Modifying Workouts Due to Injury and Jammin’ at the Zoo

Hi friends!

Before I go any further, I am some exciting news to share! I’ve been featured by Blogtrepreneur as one of the Top 25 Fitness Blogs That Get Your Game On! This list features blogs that motivate others to fall in love and stick with, and go further with a fit lifestyle! This is quite the honor—check out the full list of amazing bloggers here.

I really do appreciate you guys coming to my blog, and I really do try to put out content that is both relatable, motivating, useful, and honest. I pride myself in putting out scientifically correct content that you guys can use, as well as pieces for entertainment.

So what do you say we hit a little bit of both today?

You could say it’s been a bit of a rough week, I suppose. I got locked out and climbed through a window Tuesday, and then today. I was SUPER excited for tonight’s Crossfit WOD. It has toes to bar and pull ups, my new tricks! I wasn’t going to do anything like run this morning, because I didn’t want to tire myself out or get dehydrated (like I did Wednesday at work). But then I naturally woke up an hour early. So I thought, “well maybe just a little run to get my blood flowing.” So I set out for a short 1.5 miles. And, in the words of my sorority little, I wiped out spectacularly. The sidewalks here are very uneven. And of course, it was right in front of the ONE house with people on the front porch.

So I’m pretty beaten up. My left hand, and strangely, my left thigh, took the brunt of it. Which was good for the sake of my knee, with just a minor scratch there. Seriously, how does one land on her thigh?

I’ll spare you the hand picture because it is ROUGH, but imagine an equal force concentrated into a smaller area. There is no skin on the base of my palm. And it’s fairly deep. OUCH.

I had to buy bigger band aids on the way to work, and have been in quite a bit of pain on and off all day, because my hand is stinging. I spend about half or more of my day doing computer stuff, and using the keyboard on those computers KILLS me.

Anyways, back to the point of this all. I wanted a good workout. I was sad to miss Crossfit, but I told myself I would save the workout and do it another day at Open Gym. And I figured, hey, I’ve had to modify my workouts for every injury under the sun this past year (dislocated shoulder, stress fracture), so why can’t I figure something out?

I went to the gym and got a killer workout in without killing my hand, and was in and out in 45 minutes. I did: single leg squats (back leg on a bench) while holding a 30# dumbbell in my good hand for both legs. 5 sets of 8. I supersetted that with 8 pistols each, onto a bench. Then, I did 4 sets of 6 each single leg RDLs at 45#. I finished with some quick abs on the BOSU. Note: my hand was ok to hold dumbbells for the RDLs, surprisingly.

I truly believe that when you’re down, you don’t have to be out. Work with what you have (and don’t be stupid about what you can’t do.)

Since we’re still sharing frustrations, I HATE iTUNES. I’ve had tons of issues lately with iTunes deleting songs from my spin playlists (which is why I have a playlists tab on my blog now! It’s already been a lifesaver), but today it told me I had to reinstall iTunes due to some error. Which might erase my songs. Guys, my backup is 2000 miles away, and I have to make a new playlist for this Saturday! AHHH. THANKFULLY, I reinstalled and all appears ok.

Do you want something happier? Let’s go happier.

Yesterday I got in an awesome 3.1 mile run in. My foot felt 100% normal, for the first time! We can ignore the fact that I flat out missed my very first turn and ran half a mile the wrong way without realizing it….

I was in the mood for chocolate when I got back, so I made one of my flapjacked muffins. The key: slightly undercook it (no eggs!) and it tastes like lava cake <3

It was really, really hot and humid at work yesterday. (And today, but I handled it better.)

I was feeling pretty icky when I got off, and had more plans outdoors that evening. I took my spare hour to grab a massive Subway salad with Baked Lays because I was also severely under fueled and needed carbs. And I drinks TONS of water.

Then, it was time for Jammin’ at the Zoo! This was a super cool event that I went to with some of the other interns. It was a beer/wine tasting with vendors set up around the zoo, and a live band! It was a great deal–$10 to enter covered all the sampling!

Of course we rode the merry-go-round.

Penguins and sparkling rose.

It was a lot of fun! Apparently there is wine country pretty close to St. Louis. Who knew?

And to close out this post, here are some adorable tasmanian devil pictures.

How do you modify your workouts when injured?