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!

I’ve had quite a dilemma for the past several months.  I have been preparing for the Russian Kettlebell Challenge Instructor certification for almost a year and making good progress.  At a body weight of approximately 135 pounds, I would be required to use the 16kg kettlebell for the snatch test.  (To use the 12kg bell, a woman’s weight must be 123.5 lbs or below at weigh-in.)  It became obvious that snatching the 16kg was going to be a problem for me.  But not for typical reasons.

My accident in 2006 left a few permanent limitations with my hand and arm.  One of them is some numbness in my right index finger and thumb.  When I began training to snatch the 16kg kettlebell I ran into major difficulty.  The handle of the 16kg is significantly larger in diameter than the 12kg.  I could not seem to grip the 16kg well due to the numbness. After a few single-hand swings with the 16, my grip would fail. And it wasn’t improving with time.

So I made the decision to change what I could change, and that was my weight.  Although I had a fairly significant amount of weight to lose (I figured 15 pounds, so that I’d have some lee-way at weigh-in) and I was already below 20% body fat, I felt like it was the best way to get to RKC in the least amount of time.  So I began to refine my eating.

All the while, I kept working on my grip, just in case.  I trained as if I expected to be able to use the 16kg. I didn’t know for sure if I really could reach my goal weight and maintain the strength and endurance necessary for RKC, so preparing for the possibility of being able to use the 16kg felt like a safety net.

In a few months I had seen the weight loss I was after. I reached my goal.  In the meantime, I noticed the grip strength in my right hand had begun improving slightly.  I bought a 14kg bell to try to snatch and that went well.  For a few weeks I wondered: what would happen if I tried to snatch the 16kg? I had visions of major property damage and/or injury in mind!!  But then I began to think it was possible to someday snatch the 16kg bell.  And someday began to feel close.

February 7, 2010 I decided to go for it.  Without thinking too much, I grabbed the 16kg kettlebell with my right hand and snatched it.  I was in disbelief when I realized the bell was safely locked out over my head.  Then I repeated it.  And I did the same on the other side.  Surprisingly, it was actually easier on the right side!  At that point I knew that all that stood in my way from using that bell at RKC was time and practice.  If I could snatch it once, I knew I could train to fulfill the certification requirements.

Strangely, snatching the 16kg successfully somehow made me feel ready to go to RKC using the 12kg for the test.  One hundred snatches with the 12kg  in 5:00, though definitely not easy, was definitely doable and I had done it on several self-tests.  My weight was within the range of where it needed to be to use the 12kg.  The success I had with the 16kg gave me hope for long term continued improvement with all my kettlebell skills despite any lingering hand issues. No longer an issue of which bell I MUST use, it became a question of which bell I would PREFER to use.  What a great feeling!

 I’m not very good at  motivating other people with catch phrases or cute sayings.  I can tell my story, but beyond that, I’m basically at a loss as to how to help others get motivated.  If someone comes to me already motivated, I’m great at helping them stay that way and focus on their goals.  I guess I’m best at the action part of things, not the dreaming part.

But today I read a story (thanks to my friend, Laura) which I will be using to help myself and others find motivation to start.  To start doing whatever it is that needs to be done.  I’m going to be following this man’s story with great interest as he continues to overcome and achieve, and likely you should too.

You can read the story about Josh Hanagarne, the “World’s Strongest Librarian” here .  He also has a blog that you should bookmark.   And tell your friends.   Josh is accomplishing something great, and more people need to know about it. 

And here’s a video Josh made as an introduction to his website.  You don’t want to miss it.

Keep at it, Josh.  And for the rest of us, get to it!

 (Wait, was that a motivating catch phrase?)

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.