Today I had my first personal training session, in an effort to reclaim my lost youth, waistline, and, most importantly, upper body strength. Ok. That’s not entirely true. My first personal training session was last September, not long before my diagnosis. I was supposed to go back for more sessions, but once the proverbial ball started rolling in late October, I finally, after all these years, had a bona fide excuse to avoid the weights. See? Even with cancer there are silver linings.
I’ve known for months that my upper body strength wasn’t what it was before the surgery, which isn’t saying much, given what my upper body strength was before the surgery. Lifting Benjamin (my 45-pound 5-year old) when he’s throwing a tantrum and goes all wet noodle is now virtually impossible and I’ve had to resort to dragging him with my leg (kidding, mostly). Then, this summer, I took the kids up to my parents’ house for a few days. We went to the pool, and Benjamin wanted to go off the diving board. Because he hadn’t yet passed the pool’s required deep-water test, I had to be in the deep end with him to make sure he could swim back to the wall safely once he cannonballed himself into the pool.
My initial concern was that I wouldn’t be able to tread water as long as I would need to. As it turned out, treading water was pretty easy. But when I tried to swim freestyle from the shallow end to the deep end (less than 25 yards) to meet Benjamin, I couldn’t do it. I don’t mean that it was hard, I mean I couldn’t do it. I would do the strokes, but my body would barely inch forward. And although I know I should have been kicking more, something that always kept me from medal contention on my swim team back in the day, I was flabbergasted at how little propulsion I could muster using only my arms. So I switched to breast stroke, which, proved much easier. Isn’t it ironic? Don’t you think?
So today I went to Lifetime Fitness, did a quick cardio workout, and then went to meet Shelby, my trainer from last September, for the real work. I had approached him last week about doing some sessions again, and although he already knew about my surgery, it is seriously awkward to talk to a 20-something, male, personal trainer about your mastectomy, no matter how lovely and professional he is.
My session went reasonably well. We started off with some really great stretches to increase my flexibility and range of motion, many of which were variations on exercises the physical therapist recommended months ago. Then it was time to get serious. Squats. I reminded Shelby that I wanted to focus on upper body strength, but he wasn’t hearing it, and reminded me that there was plenty of time to cover ALL my areas of need (well maybe not in one session, given my many areas of need, but eventually). So squat I did.
Eventually, we arrived at the bicep curls. He handed me two, 10-lb weights and told me to do 10 bicep curls on each side. I suggested that 10-lb weights might be overachieving, given that I never used them BEFORE my surgery, but I told him I would try. Halfway through my first set, Shelby suggested that 7.5-lb weights might be better. Score one for me. Then we went to do alternating sets of planks, crunches, and push ups. The planks and the crunches were fine. When we went to start the push ups, Shelby said that I could start with modified push ups, so that we could see where I was. Well, a few moments later I was face down on the mat. I was able to lower myself, but when I went to push myself up, the muscles just weren’t there. I laughed, and Shelby was great, and told me to start over, not go so low, and give myself a break, which I did.
Although intellectually I know that it’s not a big deal that I couldn’t do even one modified push up, it still felt pretty crappy. I mean, it’s a MODIFIED push up, for the people who, like me even before the surgery, lack the strength to do “real” push ups. But I am happy that I took the first step and talked to Shelby, as embarrassing as it was. And even happier that I took the second step and showed up to do the work.
Tomorrow, I know I’ll be sore, and barely able to move, but next summer, I plan to race my kids to the deep end, and maybe even win.
theyoungandthebreastless 