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One Step Forward...Well, You Know the Rest

So I'm sitting here getting over the first day of 2017, which was pretty good. I watched Lost with my fiance' almost all day and now as I catch up on the day's news and go over my finances, I have Lethal Weapon on to keep me company. Not bad at all.

Well I was also preparing for a couple of strongman contests and much like last year, well, my body has other plans. I was preparing for one of Georgia's Strongest Man contests and hitting some decent numbers. I had done a session and hit 275 for several reps in the Strict Overhead Press and later in the week gotten up to 800 and some change doing some parallel deadlifts or, as I like to call them, Car Deadlifts (because it's similar to that apparatus.) I was feeling strong, but damn it hit me when I got home.

My pesky hernia.

There's no way to ignore it, it's there. It's small yes, but I'm not in the mindset of making it worse. There's a part of me that wants to go ahead and get surgery and be done with it, but I'll soon be 34 and I don't know if I'm willing to put myself and my bride-to-be through that this year, along with moving and planning a wedding. The hernia KILLS when it hurts, and it's been hurting a lot lately. Then there's the sciatica...oh boy. If you've never had it before, count yourself lucky. I spent a few days over the last two weeks hobbling around and on the verge of tears because my lower back and left leg had other ideas. It's not getting better either, even with treatment. The left ankle is still basically useless and as winter sets in the pain in my fingers (all of which have been broken over the years) gets worse. The pain in my fingers got so bad, that during truck pull practice the other week I had to force my fingers to uncurl when it was over.

I'm not mad, I feel liberated. For 20 years I've been telling myself, and listening, that lifting weights and training was all that mattered in life and for 20 years I've let everything else go by the wayside. No regrets there, but that kind of thinking has run it's course and 2017 will be the year I put my future first. My fiance, moving, finishing my degree etc...there are lots of things that I need to focus on and right now navigating a hernia and traveling to contests just isn't in the cards.

Maybe 2018 will see me return to training and competition, maybe not. Only time will tell. Regardless of how it plays out, 2017 will be a year of hard, though not necessarily heavy, training and getting in the best shape of my life. Whether or not I decide to have surgery, I need to lose weight and get myself into a better place physically. So far, well in the last few weeks, my BP is still great and my blood work is good, so that's a great place to start from!

Not sure how many people are still following the blog, but I plan to keep updating it with all the stuff I'm doing and all that I come across in pursuit of the best body I can have!

Regardless of whether or not you compete, want to compete, walk on the treadmill twice a week or hit the weights everyday, don't forget to believe in something...believe in yourself!

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