To Bruise Or Not To Bruise

Buy shin guards or stop deadlifting? That is the question. And the exclamation: my kids say the big bruise you see here looks like an upside down exclamation mark. In deep purple.

Thanks to a visit to the chiro and a session with my boss, I'm improving on my form and looking forward to moving up in weight. (Still not sure how I was pulling 200 with an nonfiring left glute.) This will not improve upon the bruising--it's a given with the move--though I'm told the shins toughen up in time. I'm also calling on my retired Adidas stingers for help; as wrestling shoes used for boxing, I'm convinced their low soles will help me deadlift. Why not?

Too many changes to allow me time to be ready for a meet next Saturday, though I haven't ruled out competing for fun. In addition to my boxing/wrestling shoes, I will surely be wearing some long pants, because man, this shin hurts.

So why do this? It's a great question, one I've been putting to some guys at the gym. Yes, usually guys, because they tend to feel as I do: we have to lift heavy stuff. I know the meaning's deeper than that, but it's hard to get at without sounding like all I care about is looks. Read back a few posts to get that idea out of your head.

I'm thankful that this is now my trade, as every exercise I do helps me help others. Experiments are necessary, which is incredibly awesome, as I love them. Ask me about the Bag O' Rice workout I conducted today--outside, in full view of the neighbors, with 50lbs of rice above my head. (You know you want me to train you.)

Do I need to know what motivates me? It's like analyzing a lover's nose to pinpoint his or her beauty. I'm just going to lift that rice, raise that bar, and bruise that shin. Maybe all next weekend; I'll let you know.

It's All Good

Too busy to produce one coherent post; here are some recent developments, instead.


In the category of how often does this happen: I'm looking at graduation announcements in the paper and I say to Simon, "I snapped this girl's head back with my fist."

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I used to pay to write my own college papers. Thanks probably to drinking too much coffee today, I flashed back to sitting in the sculpture room at the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, where I'd hand write essays (yes) and take them back to my typewriter (egads) for a clean copy. I never did have any notions of being a writer, yet something in me knew the words would flow best around great art. So I paid to sit there.

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I'm a personal trainer now. At the risk of making too much of this, it seems fitting to stop and think about how I got to this point. Most directly, I began the certification process thanks to a man at my gym who claimed a year ago that he's saving up part of his family's budget to have me train him. (If his wife is reading, maybe she can verify the truth of this, as her man is prone to hyperbole). I proffered all sorts of excuses, which held him off for some months, until the day he said something both really nice and mean, something along the lines of, "You're too scared to do what you're good at."

I realized he was right--not just with personal training, but with most everything else.

This whole process has been one of facing such fears, from studying difficult equations and physiological processes to taking a three hour, brain-numbing examination. To realizing that Oh, now I'm going to be meeting with people one on one. They're paying to be with me. Refer to Fear #1.

But mostly I'm excited for the challenge. I know I know my stuff, and it's just a matter now of getting my feet wet. I have two most excellent, very different clients waiting for me to get oriented to the Y's protocol and have at it.

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All of sudden I have three new jobs. You know about the personal training. I'm also about to begin working as a coach in the Y's Diabetes Prevention Program, aimed at people who are at risk of developing type 2 diabetes. Classes will be held out in the community, in inner city churches and clinics. My experience at the homeless shelter helped land me this job, and I'm happy to get back out there and teach.

Also, I'm doing some PR writing for the Y now. Yes, all of these new jobs start within a couple weeks of each other. Busy, but all good.

First Aid

Over the past three weeks I've had some 39 hours of training. A good deal of this has been for a new position I'm taking on, as a coach in a diabetes prevention program; some was spent preparing me for my personal trainer certification exam; and it took a couple hours to learn CPR/AED, a requirement for CPTs.

I've learned a great deal, and among these new insights is the idea that I and my family have been protected. From knowing too much. And facing this disease we manage every day.

You have to understand that our quarterly endocrinologist appointments deal in the dailyness of type 1 diabetes. There is no time set aside to update us on possible future complications for Theo, and who would want that with the boy sitting there. So we live in this mindset of if I count the carbs in this food item, divide it by the ratio set for this time of day, administer a shot, these are our duties, this is diabetes. Diabetes is counting, multiplying, dividing; shots; carrying around a bag of stuff everywhere we go. We can't think much beyond that, and I stay clear of the blogs. I worry at night, putting him to bed, but that's something you have to get over as best you can, and quick.

