Clydesdale Media Podcast | Chelsea Nicholas - Clydesale Interview Series

We catch up with our dear friend Chelsea Nicholas who suffered and achillies tear at the 2023 CrossFit Games while sitting in first place in the 35-39 year old Masters division. How is the rehab going? When will she be able to compete again? How did she fight through the low moments? what are her goals now? Also she loves being an aunt, what were her highlight Aunt Adventures over the past 6 months.

What is Clydesdale Media Podcast?

We cover the sport of CrossFit from all angles. We talk with athletes, coaches and celebrities that compete and surround in the sport of CrossFit at all levels. We also bring you Breaking News, Human Interest Stories and report on the Methodology of CrossFit. We also use the methodology to make ourselves the fittest we can be.

I was born to kill it.

I was made to win.

I am down and willing,

so I will find a way.

It took a minute,

now it didn't happen right away.

When they get hot in the kitchen,

you decide to stay.

That's how a winner's made.

Stick a fork in a hater on

my dinner plate.

What is going on, everybody?

Welcome to the Clydesdale Media Podcast.

My name's Scott, the Clydesdale,

and I'm here with none

other than Chelsea Nicholas.

We've got a lot to talk about.

We've got Kenneth in the chat already.

He's always early.

He's like 20 minutes early.

He's that guy at work that

comes to every meeting and

is sitting in the room

waiting for you as everybody walks in.

He was here way before us.

Love that.

Gotta love those loyal fans

and supporters.

He's the best.

We have Chelsea on because I

want to catch up with her.

We've become friends over

the last couple years.

Got to see her compete in

all different facets.

Last year she did team, individual,

Masters,

The whole nine yards.

She made it to the games.

She's winning the games.

Does a box jump and ruptures her Achilles.

And we've had her on to talk

about that Achilles injury post-games.

What we want to see is where she's at now.

So, Chelsea, last time we talked to you,

you had just,

I think you were still in the boot,

maybe just got it off?

Yeah, I think so.

I remember being in a boot.

You remember being in a boot?

Yeah, when we were talking, yeah.

Yeah,

because I told you what I saw with

Julie Foucher and the

little apparatus for the shoe.

Yeah, to help level out the hips.

Okay, so from that point on,

what in the world?

I am so disorganized today.

So from that point on,

what has rehab looked like?

Okay,

so we're at almost exactly eight

months post-injury, post-op.

And I have to say, like,

it's kind of flown by,

and I also feel like I've

been dealing with this

forever at this point.

But every week,

I'll say over the last eight months,

every week has been a

little bit different and a

little bit better,

kind of just moving in the

right direction slowly but steadily.

I was in the boot for three months.

So there were the three

months where I couldn't

drive because it was my right foot.

And there was not a whole

lot you could be doing in

those three months.

It was just letting it heal,

letting it rest because you

couldn't stretch the Achilles yet.

And then after that,

transitioning out of the

boot because you haven't

moved it in so long,

you're really limited with mobility.

So kind of that first hurdle

was really fighting to get

range of motion back.

And my repair was on the tighter side,

which was intentional because

my surgeon knew that I

wanted to do like athletic

things later and you need

it tighter to build strength.

So I really had to fight for

that range of motion.

It's still not the range of

motion I had pre-injury.

And that's one thing I've

been kind of struggling

with a little bit.

Sorry to interrupt you.

I just wanted to ask you a question.

So you talk to your surgeon

and you say he knows you

want to do something athletically.

Do you tell him that you're

a CrossFitter or do you

just skip over that and

just say you do high level athletics?

Yeah.

So figuring out when and

where to get surgery was kind of a,

like the first stressful

thing I dealt with,

one of the first stressful things,

because it's where can I be

seen quickest?

Where's somewhere that I trust?

And I have Kaiser for health insurance.

So initially I just went to

urgent care as soon as I

got home and the on-call

ortho was going to have me

in the next day to do surgery.

