COMPETITION-THE AGING ATHLETE

If you have a sport that you are passionate about, chances are that you will continue to compete in it year after year. Eventually the years will go by and you will find yourself in the Master's class trying to keep up with all the younger athletes coming out of the woodwork. If you are lucky and determined you may be able to keep up for many years. If you have been an athlete all of your life the wear and tear on your joints can be horrendous. I often wish that I had been one of those people who started being obsessive about exercise later in life so that my joints would now be in pristine condition. Instead, I had to be one of those people who was always pushing to the extreme. My husband and I both have many aches and pains and sometimes we even limp in the same direction. I had been thinking, after my recent hip injury, that we could tie each of our good legs together and we could then walk normally as a single unit. That might be just a little too much togetherness for my husband! When I wake up in the morning my feet shuffle on the floor as I try to walk to the bathroom. I have to put my perfume on before I can get my joints moving in the morning. The fragrance is called "oh de Icy Hot"! I have an Icy Hot roll on that I keep with me at work so I can walk faster and a spray can that I keep in my gym bag so I can train. I wish they sold it in 12 packs as much as we go through between the two of us. What drives us to keep pushing on even when we can no longer walk upright? The other night my husband declaired that he was going to the gym to work Hamstrings. He kissed us all goodbye and turned to walk out the door. As he walked away he was dragging his leg behind him. When I see him doing this I think to myself "How silly he is". Why would he do somthing so absurd. I wish I knew. A few days later I catch myself lifting my leg up with my hands to get onto the Stair Master because my hip was hurting too much to lift it. I proceeded to do my cardio session for the day even though I could barely walk. Again I wish I knew why we continue to do such crazy things. Competitors are obsessed with the prep. We make a plan and stick with it no mater what. Sometimes it pays off and other times we have to deal with the agony of defeat. Even though as the competition gets closer and closer and we become more and more depleted and swear that we will never do it again, we still keep coming back year after year for more. My husband and I keep saying that this will be our last year every year. Our kids just laugh when we say these things because they know us better than we know ourselves. We will be those over 70 year old competitors. I can see myself on stage at that age prodding the judges with my cane yelling "Hey Sonny, look at me, look at me, I'm over here!!!" In the end, time heals all wounds and the aging competitor can continue the quest for as long as each of us can. Most of us are in the category of "Never give up the fight". It is what keeps us feeling young and alive and we are so passionate about it that we will do anything to stay in the game!

Competition-gym mishaps

Getting caught with the bar on top of you or on your back when you are suffering an acute injury fortunately does not happen very often but it does happen. When it does happen it can be devastating and in retrospect sometimes comical... One day last season we came into the gym for our usual Saturday leg workout. I was excited because I was getting stronger and planned to hit my personal best that day. After warming up and doing other leg exercises I proceeded to the Squat Rack. Someone was using the cage so I had to use the free standing Squat Rack and walk out. I proceeded to pyramid up the weight and felt good when I got to my final set. I made it to 9 reps and felt my back tightening at that point. In my mind,(complete with the psychotic competitive mindset) I had to do 10 reps. As I went down for the last rep I felt my back wavering. When I hit parallel it happened. I felt a huge pop in my lower back and I was toast! Burnt toast! Although my husband and I came in together he was busy doing his own thing in the other side of the gym at the time. There was nobody else around to bail me out. I managed to get up with the bar but didn't think that I could walk it back in to re-rack the weight. As I contemplated what to do a story that one of my friends had told me came to mind. My friend had a similar incident happen to him on squat day. When he got stuck, he proceeded to drop the fully loaded bar behind him. As he dropped the bar it catapulted him forward with such force that he hit the mirror with his head. He then fell back over the rack and finally landed on the ground. When he hit the ground he again hit his head but this time it was on the bar that he had dropped at the beginning of this spectacular gym mishap maneuver. As I stood for what seemed like an eternity, I pictured myself shattering the mirror with my head. With my luck I would suffer a concussion and be out for the season. I dug deep and sucked it up for the longest 6 seconds of my life and was able to get the weight back on the rack and off of my back. This injury did take me out of training for awhile but nothing surgical thank G-d! If you are a competitor in any sport you no doubt spend a lot of time training and are bound to have mishaps raise their hideous heads at the most unsuspecting times. These are the things that no one teaches you about. There are no books about what to do when you find yourself flying through the air about to hit the pavement or in my friend's case the mirror. I think that it might be prudent for everyone to have a plan of action BEFORE something like this happens to you and you get caught with the weight of the world on YOUR back.

Competition-Peaking at the RIGHT time

Most of us that compete have some idea in our head about how we will look on the day when we step on stage. Many times the way that we envision ourselves and the reality of the way that we actually turn out looking on competition day are very different.  A good example of this is a recent experience of mine.  A few months ago I competed in a women's only mini triathlon.  I didn't think that I needed to practice swimming for the event since the swim was not very far.  I pictured myself swimming beautifully with nice even strokes and breathing easily.  On the actual competition day when I jumped into the pool I immediately began to flail around and I think a couple of times I even yelled "help, I'm drowning!".  This was a lesson that I learned the hard way. The way that I planned this event to be and the way that it turned out to be were VERY different.

