Life and Training Cycles

Don't you just love it when you know Spring is just around the corner?

In Melbourne over the last few days we have had some awesome weather giving us some hope warmer weather is just around the corner but in true Melbourne style today it is about 9 degrees!!

I have managed to keep my training on track over winter even though at times it was a mental battle between my inspired side and the side of me that wanted to just stay indoors!

I hope you also managed to keep in good shape over winter but you know what I have discovered over the years? 

I have discovered that like the seasons pretty much everything in life moves in cycles; your relationships, your career, your finances, pretty much everything and that includes your training (and your nutrition).

This means we have times when we nail things and times when we don't so expecting things to remain the same all the time is fruitless. 

The goal is to know the best and most efficient way to get the up cycle in motion again.

In less than 4 weeks I'll be going through a challenging cycle when I go in to have my hip surgery.

I can be out of action for 6 weeks or as long as 12 weeks.

Luckily for me I heal very quickly and I am in really good shape right now so I'm thinking 4 weeks :)

I'm hoping to be back in the gym in 1 week doing upper body training but I also know protecting the work the surgeon has done will be really important.

This cycle will be a challenge in many, many ways.

• My body loves to move and needs to train hard to stay in shape - nutrition alone won't cut it so I have to get my head around the fact that I'll be stacking it on!

• I know I'm no rock star with a million follows but I do have a reasonably significant online following so stacking on the weight in front of an audience doesn't fill me with warm and fuzzy feelings!

• I'm not very nice when I don't train; I'm grumpy and irritable and pretty much angry most of the time so I have to be so so careful not to lash out at the people closest to me in my frustration.

• Running my Taekwondo Training Centre with classes and PT Sessions post surgery is physically going to be a struggle and one I can't avoid.

• Keeping my mind in a positive place will be more difficult without the endorphins running through my body, I am hoping my mood stays ok.

• Taking care not to tear the repair to my cartilage not just in training but getting in and out of the car and all the usual day to day activity.

So here is how I plan to tackle it.

• My good friend and Instructor at my school Wendy suggested I create a daily video blog pre and post surgery. Can't say I was all that excited about this at first but I do think having the accountability of an audience will help me keep more on track than if I didn't. Plus it will give me something positive to focus on.

• My physio says the surgeon I am seeing is very aggressive with rehab - pretty much the next day it's on. I'm really rapt about this, my pain threshold is high so I am not the least bit worried about the pain and it will give me something really positive to focus on and because it is something I have to do physically I'll feel as though I'm making some progress.

• Put up visual images of my competition sparring days. If I can get my hip strong and can handle the training load competing again isn't out of the question (woo hoo). This will be my focus throughout rehab and recovery so I don't stuff up the surgery and set myself back in my desire to push it along quicker than I should.

That's about it, that's all I got right now but I would love to hear from any athletes who have had to recover from surgery and go through rehab and specifically how you kept your mind in the right place throughout.

I'll begin the video blog 2 weeks out so keep an eye out either here or on facebook or twitter for the updates.

Wish me luck!!