I headed to the gym this morning for a boot-camp style class called "Whipped," which I first took a few weeks ago. It's set up in a circuit with five stations, and at each station you complete two minutes of exercises before moving onto the next.
One of the stations included rapid squats, which I always take super slowly. I dislocated my patella doing lunges in 2004, and since then I've been completely paranoid about squats and lunges. Part of it is for good reason- I do need to be careful and gentle with my knee. But I know that part of it also comes from fear: I'm terrified of re-injuring myself, so I tend to play it even safer than necessary in strength-training classes. While I was doing my slow-motion squats, the instructor came over to me and told me to speed up. I explained my injury, and after a brief exchange about his own bad knees, he smiled and encouraged me not to let it slow me down too much.
The reminder was just what I needed. Listening to your body is important, but pushing your comfort zones is the only way to build strength, and building strength is what protects you from injury in the future. I made an extra effort to pick things up a bit for the remainder of the class. Careful is good, but paranoia is not :)
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For lunch afterwards, I enjoyed a big salad topped with hummus.
While I grocery shopping yesterday, I momentarily forgot that I'll be heading home to PA for Easter on Wednesday. Therefore, I have a week's worth of produce, and only a few days to eat it. Fiber, anyone?
This one contained romaine, spinach, tomato, carrot, a crumbled Dr. Praeger's California burger and Yorgos tomato-basil hummus. I also had a quartered whole-wheat wrap, so that no hummus would be left behind.
Clementines and two spoonfuls of PB&Co. Cinnamon Raisin Swirl for "dessert" rounded out the meal.
Yes, I am a very neat nut butter eater :)
I have a bunch of errands to do this afternoon, including hitting up the post office to mail some blog goodies. Hope you have a great Friday afternoon!
Are there any activities you're paranoid about doing for fear of injuring yourself? If you've had an injury, do your worry about it happening again?
