Missing the gym …

Missing the gym …
Missing the gym … Okay, I promise this won’t be a “boo hoo” post or anything, but I’ve got to tell you having a boxing related injury plain s-u-c-k-s! I mean really, I can’t even put a jacket on these days without a yelp, never mind shadow box! Even my old shower favorite, slip the water streaming out of the nozzle isn’t exactly cutting it and I’ve got to tell you that attempting a run with one arm pasted to the side of your waist is ridiculous! When I have gone to Gleason’s Gym over the past three weeks, I’ve been downright wistful. I mean there were tons of women there last Saturday for the second annual All Female Boxing Clinic — exciting right? — and even saw my friend, wait for it blogger Amy Scheer, who’d come in for the clinic, but was I elated? The answer is no, I actually felt kind of sad. Well it seems I am not alone in all of this. Medical scholars are pursuing research in the psychological effects of sports injuries on Saturday athletes like myself on through elite practitioners. In a journal article for the Journal of Sport Behavior (1994), authors Nancy Quackenbush and Jane Crossman have written that: … athletes experience feelings of separation, loneliness, guilt and a loss of identity and independence, because they feel that they are no longer vitally contributing to the team and that they are reliant upon others in the rehabilitative process. The fact is that athletes and fitness enthusiasts get injured all the time, when injuries necessitate time away from cherished activities, however, it is important to understand that recovery is not only physical. There can be a psychological component as well. And just as it takes a long time to build-up skills to a level of one’s own peak performance, rehabilitation of the injury doesn’t happen overnight either. If I use my own recovery as a case in point, my shoulder rehabilitation is actually progressing. During my first week of physical therapy, I could only use one-pound weights for certain of the strengthening exercises, however at the onset of my third week I progressed to three-pound weights. And sure, it still hurts, and on some days worse than others, but I can actually lift my right arm straight up which I couldn’t do at all in my first week. And I guess that’s part of the secret. Realizing that progress is relative. That, and giving yourself a kick in the butt for feeling sad at those points when being in a place like your favorite gym usually brings you nothing but joy! I also came across a helpful article on coping with sports injuries that may be of interest to anyone going through the same thing. The link to the article by Elizabeth Quinn is here: Coping with Sports Injuries: Sports psychology strategies for coping with and recovering from injury. It is worth the read! Loving boxing and my right shoulder … Aside from my absolute joy at the fact that Christina Cruz won her sixth (count ’em) New York Golden Gloves Championship (not to mention that she is the 2012 USA Boxing National Champion at 118 pounds!) boxing has definitely had the better of me lately. And while I go to bed thinking about my left dig and wake up thinking of how to work in the left hook off the jab, my body isn’t cooperating in fact it’s in downright rebellion what with a labral tear in my right shoulder socket (that’s along the top, a classic repetitive stress injury from banging) and supraspinatus tendinitis (yep, plus a rotator cuff injury)! Ssssh…. Talk about the proverbial “bummer.” To go back a step or two, I’ve had intermittent pain in my shoulder area since about Christmas, mostly when I’d throw a right cross and sometimes on the speed bag. It wasn’t awful, but if I moved my right arm back, I yelped a definite “ow.” I was easy on it and figuring to lighten the exercise load tried swimming. It turned out that didn’t work out well either as I could only swim using a Side Stroke because the overhand movements of the American Crawl stroke — and the lateral movements of the Breast Stroke caused even more ows than boxing. The ouches seemed to subside and I thought, must be a trigger point or something because the discomfort was mostly felt in the back of my arm. Still, it didn’t go away, and I began thinking it might be a rotator cuff injury which can be more serious. Rotator cuff injuries up to and including actual tears involve the tendons and muscles outside the shoulder joint where the tendons attach the muscles to the humerus (arm) bone. According to the Mayo Clinic, “A rotator cuff injury includes any type of irritation or damage to your rotator cuff muscles or tendons. Causes of a rotator cuff injury may include falling, lifting and repetitive arm activities — especially those done overhead, such as throwing a baseball or placing items on overhead shelves.” In the case of boxing, the constant repetitive motion of throwing punches, not to mention, banging away, hard, on heavy bags, pads, not to mention sparring can certainly cause injuries. With that in mind I headed over to an orthopedist at NYU/Hospital for Joint Diseases and within about five minutes, some “popping sounds” and several pushes on my right and left arms he was convinced I was suffering a rotator cuff problem and ordered up an MRI to be followed by physical therapy. It was only after receiving the results from the MRI that it became clear that I had both a labral tear along the top of the labram — also called a SLAP tear (Superior Labrum Anterior-Posterior — aka top of the labram running from front to back), as well as tendinites of the supraspinatus tendon at the top of the shoulder. In other words, “ouch.” After talking it over with my doctor, we both agreed that a conservative approach was preferable, so the next will be physical therapy (tomorrow) with a focus on treatment, pain relief and muscle strengthening to give better support to the shoulder area. Unfortunately, when it comes to SLAP tears, the alternatives after physical therapy can be rather bleak — as in arthroscopic