Continuing with the theme of dealing with my health issues over the past year, this post covers a very important consideration. Train Smart over Training Hard.
Train to Remain Sane
I need to workout regularly. If I am not doing some form of strenuous exercise at least 5 days a week I go a bit crazy. The endorphin rush is real. The feeling of accomplishment is real. Since so many of us work desk jobs or live fairly seduntary lifes due to work or netflix or any of the million other modern conveniences, we need to FORCE movement. One of the biggest challenges with my wound was how I would be able to train because if I was not able to I would be miserable to be around. Which is code word for my wife would hate me.
The objective at first was to do something, anything, that allowed me to break a sweat and evolve from there. Something is better than nothing.
Train Around Health Issue
When training with health issues you must intelligently assess your situation and train around it. With my specific health issue, offloading or not putting more pressure on my backside is vital. This is where my absolute FAVORITE exercises for people in a wheelchair are a perfect marraing. Pull Ups and Dips.
Over the past year I have done so many different variations of rep ranges of pull ups and dips its a bit crazy. When limited to a tiny few exercises it becomes even more important to vary up rep ranges or any additonal weight you can add (if possible with your health situation).
I recently had to deal with a Pick line for IV antibiotics which limited me even more! What did I do? I did very little with my right arm where the pick line was installed. I did battle ropes with my left arm only. I was not able to do any repitition style exercises so I utilized static holds.
EX: Instead of doing a full pull up, I would just hold the bar and do 1 arm static holds, or 2 arm static holds. Same thing with dips where I would do 1 dip and hold the top postion for up to a minute.
This went on for 6 weeks and these were not the most exciting exercises in the world, but it was better than nothing.
Wound Update
As I stated, I still have the wound. But it is getting much better. I will post weekly updates on where things are at with the wound as well as begin releasing what I did to maintain my fitness. As of this week I now have a wound vac back on and am still doing Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy (HBOT) treatment. We are hopeful!