per week – push ups, planks, etc. and I get in lot of squats and lunges (and other upper body exercises) in the few strength based classes I teach each week.

Push-ups have never been my strong point, but even a few weeks ago I could pump out 15-20 decent push-ups from my toes in a minute.

Now I can’t.

This last Fibromyalgia flair up has taken more out of me than I expected it to.  I can’t even explain how it’s possible that in such a short period of time I’ve lost that much strength, it certainly makes no sense to me.  Maybe it’s because my body still hasn’t bounced “back”.  In fact yesterday was my last triple class day and I spent all night tossing and turning because my hip was in such terrible pain, it still hurts to walk or move (I’m hoping tomorrow I’ll feel better) so it’s safe to say that I’m not over this flair-up at all.

Not to get on a Fibromyalgia tangent, but I know it is such a mystery to many (myself included) that I want to explain a little something about my flair-ups.  They are rarely the same.  Sometimes I am just sore all over and exhausted, other times it’s a specific body part that really bothers me.  Usually when it’s a body part it’s my elbows, wrists, ribs, knees or ankles/feet.  This time it’s my hip, but next time it could be something totally different.  There is no way for me to know.  Prior to being diagnosed I referred to my moving pain as “travelling pancreas disease”.  Yeah I know that makes zero sense, but I was a kid and nobody could figure out why my shoulder would hurt like crazy one day and my rib would hurt the next.

But back on track…

It was last night that I realized I could no longer do a push-up.  Sure I can do one from my knees, but knowing that just a few short weeks ago I could do a set of full push-ups it was really an upsetting blow to realize right now that I can’t do a single one.

What bothered me the most about it is next week I am going to a Yoga training course.  It’s part one of a multi course program that will eventually get me my certification through the Yoga Alliance.  It’s only two days and it’s the entry level course but I’m embarrassed to go knowing I’m a professional fitness instructor and as of right now I cannot do a push-up, which means I’ll have to do a modified Chaturanga.

I know it’s not about being able to do everything perfectly, that there is no competition on the mat, you are suppose to honour your body but I’d be lying if I said my pride isn’t hurt.

So I went to bed thinking about how we all feel that disappointment in what we can do, and what we think we should be able to do.

We put so much pressure on ourselves to live up to our own expectations, and then if we fail to meet them we get upset.  The funny thing is, nobody else is ever as disappointed with us as we are with ourselves.

When you feel like your 5K time is too slow, and that marathoners are secretly making fun of you they aren’t – they are remembering how hard it was to learn to run and are so proud of you for even trying.

When you feel like everyone else in your strength training class is using heavier weights and can do more reps than you and are scoffing at your 3 pound weights they aren’t – they are admiring you for coming at all, and are secretly wondering when they will be able to increase their weight.  They don’t care what weight you are using!

When you go to a dance-based cardio class for the first time and think that you are making a fool of yourself and everyone is watching you they aren’t – they remember what that first class was like, and they are so happy that you’ve decided to step out of your comfort zone to try something new.

And when you go to a yoga class (or a yoga training) and you have to do a modified Chaturanga because you’re simply not as strong as you once were and you think everyone is secretly wondering why you are even there – they aren’t.  They are busy dealing with the poses that they struggle with.

We are all a work in progress.  Never be disappointed in what you can’t do, just feel proud for what you can do and know that if you keep at it, you can do anything you set your mind to.

Even a handstand.

I’m not there yet, but one day I will be.

There is still time to join the Under Armour What’s Beautiful movement.  What will YOU do?