Back to Blogging about Crossfit

I am back. Over a year later, I decided to really do a blog :)

Long story short, CrossFit changed my life. For the better. I am likely to write more about how and why in other posts. So here are my reasons, why I decided to blog about my experience as a female crossfitter.

First of all, I am a writer. I just finished my dissertation and should be drafting proposals for conferences and publications, however, life got in the way and the only form of typing I can do currently is using my iPhone. I guess, I could try writing proposals with my iPhone, but honestly - and despite the fact that it's pretty much impossible - I don't even have the mental space for that right now.

Brings me to the second reason. I want to share my current journey of being an injured crossfitter who was just getting stronger than ever, dreaming and working towards making it to Regionals in 2015. I'm not saying this dream is crushed, because that's not how my competitive brain works, but I have encountered obstacles that need some more care and caution than just doing some extra credit work at the gym.

I have been diagnosed with a C5/C6 disk herniation, cervical radiculopathy, and foraminal cervical stenosis and as a consequence - my muscles trying to work around this - a kyphotic deformation of my neck vertebrae (loss of cervical lordosis). To sum up

My symptoms: numbness and tingling down my left arm into my thumb, pain in my wrist, elbow, shoulder, tri and biceps, loss of range god motion, grip strength, reflexes, and motor skills. And some neck and back pain. But that's nothing compared to the pain felt in my shoulder and arm. Luckily NO headaches!

While analyzing the causes of my neck problems, I can go far back into my childhood. I was dropped and injured my neck as a toddler, then injured my neck jumping rope (yes, jumping rope) in 4th grade, and passed out one time cleaning up my room ( trying to get my head under the bed) while in high school. I also suffered several whiplash accidents (two during horseback riding, two during snowboarding and two in car accidents). Rest was the prescribed treatment for all of these incidents. I don't think ever had they taken X-rays. All this occurred while still back in Germany.

At any rate, the first time it really became an issue - besides episodes of stiff neck every now and then - was when I became more and more active at CrossFit. Note, that sitting in front of the computer with suboptimal posture for the majority of hours per day added to my already harmed neck.

So, to keep it rather short today, I will follow up soon to let you all know how it all got worse, what I have been trying to "heal" it and what will be ahead on my road to recovery, and on my path to becoming a competitive CrossFitter.

In the meantime, let's cheer for Germany to win the World Cup today!

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"People will keep saying something is impossible until someone shows them that it is possible."