The Woes of Taking a Break From Fitness
This is a story that starts with me at what was then the peak of my fitness, I was running 3 mornings a week, going to the gym 5 afternoons a week and skating most evenings for an hour.
I loved this period of my life and felt very good about myself for quite possibly the first time ever… Then it happened.
I Broke My Wrist
I fell off my skateboard while ollieing (for those unfamiliar, it’s when you snap the tail of the board down, slide your foot up the nose and make the board do a little hop in the air) down a hill, over a drain and my foot decided it didn’t want to land on the board so I fell for what felt like an eternity and landed on my outstretched right hand, obviously I got up and carried on skating like some kind of maniac, I was used to falling like this and didn’t think much of it.
When I returned home about 20 minutes later (I was on the tail end of my skate) I mentioned to my girlfriend that my wrist still hurt and decided to leave it until the morning. Sleeping that night was painful, I had to leave my wrist splayed across my chest and kept rolling over trying to get comfy.
A trip to my mothers the next day(a nurse) she said it’s probably your scaphoid, so I went to minor injuries and they much to my mum’s ego’s delight confirmed I had broken my scaphoid bone, which apparently is rather difficult to break and particularly annoying to heal.
I was strapped into a cast, this is when my fitness started to slip, I still tried to do some Yoga and Pilates based exercises but after I had solidified the basics I found they didn’t challenge me or my body quite as much as skating, weight lifting or running.
I have now had the cast off and been told the bone is healing properly and to obviously be a little careful with it and I can mostly resume normal activity as long as I am not putting too much pressure on it and so I will likely begin working out again.
The difficulty is, my fitness and health dropped a little during this time and so I am having to rediscover my stride within fitness and also just as importantly healthy eating, it is particularly difficult. Almost like starting again from scratch.
My advice, ease back into it start with some bike rides, little runs and HIIT sessions and then work your way back up to the full 5k+ runs in 20 minutes and lifting weights in various ways.
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