So...

[commodorified]

What if I were a 46 year old woman who is both active (bikes, swimming, hiking, snowshoeing) AND somewhat disabled/in chronic pain (scoliosis and a dodgy shoulder at the top of my back and hyperflexibility/sciatica/bursitis at the bottom) AND I'd tried doing weights (machines, largely, due to a horrid fear of breaking myself through incompetence if I tried free weights except for curls) and then got bored and stopped doing it ...

And I suddenly decided that I wanted to be able to pick up my own weight (190, +/-) and hold it over my head and put it down again?

Where would I start? Should I start? Is there some other goal I should consider first or instead? What kind of time/money/energy commitment am I looking at here?

My local community centre has a good weight room and my favourite trainer in the world works there and I can afford to buy some time with her. So there's that.

Comments

[lyorn]

Yes, you should start. Probably with talking to a doctor who is used to athlethes not being *entirely* reasonable, who could recommend how to best go about it (support, PT, ...)

And then to a trainer who knows how to deal with your issues, and who can teach you to work up to the heavy lifts in perfect form.

I'd expect three times a week about 45 to 60 minutes, including warm-up. But I'd also expect you'd be doing that for years to get your body weight overhead, but not time like the present to start.

After 3 useless years on the machines, it took me about 6 workouts given by a PT to regain the mobility in my back that 14 years of chronic pain and being very careful had lost me, and about 20 workouts to become pain-free. After half a year I started a full free-weight-programm, and except for one case of badly done crunches, my back only complains when I skip training too often. So I totally belive in miracle cures!