This is my mindset as I enter these trainings, and I am taken aback when I come to understand that the presentation of diabetes (type 2, but the complications are the same) in this setting is a scare tactic, necessarily so. As a "coach," I don't want people to cross over from a prediabetic state to having type 2. I want to warn them what will happen if they do. And so I am trained on why diabetes is so bad. What it will do to you. How you will be at greater risk for other major health conditions.

And when we went around the room to introduce ourselves and explain our connection to diabetes, I was not prepared to hear a woman say her cousin died from type 1. She sat two places away from me. I  didn't think I'd recover in time. I didn't allow myself to fall into the pit that had suddenly presented itself, gave my intro, made it through. Managed to hold diabetes at arm's length throughout the remaining discussions and hours.

Made it through the exam preparation, corrected the teacher on the timing of blood glucose checks during exercise. Made it. Until CPR training, when the video showed a guy who had collapsed and was unresponsive.

"First, check that the scene is safe." Scene is safe!

"Try to get a response." Hey, buddy, you okay? Huh? Hey! You!

"Check for medical ID bracelets."

They find one: DIABETIC.

The lights are off for the video, and they'll be coming on again. All these strangers will be staring at the odd woman with red eyes, wet cheeks, and a runny nose. There is not much time to recover, but I do.

This is diabetes. Going along like it's nothing but numbers and needles and then bam, reminders that we're dealing with something deadly.

There have been moments during our fundraising for the JDRF bike ride when I've feared we're exploiting either Theo or our connection to the disease, but I always come back to this: type 1 is ugly. Awareness helps. Money can make a difference. And frankly, the kids are proud of the press. Especially a recent article in the paper.

I know there are worse conditions to have. But this one just breaks my heart when I let it.

Conferences With Powerlifters

I'm the demo model for the deadlift. As I'm setting up, a guy the size of a La-Z-Boy yells, "It ain't right 'til your shins bleed."

I figure this is as good a time as any to ask for solutions to this very problem, which I'd been having.

"What do you do about that, by the way? What do you wear--shin guards?" I ask.

"Nothin'," he says.

"So just... hamburger."

"Yep."

I've Been Elsewhere.

Have you been looking for me? Sorry I've been away.

This is a season of interviewing for a new job, pursuing a certification for a different job, having to schedule random other exams in order to qualify for the cert for the second job, and still working the first job in the meanwhile. And preparing for a son's debut as Crocodile Guy in the third grade musical, and working to convince older son to not wear underwear beneath his biking shorts.

Speaking of biking--I'll tell you more about the new jobs later--I've been posting updates on our fundraising pages. What fundraising pages? Our family will ride 30 miles in Wisconsin this summer to raise money for diabetes research. It's personal for us, as Crocodile Guy son has type 1. We've raised four of the six thousand required for us to go, and it's been a real bonding experience for the family. Read more about it here, and give if you can:

Simon's page

My page

Apologetics of the Body

And if the body does not do fully as much as the soul?

And if the body were not the soul, what is the soul?

--Walt Whitman, "I Sing The Body Electric"

I bought a 50-pound bag of rice not to cook but to lift over my head and throw to the ground. I heard of a hill and drove the twenty minutes there to run it up and down, then drove the twenty minutes back.

I was asked by someone who doesn't know me well if I'm "still competing," and when it became clear she knew only the part of me that buys the rice and runs up hills, this bothered me.

And it bothered me that it bothered me.

So let's run up that hill together and see what's at the crest of my approaching midlife career shift, a certification in personal training after years of working in the arts and activities of the mind.

I think what we'll find is that the body needs no justification. Call me a gym rat, laugh at football players on a scholarship, assume the thick-necked among us are dumb, and I will tell you your identity cannot hide from your body image and abilities. I'll tell you that working with people on health and wellness means I have access to their full selves, because parts cannot be separated out without absurdist efforts.

Day One of theatre games with homeless women I told them that their bodies--prostitutes, some of them, sexual abuse survivors nearly all--their bodies are temples. Their bodies are homes, the only kind they have right now, the only place of regular familiarity; they must honor and care for what has been given.

But you might next scoff at my efforts to sculpt the deltoids and I'll remind you that God considered the human body the most worthy vessel for his arrival on earth, its frailties vehicles for a grand story of hope and, finally, strength.

