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Gaoshang Xiongshou
02-12-2009, 11:52 AM
What has you evolution as a person been since you started training?

Valkyrie
02-12-2009, 05:20 PM
Hard to explain what my evolution as a person has been. So I'll break it down through the stages:

Teens:
In the beginning my lifting was painful. I was correcting muscle and spinal problems.

Late teens-early twenties:
I lifted to fill a void for my loss of hard physical labor as a farm/stable worker and horse trainer.

Twenties:
Then it became a matter of recovering my 'hard body' after pregnancies.

Mid-twenties:
I went through a stage where it was just plain my way of taking a break from the daily grind of raising kids. No particular goal...but it was enjoyable to have my 'me' time and challenge myself.

Mid twenties-mid thirties:
This was the trial of finding ways to lift smart and 'outfox' my fibromyalgia.

Late thirties-early fourties:
The biggie was my return to lifting after 4 years of enforced rest, with nerve damage and muscle atrophy from the Lyme disease.

There was a lot of mental and physical anguish. And more pain than I had even experienced during the beginning stages of my lifting when it had been for correcting the muscular structure of my congenitally curved spine. Sometimes even more pain than when I was learning to cope with the fibromyalgia as well. I expected my body to respond as it had prior to three surgeries and the Lyme's. It did not.

It became a lesson in determination and in overcoming odds that were stacked steeply against me. I had to learn to lift smarter, and I had to learn how to compensate for my 'glitches'. I had to leave my pride at the door much more often than I ever had before.

Mid-fourties-present:
I'm still working around my fibromyalgia, the nerve damage from the Lyme disease and now I'm a year into coping with Hashimotos. The lifting has returned to being enjoyable again. I focus more on lifts that support performance in my other two passions of life (martial arts and backpacking) and I'm challenging myself again.

Life is good...lifting is good. :)