And so I looked him up and

it looked pretty,

uh, like good enough, I guess I,

with Kaiser,

I didn't think I had many options.

Um,

and he ended up calling me the next

morning and he couldn't get

the OR booked and he was

about to be out of town.

So he put in a referral for

a friend that he trusted.

Um, and I guess like at urgent care,

they knew that like I was

competing in a sport at a high level.

Um, so, um, let's see at that point.

So he put in the referral

for me and his buddy ended

up being proliance.

Um, and

So now I'm sitting there

with a ruptured Achilles,

just waiting for a referral

to go through and to get a phone call.

And I mean,

I don't really know when that

phone call is going to come

through and what the next

step is going to be and

what the timeline looks like.

And on the side,

I'm talking to a friend who

knows a PA nearby who works

for Pro Alliance that she

trusts really well.

And she's a CrossFit friend.

So she got me connected with him.

And I started talking to him

and he got me an

appointment for like that

next Monday to see him.

And the surgeon he worked with,

he gave me her name.

And I looked her up and she

was a college track athlete.

So that felt like something

relatable to me.

And that all felt good.

So I went and saw him and we

ended up booking surgery

for that Thursday.

And after I got out of that appointment,

the other pro-alliance

surgeon called me and I

thought about like going

and kind of feeling out both.

But I ended up just sticking

with the track athlete surgeon.

They just felt more proactive to me.

And I liked the pro-alliance route.

And I think that was a good choice for me.

So that was a really long answer,

but it was awesome.

You don't get hurt very often,

and there's a lot of things

you don't think about,

and that was kind of a stressful time,

making all those decisions

when you're injured.

Well, the reason I ask,

and I am at no means at your level,

but every time I go to the

doctor and I say that I do CrossFit,

they look at me like sideways.

Like you do that crazy stuff.

And, you know, I've had chiropractors say,

well, that's,

that's what keeps me in business and,

you know, all that kind of stuff.

And so I just was curious if you were met,

if you even tell them what it is you do,

or do you kind of skate

around it to make sure

you're getting the best care you need?

yeah you kind of feel it out

like you'll mention it and

you you can kind of see

their reactions some I mean

at this point I've seen

like a number of like

urgent care or orthos or

surgeons or pts or whatever

and so you always like

start with the general like

oh I was doing crossfit or

I do press fit and you can tell

Based on their initial

reaction kind of if they

know what it is for one or

if they have any like

feelings about it for two.

And you can kind of go from there,

so I I'd say more often than not,

people have heard of it,

but they don't have a great

idea of what exactly it is um.

And so at that point I'll

like go into a little more detail.

Like it's a little bit of

everything you're, you're sprinting,

you're jumping,

you're lifting heavy barbells.

You're doing, it's a lot of stuff.

And I think from that,

at least for an injury like this,

it gave them an idea of

what I was trying to do later.

But my surgeon specifically,

I think had a pretty good idea and

could understand that I was

competing at the highest

level and kind of where I

was on the spectrum of like

an active person.

And she, she is a track ethic.

She,

I'm assuming she's still fit and all

that kind of stuff and would want to,

would want something

similar if she were hurt.

Right.

Yeah.

And, and she told me,

and I think my like three month post-op,

something like that.

Um,

she told me that I had the

same repair as Aaron Rogers.

So I'm pretty innovative.

Even my,

my PT looking at the scars said it

looked like a pretty scar,

like not as invasive and

aggressive as a lot of the

ones that she sees.

So I know she did a really good job.

So you bring up Aaron Rogers.

And so we're going to,

we're going to dive down that path too.

I remember talking to you online and,

You were in a spot where you

were almost comparing

yourself to Aaron's recovery.

Mm-hmm.

And, and I was saying to you like, yeah,

but that's all he does all day is rehab.

Like you work a full-time job, you know,

and he has, you know, let's be honest,

CrossFit doesn't pay what the NFL pays.

