Changing Directions

Whilst we’re travelling along the road of life, we often find that we have to change direction without any prior warning. Something happens and then we end up taking a different road to a different location.

That’s where I’m currently at in my life. I came over here with my health and fitness goals all set. But what I wasn’t expecting was a case of left rotator cuff tendonitis. The doctor placed me on a course of stronger anti-inflammatories, I’m seeing a physio weekly physio who also gave me exercises to do daily and I’m on temporary medical restrictions whilst I wait for my shoulder to heal. No biggie in the big scheme of things. But it got me thinking about my body and how it’s functioning, or not in this particular case.

You see, my left shoulder has a long history of problems. I’ve had two surgeries already, the first was a de-bride of the ac joint back in 2006 followed by a de-compression of the ac joint in 2008. Surgery is not where I want to end up again at the end of this deployment, no sir-e.

What I really want is a fully functioning healthy body without pain, discomfort and/or any old niggling injuries. My bodybuilding background isn’t going to give me this so I had to look elsewhere for a solution. I had to change direction. So I turned to the one person I knew and trusted who could help me, after all, he has a reputation for being the shoulder guy. I emailed Eric Cressey.

You already know I’m a big fan of his work. I’ve invested a lot of money and time into adopting his style and philosophies and I trust in his work. I’ve also worked with him personally if you remember as a Guinea Pig. Initially he was offering me advice as I was limited to my resources over here until my trunk arrived with my gym bag, physio roller, tennis ball, asses & correct, shoulder savers and all the rest of it. But what started out as him offering me some advice turned into him taking me on as a new client of which I’m obviously ecstatic about. I paid my fees, went through the thorough administrative process and now have in my possession my first warm-up and training program. I’ve not quite seen anything like it before and I have to say, he’s thorough if nothing else with his work. Thankfully he provided links to all his videos so there’s no second guessing as to what I need to do. They’ll definitely come in handy.

And what’s even better, is when I take my two week break from my deployment I’m going to meet him and have a face to face consultation whilst I’m visiting NYC. Everyone else is taking a holiday to rest and relax, but I’m not like everybody else. Don’t get me wrong, I’m going to rest and relax but I’m also travelling up state to meet him for a personal consultation and training session because this is important to me. My body’s important to me, I only have one so I have to look after it.

I better wrap this post up. I’ll be back to next weekend with any luck on how things are progressing.