Defiant dead weight

While I was sitting on one of the rowing machines at the gym yesterday, I looked through the window onto the adjacent street to Aqualife. On the sidewalk, a woman was walking her dog. She was perhaps seventy, although I find it incredibly hard to tell, and was assisted by a stroller, to which she seemed inevitably attached, like a snail to its house crawling slowly on the ground. I found myself sympathising with the woman, feeling extremely thankful for my own body, and all it lets me do, both at the gym, but more importantly in my everyday life. 

It truly is a gift, being able to simply decide that I want to go running, or cycling, or swimming, or training, and having the physical means in my body to do just so. I thought back to September, when my doctor told me I had subcromial bursitis that inflamed my left shoulder and made it impossible to lift my elbow above my head. He also told me I had an inflamed tendon in my thumb, explaining my difficulty in holding onto things, and suggested I lay off the weights and stretches for a very long while. It was an incredibly disheartening message to receive. I can only imagine the horror it must be for any person to be told they are physically unable to do something, however small or big that thing may be to them. Our freedom to move is perhaps one of our most liberating tools in life, and being disadvantaged physically in any activity can be terrible for morale.

I do believe, however, that anyone can choose to be defiant with their bodies and, working around the pain, ache, or handicap, rather than against it, succeed at things they never thought possible. My own experience with this has been particularly positive at my gym, where no less than two training instructors (one of them a student of physical recovery) spent over an hour creating my personal training program. This takes into account both my shoulder’s and thumb’s weaknesses, and attempts to build strength around the inflamed areas, in order to further protect them. My shoulder never aches anymore, and my thumb is rarely more than an annoying ache when I’ve done a heavy session of training. I think to my mum, an absolute champion in the way of determination and persistence, who has pieces of cartilage on the loose in her knee and still attends the gym weekly. I suppose that even if it’s as small as an inflamed thumb, or as big as needing assisted walking, anyone can rise to the challenge of maintaining their inherent right to move with independence and dignity.