So he has unlimited funds at

his disposal to hire people

to help him through the rehab.

Did you ever compare your,

I know you compared

yourself to some degree.

How long did it take you to get past that?

Yeah, I mean,

it's interesting when you get

injured at the same similar

times to kind of see where

they're at and know where

you're at and compare.

But everything I saw was

like a little clip and he

could look like he was doing really well.

But I also know like when

I'm in a PT session and

warmed up properly and like

everything's perfect,

I probably look pretty normal too.

But just like

getting up after sitting

down for a long time and

everything's cold and tight

and you're kind of limping

around and it's like, man,

how is he doing that?

Um, so I dunno, it,

I had tried to look at it

more as motivation.

Um,

and kind of an interesting thing is

this year in the NFL, there were like,

I want to say more than 20

Achilles ruptures.

Um,

so I'll be really curious to see who

else back next season and who's not.

Um, but yeah,

I have a lot of data points there.

Didn't,

didn't the one guy in the Superbowl,

like just running on the field.

Yes.

I saw the video.

Like he was just excited

about to like run out there

and there it went.

And I guess come to find out,

like he had some like cap or something.

something going on injury

related down there.

So he probably had some

warning signs that

something wasn't healthy.

Um, but yeah, it was wild.

So speaking of that, there he is.

He's getting a chance to

play in the Super Bowl,

what every football player's dream is.

You're at the CrossFit Games.

Were you nursing anything

going in that you can look

back now in retrospect and say,

I pushed through this

because this is my one shot?

Or was it just, it was going to happen?

Yeah, not really.

I mean, when you're...

I would say any athlete

who's competing at that

point in this season,

they probably have

something that they're

dealing with on some level.

And I would say over the

last couple of years, um,

I'd had like some knee

tendonitis on my other leg.

Um, just little things,

nothing was bothering me at the time.

Um,

but I think maybe I had

started compensating and

using my right leg a little bit more, um,

to kind of ease up on the left side.

And again, like at the time I felt awesome,

nothing was bugging me, um,

in my legs or anything like that.

But I think I had just done

that subconsciously.

And so with my right leg

taking a little bit more of the burden,

I think it's, um,

it gave out.

And I have to wonder if

doing that crazy sled push

event about two hours just

prior had anything to do with it as well.

Like,

there's a lot of things to wonder about,

but I think those are a

couple of things that could

have maybe contributed, um,

over the last couple of

years intermittently,

I might have had a little

bit of Achilles pain, but nothing crazy.

And I can't say I did anything about it.

I just avoided the things that hurt it.

Um,

but it wasn't anything that held me

back and it wasn't anything

that felt serious.

Um, so.

I guess I'll just say if you

do have Achilles pain,

make sure you're warming it

up well and stretching and

maybe doing like a calf

strengthening progression

or something like that.

It's funny you say that

because when I first started CrossFit,

I was 450 pounds,

so it was not what I do today.

But I hurt my calf a lot early on.

And my coach would have me

do sled pushes because it

was less explosive.

Oh, yeah.

To stretch it out,

to try to get it to mend.

In recovery, I've done a lot of that.

And it's been great because

it's a good way to...

Um, yeah, like you said, lower impact,

you get a nice calf stretch

and it's like a calf raise,

but without your full body weight.

So it's been really good for me.

But, um,

the difference between that and

what I did at the games was

that was like a really

heavy sled push at the end of a workout.

And it was,

it wasn't so much like the calf,

but like the whole leg was

just completely

like blown up and, um,

and then I hopped in a nice

bath and then an hour later

I'm warming up for the, this other event.

And so I may be like the perfect storm.

I don't know.

So it,

it leads me to this next question

then is you're an aerospace engineer,

like no slouch when it

comes to the intellectual

side of all of this stuff.

How much Monday morning

quarterback did you do?

And was there a point you

had to tell yourself,

you got to stop this and

just move forward?

