The Hurt Artist: My Journey from Suicidal Junkie to Ironman

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People who go through rehab or a halfway house walk a tough road together and not all of them make it. We knew we faced a powerful adversary that demanded respect. Unlike combat, the adversary was inside us.” - Rob Delaney, comedian and actor The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience but where he stands at times of challenge and controversy.” –Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Exit/Recovery: Your elbow exits, then the 5th digit, the trunk continues to rotate. During the exit, the hand replaces the elbow as the leading anatomical reference. There should be a strong feeling of “connecting the exit and the early pull of the other arm We are constantly transferring power and force-production from one hemisphere to the other. ST: You are too kind. I think the story goes that you read a story about the Ironman World Championships while in prison and that you started to work out in prison after that. I have never been to prison, but I can’t really imagine getting ready for a triathlon behind prison walls. The loads should be between 60-80% of maximal load. We will define maximal load as the most significant load you can safely perform for two repetitions of a given exercise.

A lot of athletes talk about themselves so much. My training and my workout. They lose touch with humanity and what’s going in the world. I try to make sure I follow the same process I did in prison. I try to stay in the present moment, be aware of what I’m doing, and be aware of others around me. I try to be compassionate. I read a lot and try to expose myself to new ideas. Not all addictions are rooted in abuse or trauma, but I do believe they can all be traced to painful experience. A hurt is at the center of all addictive behaviors.“– Gabor Mate, doctor and addiction expert

Today we’ll cover the first phase of strength training, called the Stabilization Phase, or off-season phase.This phase lasts between 3-5 weeks depending on the organization of the athlete’s season and level of conditioning going into this phase. The athlete should start this phase within 10 days of their last race. The human capacity for burden is like bamboo—far more flexible than you’d ever believe at first glance.” - Jodi Picoult, writer The goal isn’t to be sober. The goal is to love yourself so much that you don’t need to drink.”– Unknown

sets of 12-14 reps. For more advanced athletes, instead of using the ground for an anchor, hold a bosu ball instead. 3. Push Pull On a Cable Cross The typical response to injury is reactive instead of pre-habilitative/preventive. As a strength and conditioning coach, I often see athletes train without proper maintenance (strength training, massage or manual therapy) until an injury arises. Only when an injury has surfaced does the athlete seek out Physical Therapy where they will receive some mode of treatment and exercise prescription. Often the exercise prescription is very specific and narrow in its scope. When exercises become too localized and specific they can neglect the source of distortion and dysfunction which is often either up or down the chain. For instance, an injury at the knee can often be caused by the hip not effectively “anchoring” the femur and allowing it to float. At this point it’s too late, the athlete is behind the curve of the cumulative injury cycle, and forced to reduce training load where some detraining will occur. As a coach and an athlete, it’s far better to plan our rest than be forced to take it. Our key objective as athletes is to safely close the gap between our current performance and our potential. Intelligently applied strength training schemes greatly diminish the risk of injury, and enhances performance. We’ve all heard plenty of swim anecdotes and philosophies. Here, we have focussed on the science. Exercises Here’s a strength workout for the ME Phase, targeted towards endurance athletes. I’ve also included a playlist of instructional videos for the exercises. The athlete should do this strength routine 2-3 times per week with two days of recovery between. It’s best to avoid putting the strength days on recovery days if possible, as the metabolic load of strength training can be intensive. 1. Pogo Shane: Yes. There was an article in an Outside magazine. It was the only thing I had available to read, besides the King James version of the Bible, which I really didn’t want to get into in my state. I was in solitary confinement. I was pretty desperate to latch on to something, and that article provided me with an objective when I had none. It was the beginning of the formation of a personal ideal. Long ago I had lost all sense of direction or vision of who I wanted to become or what I wanted to do with my life. I had become a junkie and a drunk. I remember thinking how crazy it seemed to me that people swam, rode and ran that far in one day. It blew my mind. I figured the pursuit of Ironman, just trying to finish a race would go a long way towards changing my circumstance in almost every way.

