The Month of Shoulder Impingement

There I’m with another month’s update. I kind of like my latest updates for a couple of months, highlighting the difficulties I’m having with my health despite trying my best to stay in shape and healthy :) I’m just happy to observe in myself and be a good example of consistency against whatever life brings upon us. You think I’m exaggerating. You might be right. Before jumping into a conclusion, let’s see what I have for this past October.

If you look at my workouts above, the irregularity starts on the 18th. That’s the day I had to go through some bloodwork and an ultrasound. I will keep my story about the ultrasound for next month so that I can share it in full, hopefully with the conclusion. Ok, so far, it makes sense to move my off-day to a Friday to be able to get bloodwork done. What about the rest of the week? Do you see anything strange on the 20th? Indoor cycling! Where the hell did that come from?

Long story short, my left shoulder starts feeling weird, had some pain when doing push-ups, and I decided to skip my shoulder day for that week. I had to do something else to stick to my plan and stay active for six days a week. I didn’t want to pile on running sessions and kill my knees with the same type of working every day. So, indoor-cycling it is.

Next week, Monday 21st, I got back to the gym and started with high reps, low weight to see how my shoulder will hold up. Unfortunately, I decided to skip the shoulder day again and took an appointment with a physiotherapist to see what’s happening; shoulder impingement.

Here is my guess. When I do bench press or anything that relates to pushing, I make sure I don’t extend my arms behind my body. Some argue that you should extend as much as possible to maximize the range of motion. I don’t think that is ideal for my age and body flexibility. When I started with weight training a couple of months ago, I was meticulous not to extend my arms back, instead focus on stability. Unfortunately, the passing time gave me the courage to push myself harder, and here we are. This is my experience based non-scientific explanation of my issue :) According to the physiotherapist, I do indeed have flexibility issues (oh, I know), and I have to do some pilates before jumping onto weight training. That does not sound sexy at all, but I feel like it is what it is.

We planned for some steroid injections into the shoulder to ease the pain. That happened on the 30th. Now I’m feeling much better. I will keep skipping the gym for a while. Next week, I will meet with my physiotherapist to see what’s next.

Some good news

The good news is I was able to keep my diet in shape and my six days/week commitment somehow intact. I had to replace gym sessions with cardio, and add a different type of cardio into the mix. That’s precisely the type of flexibility you should be open to if you want to keep the momentum going. Below are the challenges I was able to complete on Strave this month against all the issues! Love to show them off! :)

Now that I already surpassed my weight goal, my focus is not the weight loss anymore. Still, it is good to observe a steady decrease on that front. While eating around 2200 calories a day, I’m in a deficit of 600 cal/day.

The Plan

No surprises :) I’m not changing the fundamentals. It is working pretty well. My goal is to keep myself active for six days a week. Keep eating my 2000 cal/day, 40% carb-20% fat-40%protein diet. I’m not sure what November will bring upon me :) I will try to stick to my plan as much as I can and let you know of my updates next month! See you!