Confronting Weakness

I’ve never been one to shy away from hard work — give me drills, exercises, hitting practice, I’ll do it until my body gives out on me.

Which is exactly what it did.

About 10 days ago I did my first 2-a-day (a run in the AM, then hitting for 2 hrs in the evening) and felt this slicing pain in the bottom of my left arch. Dead center of the foot. It wasn’t terrible yet, but felt like one of those injuries that could get a lot worse REAL quick if I wasn’t careful. I immediately called tennis practice early and googled what it could be.

Hours later — I still had no clue.

Plantar fasciitis? Tissue damage? Just a pulled muscle? I decided to take a few days off to see if it got better. When it didn’t, I took a few more. After about 5 days I realized I hadn’t actually done anything to actively improve my condition. No stretching, icing, heating, anything. What’s more: I didn’t even lift or crosstrain.

In short: I literally did nothing.

What the hell! Why?? Did I not want to get better? To get back in action ASAP!? Was I just being lazy? I started thinking about this more and more. I got down on myself. Professional athletes go through some pretty crazy injuries, but they always seem to bounce back in record time — but HOW? Well that’s not fair, they have a full time staff of specialists, the best medical equipment and care around, they’re making them do stuff constantly to get better -

They’re making them do stuff constantly to get better.

Ah. The real key: seamlessly shifting the athlete’s routine from improving their game, to improving their health. Full time team of specialists be damned: I just needed that shift in routine.

I adjusted my daily schedule accordingly, and voila: suddenly I’m not that lazy bastard I started to fear I was becoming. Amazing how much habits, intentional or not, dictate actions.