rydra_wong (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rydra_wong) wrote in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
lifting_heavy_things2013-10-01 07:18 pm
rydra_wong) wrote in lifting_heavy_things2013-10-01 07:18 pm
Follow-up link: on powerlifting and chemo
Just found this:
Twintown CrossFit: Illness and Weightlifting
It's an interview with Carrie Patrick (author of Of tiny pink dumbbells and fat chicks), in which she goes into more detail about her personal strength training history -- I hadn't registered that she actually first got into powerlifting during chemo.
More badass quotage, in which she kicks shit out of the way exercise can be turned into another pressure on people dealing with illness:
I want to add something here that’s very important, though – one of the most upsetting things about going through cancer treatment is the amount of additional emotional stress a patient also receives, usually from well-meaning people, who imply that if you only did this or that, or ate this food, or had different thoughts, or tried the latest bullshit magical secret they heard about on a talk show, you’d be just fine. I cannot describe the amount of pain and guilt this adds to an already stressful time. It’s important to understand that when a study says exercise helps deal with the treatment, it often means ANY exercise short of lying in bed all day. If getting up and walking once around the room is all you can do, then you can do that and it will help.
One of the things that always concerns me is that someone will read my story and feel like they should be doing it too. I want to emphasize that my treatment lasted six years, and in that time I was on different medications, some of which allowed me to live a semi-normal life, and others that wiped me out completely. There were times when I was benching 145 lbs, sure, but there were also times when I was working on walking slowly from the front door to the end of the driveway and back, once a day, without passing out or throwing up.
(Discussion of weight gain from medications.)
Twintown CrossFit: Illness and Weightlifting
It's an interview with Carrie Patrick (author of Of tiny pink dumbbells and fat chicks), in which she goes into more detail about her personal strength training history -- I hadn't registered that she actually first got into powerlifting during chemo.
More badass quotage, in which she kicks shit out of the way exercise can be turned into another pressure on people dealing with illness:
I want to add something here that’s very important, though – one of the most upsetting things about going through cancer treatment is the amount of additional emotional stress a patient also receives, usually from well-meaning people, who imply that if you only did this or that, or ate this food, or had different thoughts, or tried the latest bullshit magical secret they heard about on a talk show, you’d be just fine. I cannot describe the amount of pain and guilt this adds to an already stressful time. It’s important to understand that when a study says exercise helps deal with the treatment, it often means ANY exercise short of lying in bed all day. If getting up and walking once around the room is all you can do, then you can do that and it will help.
One of the things that always concerns me is that someone will read my story and feel like they should be doing it too. I want to emphasize that my treatment lasted six years, and in that time I was on different medications, some of which allowed me to live a semi-normal life, and others that wiped me out completely. There were times when I was benching 145 lbs, sure, but there were also times when I was working on walking slowly from the front door to the end of the driveway and back, once a day, without passing out or throwing up.
(Discussion of weight gain from medications.)
no subject
And also, a story like this is why I resist giving advice to strangers in the gym--I have no idea if they're lifting 5-lb dumbbells because they don't know any better or because that's all they can do today. If they want advice, they'll ask someone.
no subject