I Feel Like Quitting Today

Last Friday, I had a really good training and was really happy. After more than two months of getting my psoas and hamstrings stronger, I finally did what, some time ago, felt like an impossibility. 

Working these muscles over the last couple months has been both emotionally and physically challenging. They have been asleep for a long time and have also stored a whole bunch of emotions (for more on how that happens see the amazing book The Body Keeps the Score). Feeling of helplessness was frequent as were tears.

 

But, mostly due to faith my coach had in me and the proces, I perservered. 

 

Slowly, my muscles awakened, grew stronger and have been learning to work together. Increasingly, I was able to do exercises I wasn't able to do before, and for longer periods of time and more repetitions. 

 

I had been craving a good workout for a while. The workouts have been intense but that feeling of physical satisfaction from strenous activity and sweating was missing. Finally, in the last couple of weeks, I got to a place where I was able to have a few good workouts and then on Friday a really good one!

 

By the way, Oxford Dictionary defines workout as a vigorous physical exercise or training, with an emphasis on vigorous. And yes, I have done vigorous physical exercise for months, but lately there have been very few of those. So Friday one felt like a great victory!

 

As it turned out, to my frustration and disappointment, it was also the one that was too much. Why? Because I still need to learn when I am overdoing it and then to not overdo it (but more on that in another blog).

 

At any rate, one of my muscles got deeply inflammed and today's workout, four days after the Friday one, sucked. I hobbled around and barely managed to get a few exercises in. 

 

Sure, my body, like every body, needs time to recover, but come on! I don't expect that every workout should be a great one and for the post-workout recovery to be smooth. But I do hope to move away from working out and recovering like a flop to working out, if not like a champ, then at least like a normal person my age would. 

 

Am I too hard on myself? Do I have unrealistic expectations? Probably. Very likely. Yeah, sure. I am and I do. But, I also wonder, what is wrong with me? 

 

I really feel like quitting today.

 

I wrote this a week ago and I could have written it many times over the last months. 

 

Still I keep going. Why? Well, crazily, because I am fascinated by how rich and fertile this ground is for me to grow in. And because the results so far have been so tantalizing that I want more and somehow I am willing to go through all kinds of trouble for it.

 

I kinda really wanna congratulate myself for it. Yeah!

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