When we get ready for competition, we usually all have a plan of action.  It can get very confusing at times. Do we carb deplete and carb load?  Do we try to dry out?  If we do dry out how do when know when we are too dry or not dry enough.  Sometimes it feels like whatever you choose to do it the wrong thing for that particular show. Everyone is different in their response to dietary manipulations and I think each individual has to figure out what works for them.  We all do extreme and sometimes crazy things to make it to our target weight.  My husband and I once sat in the car with sauna suits on and the heater blaring in order shed a "few"pounds of water in order to make weight.  My husband subsequently almost passed out at the pre judging and the EMS showed up. I told the EMS that I was a doctor and that I would take care of him.  I was also suffering from dehydration and was probably delirious. In my mind I was thinking that he had to go back because he was going to win. I realize now that I had kind of a warped sense of priorities back then.  We made another attempt to peak at the right time at another show a few years later.  This time we were spot on when we showed up for the weigh in. After weighing in, we went back to our hotel room to rest. My husband again was really dehydrated.  He was so dry that he started to have SEVERE cramps in his legs.  He started screaming so loud that it sounded like a crime scene.  I thought people were going to think that I was stabbing him. After what seemed like an eternity of screaming bloody murder and some electrolyte replenishing, his cramping finally resolved and we tried to get some sleep.  During the night my toes began to cramp up and I ended up rigging the sheet to hold my feet in the dorsiflexed position so that they would not cramp up.  I am by no means proud of the things that we have done in our pursuit the almighty competition. We have definitely learned many things the hard way.

I can't even begin to count the number of times that we would feel like we were peaking on the day after the competition. We would think if the judges could just see us now in the right light and with the right oil then we would be the ones in the middle!  When you see the overall  winners up on stage at a competition you are think to yourself  that they really have it all together. The next time that you see these winners on stage i hope that you will appreciate all of the blood sweat and tears that it took for them to get there.  Also you might notice the ones standing to the side who may have just missed the brass ring by a day or two.  No fear they will all be back next year because thats what we do... we keep coming back for more.

Competition-The Gear

What ever type of competition that you participate in, there is bound to be many cool and irresistible things that you can purchase to aide you in your quest for perfection.  Runners and cyclers have all sorts of gadgets to measure stride, cadence and heart rate. I am waiting for them to come out with a watch that measures your heart rate and then tells you to slow down when you are way over spent. Another model option would be for the watch to give you a little shock like a noxious stimulus that would persist in your wrist until you get off of the bike.  You would stop riding and not even really know why.  If you compete in bodybuilding, physique, figure or bikini its all about the way you look at the end of your prep.  We are self consumed with how we appear and must get positive reinforcement from others. A little body dysmorphia I think. What makes us obsessed with this?  Believe me I wish I knew.  For me, I am very into my work out wardrobe and especially my shoes.  I have over the years proceeded to buy a gazillion pairs of workout shoes.  I am very careful every day to match my shoes with my underwear and also my operating room hat when I am working.  If I don't have a shoe that matches my hat well then I just buy more shoes! The same goes for my workout clothes.  I do believe that I may need therapy in order to stop buying more shoes!  It has gotten so bad that my closet is a huge mound of shoes and many times I cant find 2 that match.  One time I even showed up to work with 2 different shoes on.  In my defense, they were both black and yellow and they did look similar. Truthfully, I never would have known if someone had not pointed it out to me. One day I was going to the gym in my new red Nike shorts with matching shoes and I decided to stop and tan first. When I was working out I felt like everyone was looking at me.  I thought to myself "I must be looking pretty good". When I went into the bathroom I realized that I had put my shorts on inside out at the tanning salon.  They were bright red shorts complete with a white cotton crotch on the inside (which I was wearing on the outside).  Not my finest hour but funny to think of it now. That day I was not laughing but my husband thought it was hysterical. So when you get so busy training and trying to keep up he pace and you end up doing some stupid things, just laugh at yourself and keep moving forward... and maybe buy some new shoes!

Competition Diet: The Real Challenge

Whatever competition that you are getting ready for always gets more intense as the big day approaches. You have to step up your training and if it involves stage time you have to tighten and fine tune the diet and your physique. For me the training is the easy part except for the aches and pains that seem to be more frequent and more intense every year. The Diet is the hard part for me. My husband (Scott) is a Dentist and I wish that he could just pull my sweet tooth and i would be good to go. This is my 27th year competing. So far I have done bodybuilding, figure, back to bodybuilding and this year for the first time Physique. My hubby never once falters on the diet. He is 100% on the money. I have no idea how he does it. I on the other hand, am constantly wanting to put bread sticks up my nose just so that I can smell them all day. I work as an Anesthesiologist and I do wear a mask so I probably could do it and no one would be the wiser. They might however wonder why the satisfied look in my eyes. The other thing that I have caught myself doing is actually licking the bread at restaurants. Just pressing it on my tongue long enough to taste it and then discarding it. I'm afraid that I corrupted Scott on this one. If and when I do stray from the diet I end up doing countless hours on the stair master or elliptical to make up for it in my own mind. We, the competitors (and I know that I am not alone) are driven by the goal and unforgiving to ourselves when we falter. I am wanting to get some T-shirts made that range from week to week during contest prep. For example - 7 weeks out-still approachable / 3 weeks out - don't even think about it / 1 week out-Be afraid, be VERY afraid! I think these might be helpful to the people around us. I have about 9 more pounds to lose before the competition so now it is crunch time. I will have to stop licking the bread and just suck it up. I am, for all you people who see me on a regular basis, 7 weeks out and still approachable!