I Got You

At a recent PT session, I talked with my like-minded small-framed physical therapist, who used to be a prize-winning hockey player, about my shoulders aching and how I was debating whether or not I should continue going to the gym.  I was ready to just stop until my shoulders healed.  She said, "Talk to your trainer.  They want you there and they will help you modify. Plus I want you to work out."  I laughed.  What I know in life is doing everything by myself and being the most knowledgable when I'm doing it.  Why else would one get a Ph.D?  Or become the highest level yoga therapist on the planet?  If I can't know something or do it well, I might quit.  Or I might read up and become an expert.  I rarely rely on others for advice.  Which is why I don't always welcome my visits with doctors.  Thoughts swirled around my head like old tapes on an ancient recorder.  And they were full of bad advice.  That trainer has six other people in class all in perfect shape and health who can follow her every move.  Stay home.  And, If you can't do what the instructor does, why even show up?  However, I trust my physical therapist.  So I went to the gym. Prior to my weight lifting/HIT class I pulled the trainer aside, "I shouldn't lift over my head.  I am working with a PT on my shoulders."   "I got you," she replied.  I smiled.  She's got me?  And to my deep surprise, she did.  During the entire class that young woman, a former gymnast with a nearly perfect body and 0% body fat, came over to me frequently to suggest how to train my triceps without lifting over my head and how to do a plank without straining my tender shoulders.  She asked how I was feeling with a genuine and encouraging smile.  There was not a patronizing bone in her demeanor.  And my arms didn't hurt.  Emboldened by my experience with my gymnast trainer who's apparently got me, I reached out to the fitness instructor/body building competitor who looks like a black female Adonis and is an engineer at the local military base. I texted her, "I'd like to return to your high interval training class where we lift weights but maybe I should just take your spin class?  My shoulders are bugging me."  She texted me back, "I got you.  Come to HIT."  No kidding?  I laughed outloud.  Who are these women who've "got me?"  But she, like the previous body-perfect trainer, did.  During the next Sunday morning HIT class as the music blared and the strobe lights forming a multi-colored infinity sign on the giant speaker pounded so hard I felt a thumping in my bones this ebony female Arnold Schwarzenengger kindly offered modifications as I lifted.  "Use less weight when lifting overhead."  I cringed and frowned pointing over to my wimpy two-pound weights.  She softened and offered, "We do what works when we need to. My left shoulder hurts all the time and I am always watching out for that.  But I don't stop working out." Recently I have noticed my gymmates taking note when I switch up an exercise to work with my body vs. copy the fitness model instructor.  It's like they, too, have taken license to squat vs lunge as they protect a sore knee.  For me, learning how to ask for help when something is difficult is akin to asking my mentally ill mother for advice on making friends.  I grew up learning, fend for yourself.  Better that than taking nutty or misguided advice that will lead me astray.  My mother was narcissistic, depressed, obsessed with her own unhappiness.  And was so emotionally abusive and unavailable that I have childhood amnesia.  As I kid I didn't rely on others for good reason, but I'm not dead yet.  Now is the time to no longer attend to the whispers that haunt me from my mother's grave. I discussed my gym experiences with my physical therapist as she stretched my arm back over my head until I winced in a recent visit.  She said, "What do you think athletes do?  You have an injury.  You keep going working with and around it."  It's wise advice I'd give you reading this blog or my husband or my yoga buddy but have never really seemed to grasp in my own life experience or body. As a physical therapist also trained in psychology Dr. Nat values what goes on in my three pound brain as much as how many times I can swing the 8kg kettlebell.  After relaying my "gotcha you's" and thanking her for stretching my shoulders out, back, up and down I got ready to leave.  Until our next meeting I will hear her voice over and over, Boobs out, shoulders back and down cueing me to also tuck my rear-end in.  She grinned and might have almost winked at me as I left.  "I got you," was all she said.  And I believe it.