Well it's official. I am a spineless so and so. I'm convinced my spine is nothing but a slippery, rubbery noodle. The discs themselves are actually just Oreo cookies that have been smashed just like the bag-boy at the grocery who has placed all my canned goods on top of my cookies.
Four years ago I had a laminectomy on my L-4 / L-5 discs in my lower back after a heavy squat workout at Crossfit. The cause was a bulge touching a nerve root. I had terrible, shooting, stabbing pain through my left leg and foot drop. Foot drop is when you can't lift your toes off the ground and can be permanent if not taken care of immediately.
The illustration below shows what a bulging disc looks like.
This year, January 17, 2015, that same nasty little disc decided to bulge again and make life miserable for me. I don't exactly know how I did it. All I know is I had been doing Crossfit for the past year but I was very careful. Crossfit can be bad for people with injuries like mine. I shouldn't have been doing Crossfit but I felt so great and had been running, cycling, kayaking and I thought I was good to go. I felt it was time to up my game and get back into more challenging workouts. I thought I learned my lesson from getting hurt the first time at Crossfit and I decided to proceed with just lifting very, very light weights. Apparently with a spine injury like mine, I shouldn't have been doing any kind of lifting like squats, clean and jerks, dead lifts even with light weights. It doesn't take much for the discs to bulge again. As I found out the hard way.
Don't get me wrong. Crossfit is an amazing workout. It's tough, it's challenging, it feels like you've been beat up. After you are done you are sore and achy and you feel like shit but yet you can't wait for tomorrow's WOD (Workout Of the Day). Remember to LISTEN TO YOUR BODY! If your body is telling to skip a day and rest than do it. Your body knows more than you do.
I think Crossfit and workouts like it is meant for younger athletes in their 20's, early 30's, athletes who are actually training for a competitive sport and people with jobs that demand strength and endurance. Younger people have more strength and stamina and it takes a lot of stamina to get through a one hour WOD.
Athletes who are training for events such as power lifting, football, baseball, wrestling, triathlons, any sport where you have to be in incredible shape can benefit greatly from Crossfit. It has the kind of movements and muscle building techniques that one needs to perform competitively.
Also I think Crossfit is for Type A personalities. Type A people tend to be focused, driven, high energy, control freaks, hate to lose and are highly competitive and 99.999% of hardcore athletes are Type A. You have to be Type A in order to succeed in competitive sports.
I. Am. Not. Type A.
If you're like me and are an average joe and really don't have a reason to workout that hard, I would think twice. Try it and see if you like it. I just want to get a good workout in and let's face it, I just want to look good naked. If you look good naked you look amazing in clothes. I'm vain and maybe a little shallow but I like my workouts to be low-key and I want to get in and out. I've never been one to grunt and growl when I lift. I don't listen to loud, hardcore music where I'm getting screamed at through a microphone because it's supposed to make me "mad" as that is supposed to make you lift harder. I'm 44 years old, I don't need to be mad at a jumprope and I like regular old pop music. I know, lame but I like what I like. Kelly Clarkson is just fine with me.
On the flip side it's hard to not want to do Crossfit when you constantly see guys coming out of the boxes (crossfit gyms) that look like this.
I mean come on! Who wouldn't like to look like these guys. Yes I know that much of that is genetics but bodies like that do not come from 20 minutes of cardio on an elliptical and 3 sets of weight training. It's hard work and 80% clean eating. And one more thing to make you feel inadequate and average is that tons of these beautiful guys and girls that do Crossfit are firefighters, cops, soldiers, EMT's. The kind of people who benefit greatly from this workout for their jobs.
I. Have. No. Willpower.
I see sugar and I have to have it. I guarantee these guys have seen nothing but chicken breasts and steamed broccoli for that last year.
So it's the end of April and I haven't worked since the beginning of February. Luckily I have great benefits and am double covered. I get 13 weeks of full pay. I had my surgery last week on the 15th and am still recovering. It's been one week and I am up and walking around, running errands and going about my day but I also know that I can't over do it. I'm on oxycodone and that masks much of my pain. I've already slipped back in to my old ways and thought I could spend the day shopping and running errands. That was a big mistake. I forgot I was hurt because of the pain killers. It set me back a few days. Recovery should take about 4 weeks. One can return to work in 2 weeks post-op but with limited mobility, no lifting over 20 lbs, no driving long distances, no getting in and out of the car all day. Guess what? All of those things I just mentioned I do for a living. I'm hoping in two more weeks I'll get to go back to work.
The moral of the story is if you want to try Crossfit, by all means, go for it! However, if you have any kind of injury no matter if it's chronic or you were injured some other way, think twice about putting yourself in a position where you can make it worse. It's tough to realize that you can't do the things you used to do when you were younger. The older we get the harder it is to lose weight and gain muscle. Life is going to smack you in the head and say, "Hey! Do you WANT to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life?"
Get healthy, stay healthy and listen to your body.
