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Player Intro
I couldn't get up from my bed easily anymore. I didn't bend as easily as I used to, and everything seemed tight. I felt it when I stretched. A random shot of pain would race through my lower back multiple times throughout the day, interrupting routine tasks that I had never thought twice about before. The dread of uncertainty coursed through my head throughout the day: Is this what aging will look like? Am I past my peak already? Will I ever move normally again?
I went to physical therapy for the first time a couple months later, after my own bouts of stretching and Internet searches proved fruitless. I still don't know quite what caused my back pain to first flare up. Maybe I had fallen too hard one too many times on the basketball court, or had gone too heavy on a back squat with poor form, or had just picked up and held my daughter with bad posture for too long. It could have been any number of things; regardless, it was now rehab time.
Gameplan
Physical therapy wasn't quite the grueling challenge that some people mention; it was a question of commitment for me, though. After the first few sessions, I definitely had the thought: "Why am I paying each time to do the same stretches that I've done since session one, and that I do at home already?" Nevertheless, I went for the full amount of sessions allotted, and slowly realized I was beginning to recover a life without back pain.
By following the steps laid out by my physical therapists, stretching every evening and attending appointments, I achieved the goal I set out, even if it felt slower than I would have liked.
Don't paint a dirty car
Another way I had to focus on doing things the right way was in lifting. Like many guys, I had fallen into the trap of compromising form to lift a higher amount of weight. Greg Glassman, founder of CrossFit, is credited with saying: "Don't paint a dirty car," meaning, don't try to pretty up poor lifting form with higher numbers. It was easy to compromise form when my body recovered quickly; one day with lower back tightness disappeared the next, so I could squat however I liked without worrying about the impact on my body. My back pain, when it didn't disappear on its own, was my red alert that I was trying to paint a dirty car by tossing extra 10's and 25's on my back squat and deadlift without making sure my movement was clean.
In order to prevent this from happening again, I examined how I approached sports and lifting. I began to stretch and warm up more consistently before basketball games. I re-worked my back squat and deadlift forms so that I'm not compensating with my back just to lift more weight. All of this was to reinforce a lesson that I had not picked up earlier in life: do things the right way.
Doing things the right way was a lesson I learned late. In high school, my focus was only on doing as little work as possible while getting the grades I wanted. That meant that at the end of the quarter, I would be calculating my grade, the way assignments were weighted, and seeing what homework I could get away with not doing while not affecting my grade. If I had secured an A in the class already, I took advantage of the free ride, and didn't do any more of the assignments for the rest of the quarter.
If I could get away with not doing a reading in college, or just some of the reading, I would do the minimum amount of work required to still perform adequately in class.
My diet was an especially egregious example of not doing things the right way. I had a general idea that I should eat well, but because I only cared about a number on the scale, I could justify the idea that I could eat however I wanted because I wasn't gaining weight. In high school, it was microwaved foods that made me feel sluggish and slow. In college, I believed the myth that I could eat all I want (with a buffet available at every meal) because I was working out hard. I cheated myself out of years of peak athletic performance because I was not willing to take a hard look at what I put in my body, and how that can impact me beyond simple weight. In my mind, as long as my weight didn't fluctuate, I was eating fine.
Looking back, these habits that I developed in school affected my work ethic in general, and negatively influenced how I approached work, recreation, and life. The lower back injury, recovery, and changes in my attitudes towards working out have revitalized my approach to other things as well.
Value the process, not just the end result
As I built up new habits in my approach to lifting and taking care of my body, valuing the process, not just the end result, became more important. The process of working became more important than just the resulting paycheck at the end; eating became about finding healthy fuel for my body rather than just enjoying the experience and keeping track of a number on a scale; learning grew to be important for its own sake rather than just to pass a test or earn a diploma.
By prioritizing the process of things, I've learned to do things the right way instead of trying to find the most expedient or quickest way to that final result. This process all began by changing my focus from the numbers that I'm lifting to the way that I'm lifting. In the end, the HOW is just as important as the WHAT.
How is just as important as What
Execution
In the interest of discussing mobility and recovery, we're presenting a stretching routine today that flows from standing to floor work. This primarily targets the lower body, loosening up the hips and glutes.
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