As painful as it is for me to watch myself, here it my bent-arm push strength now. I can do 5 x 12r chest to floor pushups, with some cleaning up still needed in the last few reps. Humbling to say the least. I have to stop referencing in my head what I could do before and build myself up to those skills and hopefully beyond. My glutes are locked solid as far as I can take them. This is the max PPT I can do. I've played with the height of my hips as I figure you probably want them lower than this. But with my build if I go lower, I lose some degree of tuck.
I should probably inform you now about my “ex-condition.” Anyone who thinks that injuries change your life for the worse should read my posts ‘cuz I have a quite a few and I’m still in the game. Short story: I had elbow surgery last summer. Read no more unless you want to know why.
Last April, right before I was about to teach my stability ball class, I was standing and talking to a student when all of a sudden I felt something moving inside my elbow and up to my neck (nerve charge) and suddenly my arm literally froze. Now it’s show time and I have to teach a class. I’m trying to put on my mic on (over my head) with one hand pretending I am ok. I look at my class and I want to cry. While, I’m joking person comes up the stage to help me put my mic.
In one split second I went from fabulous to sh*t as the reality of no more HS, no more upper nothing instantly sunk in. I couldn’t bend or straighten my arm it UNTIL I was able to schedule surgery in late May.
At the time, I already knew I had a small osteochondral loose body in my left elbow anterior joint space for at least 2-3 years. I never did surgery to remove it because it didn’t interfere with my function and my ROM was normal. But that day, the bone fragment apparently “moved” and jammed my joint. Similar to putting a piece of wood in the hinge gap of a door that prevents it from closing and opening.
What I didn’t know is that the bone piece had grown from 1cm to 2.2cm in only 2 years! The loose body was feeding from the synovial fluid capsule like a peal. This is something (if the thingy could grow or move) that I actually took the precaution of asking 4 top NYC doctors because I had an avulsion fracture years ago and wanted to make sure it wasn’t the tip of the coronoid process growing. The answer was they didn’t know and “don’t be silly, there’s no room in there to move or grow. The MRI says loose, but it’s not loose…” Wrong.
Consequently, my strength has decreased considerably over the last year. I’ve also decreased my cardio activity over the years to just daily walking. I’m weaker and heavier now in that sickening proportionally inverse relationship. Not for long, tho. Regardless, my push strength has always lagged behind my pull. I did crew rowing in collage, so the imbalance probably started back then. Few years prior my surgery, I was doing static trapeze, which is also very pull dominant. I would like to go back to playing with trapeze when I feel lighter and more prepared for it. I miss the fear, adrenaline and pains. So much fun!
If you read this far, I hope you can relate somehow. We all have “baggage,” of different sorts (as I like to call it). It’s what we choose do with it now that matters. Bent Hollow Body here I come!