Make sure to inhale (typically on the deceleration phase) and exhale on the contraction. This respiratory exchange is important to oxygenate the blood and tissues as well as establish a smooth rhythm. Produce an anabolic hormonal response. Anabolic hormones promote tissue building and include testosterone, insulin, insulin-like growth factor, and human growth hormone. I’ve been the lead in movies, on television shows and nominated for Emmy. But the best thing I can say about me is that people who can't stop drinking come up to me and say, 'Can you help me? ' And I can say, 'Yes. '" - Matthew Perry, actor Shane: I don’t know. I have a tough time with the word addiction. The way we define success in this country with any endeavor would probably meet the diagnostic criteria for addiction. Most of my clients and friends who are senior level executives at multi-national companies could be considered workaholics or obsessive. Certainly, many of the athletes I know, myself included, are very, very one dimensional and definitively on the obsessive-compulsive side of the spectrum. I guess the short and honest answer would be, yes. There are times when training and racing come before almost anything else. The caveat to that would be that I am much more centered and grounded now than I was then, but it certainly began by substituting one compulsion for another. The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and, unless they have structured help, they have no hope.”

Bulgarian split squat with rotation: 3 sets of 8-12 reps. Be careful and very controlled throughout. Addiction can feel like a shameful secret, a place of isolation, a mark of failure. But some of the world’s most successful celebrities have struggled with the same urges and overcome them. Many have shared their experiences of despair, self-destruction, resilience, and recovery to inspire others fighting similar battles and to assure them they’re not alone.I have come to believe that caring for myself is not self-indulgent. Caring for myself is an act of survival.” - Audre Lorde, writer and womanist A year-round strength training program is a key component to becoming a well-rounded, injury-free and successful triathlete. The best way to organize a year-round strength training protocol is to break it up into phases, similar to how you break up your triathlon training according to periodization.

Let the repetition scheme dictate the selection of loads. In other words, if you cannot perform the desired amount of repetitions for the exercise then then there is too much load. This is an easier approach than trying to calculate percentages of maximal load. As discussed in the second installment of this series, several studies have shown that the addition of strength training to an endurance training program in well-trained runners enhances performance by improving running economy by 5% and time to time exhaustion at lactate threshold velocity by 21.3% 2. Similar results have been demonstrated in well-trained cyclists. Jan Hoff et al. (2010) found a 17.2% increase in time to exhaustion at maximal aerobic power among the strength group and 4-7% increases in other measures of cycling economy, which is in line with similar studies done with runners who concurrently strength and endurance train 3. Walking shoulder abduction with press: 3-4 sets of 6-9 reps per limb on both phases (abduction and adduction). The first time through this workout, it may be a good idea to perform only 2 sets of each exercise. Sein, M.L. et al. (2008, May 7). Shoulder pain in elite swimmers: primarily due to swim-volume-induced supraspinatus tendinopathy. Retrieved from https://bjsm.bmj.com/content/bjsports/44/2/105.full.pdf

Addiction Recovery Quotes For Who You Want To Become

Thinking about not drinking forever was very scary, but once I did it wasn’t hard anymore because I had all of these miracles happen that let me know I was on exactly the right path.” - Lana Del Rey, singer-songwriter I was the craziest of them all,” Niemeyer said. “Why did I not? Life is great. It’s much better than I ever envisioned. There are times I have to pinch myself. It’s hard to imagine, how did I live the way I did? It’s a very interesting dichotomy. It’s crazy.” Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking of what we want to become. Sometimes we motivate ourselves by thinking about who we don’t ever want to be again.” - Shane Niemeyer, athlete and motivational speaker Plank with Abduction: 3-4 sets of 8-12 repetitions per leg. In the beginning, a simple plankwithoutthe leg movement is adequate.