Friday August 31st is a two part anniversary date for me. One is exciting and has propelled my career into such a positive direction, the other has sidelined me in more ways than one and tested me physically, emotionally, and psychologically. Today I will share one piece and on Friday August 31st I will share the other side. Stay tuned and come back to read in a few days to get the full story!

Wednesday August 31st 2016 at approximately 8:45pm while finishing up the last few moments of teaching a group fitness class I injured myself. To save you from the details and to make this a quicker story, I was demonstrating an exercise and felt a funny ‘pop’ and knew something wasn’t right. Long story short, I ended up straining my pubic symphysis and have had lingering adductor tendon issues since.

This injury has tested me more than anything else thus far in my life and I still have a long way to go. I have learned a lot about myself and my body during this process and wanted to take a moment to share it with you. My hope is that the next time you deal with an injury or a setback you can keep some of my learnings in the back of your mind to help you overcome it.

My body, my business. I have used this statement a lot but until I was injured I didn’t truly value this statement. The number of times people have complimented me about my physical appearance and ‘what I am doing to look so good’ is ridiculous. It is hard to explain to others that although from the outside I appear to be “looking good”, deep down on the inside my body aches and I am reminded about all that I cannot do. I have learned to become more aware of how I react and engage with other people’s bodies, if ever, and to know that we can’t always see what people are going through.
Appreciate how far I have come. In all honesty, I am still working on this one. I can’t say that I am always good at shifting my perspective when I get down on myself. I instead like to reminisce on what I used to be capable of. My new idea is to look back on this road to recovery and appreciate the progress that has happened for me to get to where I am today. We have to recognize that the road to recovery is not linear and that we all have our ups and downs to get back to where we need to be.
Retraining is extremely valid. Two years ago I thought I had a fairly strong understanding and knowledge of what the core is and how it functions. However, since this injury, I have devoted so much more time into better understanding how to have the best core function - retraining is key to solidify proper movement patterns and engagement of the right muscles. I can know better appreciate how movements are initiated and how the core plays a role within them. Retraining is key if you want to rebuild a solid foundation.
Let yourself rest. Despite what some of you believe with my current schedule, I have learned to listen to my body and take more rest when needed. As a young person who likes to work out, I used to break my body down with little rest in between simply because I loved training so much. I now value the rest and recovery process that much more since learning the hard way. Our bodies need rest and recovery to properly heal, repair, and train hard when the time is right.

Injuries should be taken seriously. You only get one body to live in and it needs to be properly treated, fuelled, recovered, and loved. Although I have had to learn the hard way, I hope that with these tips above your next injury, ache, or pain can be dealt with in a more positive way on your road to recovery.

Yours in self-discovery,

Rachel

Appreciating the Journey: My Road to Recovery