Today marks the one -year mark for this blog.  It’s strongsarah.com’s blogiversary, which also means that today is the (4th) anniversary of  The Accident. That was a rough day, but it was also the start of something very cool. You just never know how things will unfold and evolve into something beyond your wildest imagination.

A look back at the past year is in order.  It has been a big year, most of which has been documented here. In the last 12 months I have evolved from kettlebell newbie to HKC instructor.  Not to be limited to kettlebell training alone, I became quite proficient at jumping rope, and also tried a Randy Couture MMA (mixed martial arts) workout that I loved.  I explored (and did not love) the Eat Stop Eat program. My kettlebell studio, Intensity Works, was conceived and opened, and I shared many details of that process. I worked through the Enter the Kettlebell (ETK) program twice and realized success with it,  nearly doubling my kettlebell pressing ability.  I struggled with physical limitations resulting from The Accident and worked around or through them. I even began to feel ready to register for the RKC Instructor course. Just contemplating that was a milestone for me. I feel pretty good about the last year.

The blog has been neglected a lot too. I didn’t want my posts to become too repetitive, so I stopped posting regularly when my workouts often looked the same.  When starting a small business became my focus, blogging dropped down the priority list.  Then, when a (cancer) bomb was dropped on my world, I started a new blog, strongersarah.com, which has received much more attention than this blog lately.

But, Happy Birthday to strongsarah.com.  I hope to be able to post many more workout triumphs over the course of the next year.  Possibly, I will even have the priviledge of posting my experiences at an RKC instructor weekend.  If not, maybe I will have at least registered for one by the time this blog turns 2.  I am grateful to all who have visited and commented and encouraged me here. This has been fun, and it is far from over.  You just never know how things will unfold, and I am excited to continue the adventure!

Today is I’m Alive Day!!  I personally founded this day in honor of the 3rd anniversary of a scary random event that nearly claimed my life.  But there’s great news!  Not only did I survive, but because of the scary random event, I found my passion and purpose in life.  Not only am I alive but I’m better than before that day. 

Romans 8:28  And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to his purpose for them.

It took me some time to learn enough about weight training to make intelligent decisions about how to train myself.  Here’s my history with weight training:

1. Learning to lift and building basic strength/developing “normal” strength in my arm and wrist.  Used machines + some free weights.  Cardio consisted of treadmill running and/or walking.  This phase lasted until  around April, 2007.
2. The body building phase –  using mostly free weights, doing a 5-day body part split,  using both compound and isolation exercises.   Cardio was kick boxing classes or treadmill.  Later I learned about high intensity interval training. This phase ended in September, 2008.
3. New Rules of Lifting for Women – Following the 7 stages exactly as presented in the book by Schuler, Forsythe and Cosgrove.  I completed this program in March, 2009.  I am very proud of this achievement, as I learned so much about lifting, and I saw so much improvement in myself with this program.  For the first time in my life, I was able to do a chin up after following the progression outlined in the book.  All that WITH a shabby wrist!  My cardio training was high intensity interval training performed after weight training 3x per week.  On off days, I walked on the treadmill using a significant incline or used the Stairmill.

While I was following the program in New Rules of Lifting for Women (NROL4W) I became interested in kettlebell training, and made the decision to begin training with kettlebells after completing the New Rules program.  Kettlebell training began in March, 2009.

Growing up I was always the last one picked for teams.  I never played sports because of the potential embarrassment I would suffer being relatively slow, weak and uncoordinated.  As time went on, I figured out ways to avoid PE classes.  I was never overweight, but I was the furthest thing from an athlete.

After the accident and the physical therapy that followed I started doing something I’d never done before – strength training.  I had never lifted weights, but a weakish and painful wrist gave me a reason to consider it.  I was so intimidated by the weight room at first.  Hesitantly, I began as a “medical referral” and worked with a trainer.

To my surprise, I felt a passion for lifting almost immediately.  I loved the feeling of moving iron, and even better than that, I loved moving more iron the next week.  I became addicted to seeing strength gains.  I craved lifting a heavy barbell off the ground and pushing a heavy weight overhead. Whatever I had written off in the past as something I could never do — became my goal.  Whatever label (“last picked”) or limitation that had been put on me as a result of my injury became fuel to the fire I now felt for building strength.   I was becoming something I never dreamed I could be – an athlete.

May 2, 2006 was a beautiful sunny spring day here.  That afternoon, I decided I had enough time to squeeze in a quick walk before I needed to pick up my children at their bus stop.  About 10 minutes into my walk,  I was hit by a car.  The driver had lost consciousness and was going over 80 miles per hour, on the sidewalk.

Surprisingly, my injuries were limited to a broken right arm and a badly bruised leg.  I was thrown upon impact, but landed in the grass.  I sat up and watched the car drive past me, off and on the sidewalk. It grazed another car and then hit a power pole, bringing the pole to the ground.  The car then came to a stop.  Fortunately the driver was OK, and there were no other injuries.

After a few seconds of trying to shake off the cobwebs, I realized that I had survived a head on collision with a car, and I was  in relatively good shape!  However, I knew that my arm was broken, and badly.  I could see multiple compound fractures.  At the hospital, I learned that the ulna, radius and ulnar joint had compound fractures and that my hand was badly dislocated.  I needed surgery to stabilize the bones with a stainless steel plate and screws.

The surgery happened that evening, and I was able to go home the next day.  My arm was in a full cast.  My hand was incredibly swollen and blackened from bruising.  My hip and leg were not broken but were badly bruised and swollen.

Three casts and  6 weeks later, my arm was finally freed.  However it had atrophied horribly and lost all strength. My hand was still swollen, and was basically frozen in place.  Physical therapy was to begin.

The doctors had repeatedly warned me since the accident that the range of motion in my wrist would never be the same.  I was expecting that, but I was not expecting to have almost no range of motion, and no strength at all in the arm.  Physical therapy was not optional.  In order to be able to use my right arm I was going to have to do whatever I was told to do.  It was worse than I had imagined.

The first month of physical therapy was basically time spent wearing very large stretching devices.  There were two.  Each one stretched my arm in two different directions  I spent approximately 9-10 hours a day wearing the devices.  After every 5 minute period, I had to turn a knob which increased the pressure on my wrist, forcing it further into a range of motion.  It was excruciating and barbaric, but it worked.

I spent the next four months working with the physical therapists three times per week.  It was beyond painful, and it required every bit of determination I could muster to comply with the program.  I was so motivated to get my right arm “back” – the time commitment involved and the pain really didn’t matter to me.

Physical therapy was quite successful overall.  By the end I had regained most of my range of motion — more than they had predicted in the beginning.   The permanent misalignment of bones at the joint, and the fact that a large section of the joint had broken and was unattached, made it impossible to ever have completely normal use of my arm and wrist again.  The very large scar had also developed scar tissue, despite our best attempts to avoid it, and this also had a limiting factor on my range of motion.  All things considered, the therapists and doctors suggested that I had done really well, but that I should have realistic expectations for the future, both in regards to the use of the arm and the pain that I would most likely have from it.