surgery, though my doctor feels strongly that the physical therapy should do the trick, and with your indulgence I’ll likely write another piece about the physical therapy process once it gets going. The real cautionary tale here is that if you shoulder is starting to “catch” when you pull your arm back, or if you find it aching to the point of an “ow” after a work out, do get it checked out. There are, it seems, a lot of things that can go wrong with the shoulder — and a good course of physical strengthening of the muscles in the area, as well as good warm-ups may mean the difference, especially if you are shall we say … older! For some more information on rotator cuff injuries and SLAP injuries here are some links! Medline Plus – Shoulder Injuries and Disorders (site has a lot of links for possible disorders) WEBMD Shoulder Slap Tear (good general discussion) Lenox Hill Hospital – Rotator Cuff Exercises (tips on strengthening) Lenox Hill Hospital – Shoulder Pain (general disorders with links) Women have always fought! Boxing has long been considered a hypermasculine sport harnessing masculine ideals of virility and aggression. It has resonated across millennia as an icon of sacred tradition that stretches as far back as the ancient Greeks with even earlier references to the sport in Mesopotamian cultures. The earliest known literary reference to boxing is Homer’s depiction of the boxing match at the Funeral of Patroclus in The Illiad. Homer begins this section with the older Nestor’s talk with the Greek hero, Achilles: My legs no longer firm, my friend, dead on my feet, Nor do my arms go shooting from my shoulders— the stunning punch, the left and right are gone. Oh make me young again, and the strength inside me steady as a rock! (Homer, The Iliad 579) When thinking about martial contests, however, what might not be so readily apparent is that women have also enacted one or another form of martial ritual including boxing for just as long. Accounts of Spartan educational regimens for young women in the same time period as The Iliad show that young female Spartans were trained for fighting in the same short tunic[1] as young men and competed against them during training on a regular basis. The Roman poet Propertius also wrote of women with their “arms [bound] with thongs for boxing.” Other forms of Greco-Roman cultural representations include the marble relief sculpture depicting two female gladiators known as the Missio of Halicarnassus from the first or second century CE and the black-figured hydria of Atalanta and Peleus Wrestling from 550 BCE. Based on the myth of Atalanta, the hydria depicts her defeat of Peleus in a wrestling match at the funeral games of King Pelias. Given the importance of Funeral Games as “symbolic conflict” that both stand in for actual combat (the physical clashing of the bodies) and as a contest of honor, wherein the vanquished is raised up by the victor, the inclusion of female figures in such representations is certainly provocative. However, given that Atalanta is also depicted as a particular favorite of Artemis, Goddess of both the hunt and maidenhood, we can begin to tease out a notion of gender identity in Greco-Roman culture which allows for a “third way” if you will: that of the maiden huntress/warrioress that also links to the myth of the Amazons. The warrior women, variously described as a tribe of gyno-centric warrior females were quoted by Herodotus as saying “We would find it impossible to live with [other] women, because our practices are completely different from theirs. We haven’t learnt women’s work. We shoot arrows, wild javelins, ride horses—things which your women never have anything to do with.” It can be argued that such depictions are liminal, based on a time between girlhood and motherhood. In this in-between space these young women are depicted as small breasted and virginal, thus creating an otherness between maleness and femaleness, on the order of Goddess Artemis and Diana. The status of these figures makes them free to hunt and even pursue martial enactments of maleness, however, the price of doing so is to remain pre-sexual. The myth of Atalanta is a perfect embodiment of this ideal. Atalanta enacts warriorness side-by-side with her shipmates Jason and the Argonauts, but can only do so as long as she remains a virgin. The depiction of the mythic women also inevitably shows them in short tunics rather than in long ankle length skirts – thus clearly mimicking the dress of Artemis and Diana. And in some cases, representing a depiction of actual cross-dressing: wearing a short tunic skirt instead of a long skirt. It should be noted that there are figures of Artemis in a long gown, however, those skirts typically open and show that she is free to run. To my way of thinking, these are important threads in considering the significant place of female fighting figures historically. ___ [1] Spartan training of young girls was also under the influence of the Goddess Artemis who was often depicted in a short tunic. Throughout Greece, girls participated in formal Games (though not the Olympics) primarily in foot races with aspects of religious ritual associated with such participation. Work Cited Boddy, Kasia. Boxing: A Cultural History. London: Reaktion Books Ltd. 2008. Print. Herodotus. The Landmark Herodotus: The Histories. Fifth Impression Edition. Eds. Robert B. Strassler. Trans. Andrea L. Purvis. New York: Pantheon (2007). Print. Homer. The Iliad. Deluxe Edition. Trans. Robert Fagles. New York: Penguin Books, 1998. Print. Murray, Stephen. “Female Gladiators of the Ancient Roman World.” Journal of Combative Sport. July 2003. Web. 12 Mar. 2012. Papadopoulos, Maria. “The Women in Ancient Sparta: The Dialogue between the Divine and the Human.” SPARTA 6.2 (2010): 5-10. Print. Plutarch, The Parallel Lives. Loeb Classic Library Edition. N.P. 1914. Uchicago.edu Web. 18 Sept. 2011. Original article and pictures take http://girlboxing.wordpress.com/2012/04/28/missing-the-gym-2/ site