Promoting the Global Development of Disability Bodybuilding
On this episode, as we start to view the end of the tunnel from this pandemic, I explore the changes that have been made, the challenges in adapting not just with training but life in general with a disability.
What changes could be made after lockdown, what we revert back to from previous routines and what can we take forward – and how can we make things better?
Free feel to reach out if there are any particular topics you’d like covered in the future.
The Disability Bodybuilding Show
Every approach is going to be unique.
Physically, I have some different hurdles when bringing various sets into play in my gym, at home or just picking up a weight, but I know, the mindset and approach I can take to it is mine alone.
What are your goals?
What obstacles are at the gym?
What improvements could be made?
How consistent can I be? It’s on me. How much growth can I produce? It’s on me. How much will I sweat to get my goals? It’s on me.
THIS is probably one of the drivers of my enthusiasm to build my fitness with bodybuilding. One of the key ingredients into building a routine was trying to build consistency.
In one way, my early thought process in my very first gym visits in my teens were ones of frustration with my disability – my dexterity seemingly being a curse when attempting a incline dumbbell fly, or my ankles randomly moving during an attempted squat…*
BUT, here’s the thing…
We’re not going to be utterly amazing at EVERY SINGLE THING we do, we can give it a bloody good go and try and fail, tweak and improve various elements, however, it’s going through that process which enables us to find our strengths…and this applies to me with my Cerebral Palsy and also everyone who goes training – we are in there to improve, bit by bit, day by day.
I LOVE trying new things, giving things a go, attempting different angles, could that fit in? It’s a wonderful process to keep trying and discover – and this totally outweighs my previous concern of dexterity limitations – it helps EXPAND my learning – I have to keep going to find a way and in doing pick even more knowledge of my body’s capabilities as a result…
*I found a way! – Wrist Straps & Cable for Incline Fly solved that personal issue!!
Keep trying and give it a go!
It’s there.
The path to reach out to.
When I started to construct this piece, I had the end of lockdown in mind, how we are facing the end of the pandemic. What further help could we provide out of this crisis as we plan today and for tomorrow in respect of training…
What struck me though was how this question can be applied across many disciplines – at home, at work or at the gym in training.
My mindset for a long time was to look forward to getting the “old life” back – one created and developed from years of searching for the little tweaks and adjustments that would make small, incremental improvements along the way.
Well, the path and plans were hit with a huge series of challenges, like never before. Things will feel different.
Maybe, the set up will not be as it was, how could it be better going forward?
I have been thinking, if I can in some small way, help develop better access after this, the biggest of challenges – whether it be getting to a gym, competition and trainers, what would or could be in the future?
At this point, what help do you feel is needed that perhaps wasn’t there before?
Let me know!
Fear…
Of not doing it right…
Of Breaking something….
Of failing…
All things that I encountered at the gym, entering a competition, up on stage, travelling to do it internationally – at every stage, fear was there. In some ways, that was what made me do it.
There were concerns, of course – there’s the idea of something going wrong but the overriding purpose and emotion was one of achieving a goal, the satisfaction of which drives away all of those anxieties very quickly.
It is from this momentum within those environments that push you outside of comfort zones and in many other areas too.
In my experience, you can conquer something like anxiety and fear through positioning yourself in the gym for the first time, by trying but not necessarily doing the right thing the first time or getting on that plane solo, for the first time…by pushing through that emotional difficulty. it fills you with ambition – not only yourself but for others too!
Seeing how far you’ve come from those 1st movements forward can lead to incredible things.
This has been a very reflective time, yes, but opportunities of moments that have passed, have helped to keep the light shining to explore where I want to go next, and who I can help too.
Embrace fear, bring it with you, it could help to drive your purpose too…
Here we go…
To PCA, thank you for opening those opportunities, to anytime fitness, Joe, GymShark thank you for support in so many ways to create that foundation.
In more ways than one…
Being physically flexible has presented its challenges through the years, learning there are just some things that (I physically) cannot do!
However, that doesn’t distract from the shining light of CAN be done, it’s the never ending search to find the way.
“Traditionally” playing the guitar for one (I just know there will be a way to adapt that given the time if I allocated it one day. “Traditional” Driving I thought would be another, but I proudly secured my driving license a few years back with adaptions around my dexterity and patience to find a way, providing a freedom like I’d never experienced before.
It’s one of the reasons I’m a fan of stoic reading. The obstacle is the way! teaching us that it’s tackling the hurdles through the paths to success, not trying to avoid them.
The same can be said of my training set up from the last few weeks, There’s no getting around the gyms being shut – the bigger challenge is to work with what you can at the moment. To remain active with alternatives is possible, not ideal, but possible and that is the path, until the April reopening (I personally cannot wait for! 🙂 )
Stay safe and best wishes.
I’ve been trying to unpick the difficulties/challenges of the lockdown, particularly in relation to training.
On the one hand is this massive set of restrictions, an inability to access the set up you’ve created and used for so long.
On the other is an opportunity of reconstruction of the previous routine structure.
My mindset has been to try and continue with my approach to disciplines. Only I can alter or take that away. If that is removed, it’s on me, no one else.
Number two is movement. The position I place myself in, again, is up to me, be that taking myself to the gym in “normal” circumstances or recreating those compound movements as best I can from the position of my bedroom or lounge.