No justification needed. Except to myself, for my feelings of discomfort. This woman knew only that I work in fitness, a field so branded by shakeweights and top ten tips that it's hard to appreciate the true successes. I wanted her to know that I read Yeats at home, and Zizek, and I teach theatre sometimes, and write some plays, and there's a book I'm trying to get published.

Because the body is tied up with the mind and soul, so, too, are my thoughts. It's embarrassing to admit how long I'd gone without purposeful movement, which is, as it turns out, how I learn and process the world. Because of time wasted, I want to help others see the big picture. The view from the hilltop.

I will have you, too, lifting that giant bag of rice once (and if) you're ready. Then maybe we'll talk recipes, or philosophy, or how you're feeling about it all. I'd like to think I'll draw like-minded clients, at least in spirit, the kind who'd appreciate an intuitive trainer.

One who likes the books but throws them out sometimes. With her nicely-sculpted arm. A June exam, here I come.

good boys/lifting/bad things

I was accused this morning at breakfast for not keeping up with the blog.

"But I have nothing to say," I protested, feeling at once morally upright and also dishonest. For many thoughts have come to me, but none warranting an entire post. And now that I've ventured onto Facebook, those thoughts want to go shorthand for immediate consumption and liking.

The epigraph to Mastermind: How To Think Like Sherlock Holmes gives credit to Ortega y Gasset for this:

Tell me to what you pay attention, and I will tell you who you are.

Yawning bunnies, Gasset. Cats in boxes, guns, Thomas Kinkaid paintings with religious sayings and also what we had for breakfast. Yummy! You like this.

I regret not having spent the winter months developing a deeper mindfulness, since you have to lay dormant anyway. And here we are in April--never mind this morning's snow--and the outside beckons, or at least the guilt to get the kids moving and out there. As the wind blows leaves and litter through the air today, I will throw a few thoughts around.

good boys
Many of you know we're raising money for diabetes research and a bike ride this summer. I've written elsewhere detailing each family member's contribution to the cause, with Simon's being the selling of comics at school--copies of hand-drawn originals, which are quite well done. Some kids have balked at his permission to do such a thing, even for charity, and others are happy to buy; he's made about 6o bucks.

Each afternoon he comes home from school and reports on the cash before dropping it into a jar. Recently, he arrived with a few extra bucks from his friend, who is selling his own wares for our cause.

This friend is making duct tape wallets, selling them to friends, and giving the proceeds to Simon for our ride. A twelve-year-old boy. A wild one, too--I've taken him and his brother to the movies, and these kids can't stop moving or talking. But his heart is right where it needs to be.

Now when Simon comes home, he reports on what he's made and what his buddy made, then drops both into the jar. I can't get over this act of generosity.

lifting
First instinct is to say rest cured my elbow of its two-year stint with lateral epicondylitis, but in the end recovery came, I believe, from not hitting stuff. This obvious fact was a good reason to finally end my stint with boxing, because I really do wish to have all parts functioning well into old age.

And this includes my head. There's no getting around the fact that in boxing, you get hit where your hard drive is stored. I have taken just two hard hits to the head, and that was enough to make me question the whole enterprise, at least for myself. Deep down, I regret having not had the time to study boxing properly, to make defense an instinct, because I do love the sport and feel I have the smarts to strategize, as well as the strength and power to do some damage. In the end, I didn't get that far, though I had a few moments of glory.

So I'm back to lifting, and enjoying the pure strength of it. In the final analysis, I am a meathead. I like muscle and I like lifting heavy stuff; there's not much more to it than that. I should be training for that aforementioned bike ride, but doggone it if it doesn't interest me at all, beyond doing something for diabetes. If I'm going to get calluses anywhere, I'd rather they be on my hands and not my butt.

There's a deadlift competition in July, and I've told myself to train slow and steady out of recovery. This was mostly working until last week, when I thought I was adding 5lb plates to either side of the bar but they were really tens. This went on for a couple of sets, while I was "taking it easy," and only when cleaning off the bar did I do the math properly. And patted myself on the back.

bad things
As the boys grow into new interests, memories return from my own childhood, and I tell them stories. Lately, many of these stories seem to reinforce exactly the things I don't let them do. Constant video game playing (though I had to collect quarters and get myself to an arcade). Junkfood eating (not my fault, but a fact). TV always on (also not my fault, though I could have diverted my attention).

Then you start to remember those who wronged you, or educated you in ways beyond your age, and though emotions are still part of those memories, you recall that you survived. And you know that your kids will, too, because you turned out mostly okay. With a lot to say, even when you stay quiet.