I haven’t worked out in a couple weeks. I was getting frustrated with a lack of progress in my elbow and my PT suggested completely laying off activity for a week to see if there would be any change. One week became two became three and here I am. Just being frustrated with a lack of progress around my elbow healing up made it tough to focus and tough to feel motivated to do anything about it, so I just let the feelings play out and knew that when they came back I’d be recharged and ready to get after it.

I ate whatever I wanted while keeping it reasonable – oatmeal for breakfast, a nice lunch with meat and lots of veggies and some carbs provided for us at work, either something home made or take out (but not complete junk) for dinner, and some snacks of nuts, trail mix, pretzels, hard boiled eggs or whatever I felt like in between. I’ve been working my way a little closer to looking like Seth Rogen, but just keeping things moderate and not going all out has helped me from getting too soft. On the bright side, I finally felt mentally engaged and did a workout this morning, and it felt really good. I just did Paul’s core strengthening/rehab routine that he wrote up for me a few weeks back.

Funny enough, in the past I’ve gotten anxious and felt like I had pent up energy when I wouldn’t work out for a week or so at a time, but this time I actually feel generally okay. I’ve got other things to keep me busy lately, and it’s been nice to be able to sleep in a little later, or not have anything extra to do after work.

Even though this process is taking way longer than I expected, I’m learning a ton, I’m taking time to repair all the little things that I would have never worked on that would have potentially caught up to me in an even worse way if I didn’t find myself in this situation, and the time away has given me good perspective. As someone who’s always been stressed, rushed, anxious and obsessed about “losing my gains” or not gaining fast enough, having some forced time off has been really good for me, and the lessons I’m learning now will definitely help me in the long run (and probably extend my lifting career for a lot longer than it would have been).