If you've been following along on snapchat (@yogaby_candace), you know that I took all last week off from lifting and just did cardio and hiit workouts because my shoulder was still bothering me.
So here's the deal with my shoulder. I hurt it probably eight weeks ago jumping off the monkey bars. I mostly continued to lift weights and workout hard because I am an impatient little brat, and then I wondered why it wouldn't heal up. After about two weeks of travel, with most of that being down time away from the gym and without any yoga, it did finally heal up, and I jumped back into the weightlifting world full steam ahead (see previous sentence about me being an impatient little brat).
Thanks to clean and jerks that were too heavy, I re-injured my shoulder. Not as bad as before, but good enough that I knew I really needed to step away from any upper body weightlifting or yoga movements to really let it heal.
In the meantime, I did hiit workouts that didn't involve any upper body weight-bearing movement (ie no burpees, handstands, shoulder taps, planks, etc). I even avoided box jumps because I felt like the swing of my arms was too much for my shoulder.
Instead, I did a lot of sprints (I vary between 15 seconds on, 45 seconds rest, and 60 seconds on with 90 seconds rest) and stairmaster stuff (woof). Then for my actual workout, I would do something like the following, which I shared on snap:
From my snapchat
So ten rounds of: 20 double unders, 8 walking lunges, 8 air squats, 8 toe touch/v-up complexes. Then after the tenth round, I'd end with 100 double unders, just because they're kind of fun and I like the practice.
Recently, I went to Ithaca, New York, and I took my workout outside. I used my wire jumprope (that thing is a BEAST if you accidentally whip yourself, ugh!), and did a great hiit workout of 100 double unders to start. Then, five rounds of one sprint across the parking lot and back, twenty air squats, and twenty jumping lunges. This one will burn your legs and butt, fair warning. Then, after I finished with that, I ended with 100 double unders.
All these double unders have been giving me blisters on my index fingers. I've been dealing with them by taping them up with goat tape until they're more like calluses. Does anyone else get blisters from them?
One thing that's really been bothering me, though, is that all this bouncing around makes my phone slide. I plug my headphones in, and put my phone in the waistband of my shorts. The problem is that I sweat so much that the phone starts sliding around and after three or four dubs, my phone has completely come out the leg of my shorts, haha. So when I heard that Bose had come out with wireless SoundSport headphones, I drove to my nearest Best Buy to scoop them up. I am really loyal to the Bose brand just because every two or three years, you can go in with your headphones, give them the old ones and they'll give you the newer version at a steep discount. They have excellent customer service from online to in-store and their products are all awesome.
I've worked out with these wireless headphones for about a week now and I can confidently say I would never go back to the regular headphones. The sound quality is excellent, and they stay put in your ears, and that's all I really want out of my headphones. There's a microphone if you need to take a call, and you can adjust the volume and turn the song off or on right on the headphones. Here are a few other wireless headphones at different price points (these are affiliate links):
Asides from feeling mentally a little frustrated that it is literally taking months to recover from this injury, I am feeling pretty good with where I am. I am proud of myself for backing off - something I know I really struggle with, and I am proud of myself for coming up with workouts that are still challenging yet accommodate my limitation.
I recently got new macro numbers (you're supposed to switch them up every few months to keep your body guessing), and four weeks in, I feel awesome. James suggested incorporating refeeds, so I've been doing that and I will talk more about that soon with a full run down on what they are, how I felt, and lots more.
I'd love to know what's going on in your world of fitness. Are you struggling? Are you on your game? When you're injured, are you good at backing off and listening to your body? Tell me everything down below in the comments!
I've been really into shorts for working out lately. Here are a few I've got my eyes on. These are affiliate links which means YBC earns a small commission when you check them out. Thanks for your support!