My Strength Journey: Part 2
Where we left off, I had barely completed a half marathon and started working with a physiotherapist to help my body heal from my knee injury, which turned out to be patella tendonitis; a reasonably common overuse injury that affects runners. I forgot to mention in the first part of my story that during this recovery period I was hit by a car whilst riding my bike to work, an incident which further damaged my knee and impacted my training. My initial trip to the physio was to address the pain I was having in my knee from the trauma of both the marathon and this incident, and the further damage caused to my knee (and also by this stage my hip and lower back) by continuing to train. Yes, there is a theme here.
Luckily the physio I first engaged with (John from Melbourne Athletic Development) had a background in strength and conditioning, and let me know very clearly that if I didn’t take action to strengthen my lower body, I would continue to have ongoing injuries. Given that strength training had been completely neglected previously, there was a great deal to focus on, and a new obsession took hold and I joined a CrossFit gym, which is where things get interesting.
For those of you who don’t know anything about CrossFit, it’s essentially a sport that comprises weightlifting, gymnastics, and cardio movements, all performed at a high intensity. It’s an addict turned athlete’s wet dream (hello), and I became well and truly obsessed with it in a very short amount of time. I was initially very intimidated by the first gym I attended. It was super cliquey in that ‘you’re not cool enough to train with us’ way, and most of the coaches made a point of praising those on the more athletic side of things, leaving the newer members to awkwardly grind their way through modified options whilst superior members left them in the dust. The gym’s owner made a habit of belittling those who were struggling, and I would regularly leave training in tears after having my technique ridiculed. Rather than putting me off, this gave me the insatiable drive to be better, and I spent many hours outside of training time trying to improve upon the things I was laughably (apparently) terrible at, Olympic weightlifting being at the top of this list.
At the time I was completing my Personal Trainer qualifications and had my sights set on becoming a CrossFit Coach, having been completely smitten by the sport and desperate to immerse myself in it as much as possible. I was obsessed with achieving this goal, and trained 6-7 days a week, both at this gym and with my own Personal Trainer, in the hopes that I would improve enough to be granted an intern coaching role. The gym I trained at during this time was dubious as to my potential in this role, so I finally quit to take up an interning and unpaid role at another CrossFit box, whilst also working two other jobs at local gyms to support my new found love. It was during this time that my marriage fell apart and I threw literally everything I had into work and training to avoid dealing with what could have been a healthy period of growth and self reflection.
The next three years were an absolute rollercoaster of highs and lows, ranging from medals to meltdowns as I trained myself into the ground in the attempt to achieve some arbitrary standard of perfection. At the time I had a series of relationship misadventures, with every downfall leading me back to the ‘just be better’ mindset, which was reflected in every athletic pursuit I had during this time. Marriage didn’t work out? That’s OK, I just nailed a ring muscle up! I believe I have touched on this period in previous writing, so I won’t go too far into it here, but in summary it was a tumultuous time that I would just as sooner not repeat.
Somewhere among this mess, I made friends with a girl named Caity, who competed in Olympic weightlifting and was in the process of training for an international competition in Taipei at the time. As we spent more time together, Caity voiced her concerns over the quantity and quality of training I was doing, and offered to give me some guidance with my weightlifting; a skill that was still a massive struggle for me, and (as I saw it) a huge hole on my CrossFit game. Caity was the first person to introduce the concept of ‘more isn’t better’, which is a mantra that has served me well both as an athlete and as a coach of others. She was right in the sense that trying to adhere to multiple conflicting programs was not serving me, nor was my chronic overtraining. It took a while (at least another year) before I saw the light and threw in the CrossFit towel once and for all. I still remember my last workout, which was 50 reps of 60kg power clean and jerks for time, something that my now purely weightlifting brain cannot comprehend, and is appalled even exists. No offence to anyone who thinks that sounds amazing.
