Listen to your body

Listening to your body, easier said than done most times. I thought i was a lot better at it since i have suffered through a few injuries over the years and once had to take 3 weeks off the gym to let my body heal because i kept pushing through the pain. Well i sort of learned not to push myself running wise, kinda. I fell at work VERY hard on Jan 3rd. The parking lot was very icy and i knew it. I was wearing my new awesome winter boots (practical footwear for our atlantic canadian winters) and i was shuffling along the ice, clearly not salted! UGGG. And bam i fell so hard on my left hip. I couldn't even get up for a good 5 minutes. Three ladies rushed over to my aid, all wearing heels of course (ironic). They picked up all my bags (yes i bring a lot to work my lunch cooler, my purse, my laptop and a bag with my shoes to wear inside since i am smart and sport my awesome super warm winter boots).

I was in a lot of pain after i slowly went up to my floor where i work. The first thing i did was call the chiro to get in to get looked at. I knew something wasn't right. I had a lot of pain and pressure at my belt line of my pelvis from left to right. So off i went to the chiro and turns out i knocked my pelvis out of alignment. So good thing i went right away! 

I didn't run until Saturday that week and thought i gave myself ample time to recover. I still did some pilates, yoga, abs and upper body work. Saturday i set out for a 18km run with Stephanie. And during the run i felt pain where my SI joint was. Something i never heard about before. Steph knew about it as her hubby used to play football and has had issues with it before and her brother still plays and has had issues with his too. This is a common issue/injury for football players since they get hit and fall so much. Their SI joints get shoved out of place and sometimes it can take a lot of therapy to get it to stay back in. I only felt the pain for about 10 minutes and ran through it. 

Us runners think we can run through pain which is our downfall more often than not. While yes it's true you can run through some pain but more often than not we need to let go of our egos and just friggen stop sometimes and listen to our bodies already! But again easier said than done. Runners are a special breed and stubborn at best. So i kept working out and pushed it too much. I ran hills a week and a half ago with Steph and omg the nagging pressure on my belt line wasn't good...but it didn't hurt so i didn't stop, the next night i did some awesome plyo workouts called POP cardio and POP HIIT by Blogilates blogger/pilates instructor Cassey Ho. Who is awesome at kicking your ass by the way. So check her out if you haven't already. Her workouts are WAY harder than they look and you can do them at home or anywhere! SCORE! 

Anyways back to me and my ego getting in the way. I felt pressure and pain while i was doing the plyo stuff and worked through it and told my chiro and he said that wasn't good and to stop. He said no running, leg work or jumping. Ok i can handle that. Well even though i was "taking it easy" for me what i was doing for my modified workouts created a chain reaction affect of issues in my body. Yesterday i was in so much pain EVERYWHERE. My pelvis keeps getting pulled out due to spasms in my SI joints as well as my Q3 (located in the lower part of your spinal column). So working out was making my body really start to freak out. Due to the imbalance of my pelvis being out my mid back/spine/vertebrae started to get a lot of pressure and hurt a ton and then that made my ribs cranky and caused pressure all the way in my upper abs/ribs. As well due to my lower back issues in my Q3 my obliques were freaking out too and then the front part of my pelvis too...i never knew about the muscles under my pelvis but holy moly after having them pressed on i know they are there now! Now this is what i understand from my chiro. May not and probably isn't totally correct. It was a lot of information to digest but i want to understand what is going on with my body. 

So that being said i had to take yesterday and today off work as sitting in a chair all day is killing me. And just contributing to my slow healing as well. So i am now being forced to take time off from working out until i am healed up. I don't know how long it will take. I am hoping not too long. I am permitted and advised to stretch and foam roll my tight muscles out and do some light yoga as well as plank, side planks and bridge pulses. But honestly i don't even want to work out at all right now. I am scared i'll set myself back more. So for the next few days i'll be stretching and foam rolling but i think that will be the extent of it until i feel better! I am not in as much pain as i was yesterday so that makes me positive.

The lesson i have learned from this is that i need to take time off from the get go when i get injured. I need to listen to my body more or it will totally freak out and start a chain reaction of hurting in other ways. Yes it sucks taking time off from what you love and your passion. But the amount of time off at the beginning will save you having to take an undetermined amount of time off later. Better to heal first and work out later. Then work out now and heal for what feels like eternity later. While i am better at taking time off and not pushing through as much as i was i still need to work on listening to my body more from the get go.