Then throw in my disability restrictions / alterations with my training. I worked really hard through this. Look, it’s not the same at home as in is the gym, the full variety available which helps me offset my dexterity is not here – BUT I have to use the power of creativity once again, THIS time at home (hopefully not for too long) but it’s the creative side that helped me in the 1st place at the gym and that is being applied to a home setting for training too.
Reflecting on the last few months, it’s when discipline, patience and creativity have come together and sparked into gear – That’s produced the best work, but it always HAS been about those practices which, when combined, helped prior to the pandemic too.
There is belief that THIS time in particular which will be looked back upon for future strength and resilience (we try to look at previous barriers/hurdles we’ve overcome) which is helping me power through the existing struggle to try and find way to push forward.
More change, how can we adapt again? can this be done again? YES!
We have to keep moving, in any environment, but it also doesn’t make any less of a challenge. This is still bloody hard.
However…
I’ve tried to remind myself often that we always face changes, every day – same large, some smaller, but change is always there.
Taking on those changes one by one has had a massive difference in slowing the pace when things all around seem very hectic, leading to clearing the fogginess of this experience and being at greater peace.
That’s been reflected in my recent training. As I previously mentioned, we’ve become accustomed to just using what we have so, whilst the consistency is still there (which is what I can control) slowing the reps down to get a better stretch has been a great help lately.
Our challenge has been to figure out how to break that down in decisions throughout the day, it’s a further challenge to keep them small. To tackle doubt, anxiety and install belief to propel us ahead. It was quoted Daily Stoic this week “Am I in control here or my anxiety?…Is my anxiety doing me any good?”
I’m in control of my smaller and bigger choices in my environment that we are in. I try to slow down each process, piece by piece, so that it becomes clearer, day by day.
Best Wishes folks…
I also wanted to mention sonething that happened in the last week. I was saddened to read the inspirational Captain Sir Tom Moore had passed away. Reflecting on how his quest to make his steps around his home for others, to do the things he could to make a difference brought hope, belief and became a shining light to everyone.
RIP Sir.
This is hard.
It’s difficult to put into words how to feel during a lockdown, this being the 3rd time in a year. Hard, not only to just express how you’re taking this all in but also without feeling a sense that on one side, there are other people suffering and I should be grateful for where I am, but sad you can’t meet and do more to help. That said, you can only do what you can do with the current restrictions.
“Control the controllables” I often read through various stoic teaching (Ryan Holiday is an excellent guide on this)
When trying to make sense of putting targets or aims or even simple ideas in place at the moment, it is ok just to drill things down to taking it week by week, day by day.
Being open, I’ve struggled to an extent with how fragile a set routine can be, ones that have been carefully built up over time that work into a lifestyle – ripped away – to then eventually building it back up – to fleetingly see it & feel it, but for it to change and be disrupted again is…exhausting.
However…
This is how I’m currently putting things in place to see things through…
One task at a time.
I’ve previously used a method created by Hal Elrod called SAVERS (Silence, Affirmations, Visualisations, Exercise, Reading, Scribing).
Sounds like a lot at first I know, but it has helped me very recently and why I have put this blog piece together. Using the 6 SAVERS, Hal wrote about putting these into practice using just a minute of each and building up from there.
It’s what I have used out of this 3rd lockdown, building one each day and it’s helping. This has been an overwhelming time – particularly with no end date, how to plan anything, to react, to feel – I’ve struggled with certain elements but using the SAVERS again as a platform has helped – starting with a foundation again of 6 minutes and doing what can be done within that & building it up – be that smaller breaks, at different times of the day, I started again from those 6 minutes.
I’ve not tried to reinvent the wheel with my routine but just looking at what I can control at this very moment.
And we can build and go from there.
New #Podcast of “The #Disability #Bodybuilding Show” up…
“Daily Practices”
Recorded in early January, prior to the current lockdown, I wanted to share some of the practices that have helped me in various ways throughout the last few months…
The Disability Bodybuilding Show
I was born with Cerebral Palsy (CP), something which I couldn’t prevent, change or know any different from.
Learning how to do simple tasks were tackled in one dimension, the way I could and “adapt” around.
Looking back now, the big challenges & hurdles faced were not, in reality, about me being able to do things right, but rather adapting to “norms” that I had to change with throughout.
I was taught that I was different, or rather that I have to do it slightly differently to how others did it – that it was a bigger challenge, extra time had to be allocated for me to things or things had to be adapted to accommodate my dexterity issues.
This created a stigma in my mind about my own ability growing up, limitations that I had placed upon myself. This is no ones fault, it’s something that I had to process individually, but I imagine I not alone in this.
The “adaptions” I had created were, in fact, the only way I knew how to work through applications of tasks. So, I ask now, does that make them an adaption to me personally or having to “fit in”? It’s an interesting question isn’t it? I suppose we all face this is some or another.
It was my only way. That being said, it was the process of being shown a particularly way that suited an able bodied peer that created the hurdles – knowing that I had to (more often that not) find my own individual way to make things work to its optimum level.
Now I don’t look back and resent this, unbeknown to me at the time, it was building resilience that would form through this process throughout my life & in someways I unwittingly used it to build a subconscious strength that I still use to this day.
I am me and I wouldn’t change my disability that I have, it is part of me and the path that I’m on.
DisabilityBodybuilding.com 