I'm not as strong as I was last year, but I'm stronger than I was yesterday.

Sep 4

Sep 4 I'm not as strong as I was last year, but I'm stronger than I was yesterday.

I am stronger than I was yesterday. And the day before that. And the day before that too.

When I started physical therapy, I didn’t realize how emotionally challenging it would be. I knew I needed help recapturing some of the strength I once possessed. But I thought that the work would be on my body, not my mind.

The inability to complete simple exercises.
The inability to complete exercises quickly.
The inability to complete exercises in repetition.

I struggled with all of these during my first week of physical therapy.

“Tom, of course, I can move those little bitty cones from the lower shelf to the shelf above my head for 3 minutes straight!” .. such a baby exercise, why does he have me doing this? And then I look at the clock when I feel like my arm is about to fall off and only 20 seconds have passed.

Or the time when he creatively wrapped a resistance band around my legs and told me to walk back and forth across the room for 3 minutes, and I felt my skin burning off after 30 seconds.

Or maybe even the time when I wanted to die of embarrassment during the chair test. I was to squat as many times as I could in 10 seconds. FOUR… that’s how many times I was able to sit and stand again.

But I never gave up. I stuck with it. I put in the work and made a commitment to invest this time and energy in myself. Being stronger would help me in the long run. If I wasn’t grunting when I rose from a seated position, I could be more active. If my upper body was stronger going into the surgery, I would have a better recovery after the surgery. Physical therapy was in my best interest. I just needed to drop the ego and get to work.

Sound familiar? How many times have you allowed your ego to inhibit the work that you know needed to be done? How many goals have you not met because you didn’t want to do the work?

Yesterday, was “ test day” for me at PT. I had to complete all of my baseline tests again to see how I had progressed over the last month (even the embarrassing chair test). In every test, I improved significantly. My numbers are where they need to be. I’m not ready to run a marathon, but I am strong enough to maintain activity prior to surgery. And this was the goal.

So with that, I was released. No more physical therapy for me. I just need to continue with stretches, light strength training, and cardio in preparation for the big day! And then I’ll see Tom again on the other side.