You mean like post-injury?

Yeah.

Looking back at what may have caused it,

what?

You know, I mean,

it's hard not to like do

that research because I'm

reading all these articles about like

Achilles injuries and of

course some of them are

like what could have

contributed but I mean that

was more just like out of

curiosity because I know

people might ask me and

you're right like you have

no control over what

already happened all you

can control is like how you

handle it moving forward so

I won't say I was ever like

consumed by that or feeling

angry or like blaming the programming or

telling myself I was stupid

to rebound those 24 inch box jumps.

Um, it was just kind of like, okay,

well that's somewhat of an answer.

Um, I guess it's not too surprising.

Um,

now let's just see what we can do to

get through it, you know?

Yeah.

I like,

I overanalyze every workout to

begin with.

Like I said, that's just the person I am.

And if I, if I would get hurt,

like when I hurt my back, it was like,

was it the deadlift?

Was it, was it this, was it that, you know,

like, and then I overanalyze everything.

So.

Yeah.

You know, I do think it makes you smarter.

Um, because I mean,

people can tell you a million times like,

Oh,

do your warmups, do your strengthening,

like do your accessories, all this stuff,

but it doesn't really hit

home until like you have a

serious reason to.

And for me, like, um,

as I've gotten more experienced and older,

kind of those things that

I've been like made a

priority and incorporated

is all because of lessons

I've learned probably the hard way.

Um,

like you learn how to deal

with a cranky shoulder

because you have a cranky

shoulder and you know,

like what you need to do to avoid that.

And I think the same goes

for something like this.

Um, and now in recovery, I mean,

we'll probably get more

into this and why I am not

competing this season, but, um,

like wanting to rebuild properly.

So I don't have future

problems in my Achilles or anywhere else.

Um, so I think, yeah,

learning things the hard way, um,

My last question on this is

you were one of the busiest

athletes during that 23

season because you did

three quarterfinals.

Yeah.

You did two semifinals.

Yeah.

Do you think any of that was

wear and tear on the body?

I mean, I felt good.

I mean –

I don't think anything I did

this season was like too much.

And that's why I got hurt.

I truly don't think that if

there was an overuse thing

that would have been more

for an injury like this,

that would have been more

like over the years I've

done so many like super intense, um,

high impact sports like

gymnastics and track,

like triple jumping and

pole vaulting and stuff like that,

just like years and years

compounded on each other.

So there's that.

The other thing is, yeah, again,

reading all these articles,

like what could have caused it?

A lot of times these days,

workouts are written in a

way where there's no reason

to rebound a standard box jump.

Like there'll be a box jump

over or there'll be a

burpee box jump or

something where it doesn't

make sense to do a full

standard box jump where

you're rebounding to a full

standing position on the box.

It doesn't come up a whole lot these days.

So I haven't done as many of them.

And this workout had, I think,

20 or 30 at a time,

two different spots in the

sprint type workout.

it made you want to bring down them.

And I just,

I hadn't done a whole lot of

that leading up to it.

So, um,

maybe I wasn't conditioned in that way.

Cause I don't know that your

calves are really intended

to do that sort of like

repetitive explosive stuff

back to back like that.

Yeah.

It's crazy because, you know,

I was in Minnesota when

Julie did it on the box jump rebounding.

And then there I am at the

games watching you and boom.

It was so eerily similar.

And the crazy thing is that

is the fittest I'd ever

seen Julie Foucher.

And really thought she was

going to have her best ever

games performance.

It's the fittest you've

probably ever been.

Absolutely.

You were winning the games at that moment.

And then just one tendon in

the whole body gave out.

That's crazy to think about.

And the only reason I knew

what it was is because of

athletes like Julie Foucher

and there've been a handful

of others who have done the

exact same thing on the

exact same movement.

So when, when I felt that,

like feeling like you get

whacked and then you look over,

I thought someone hit me.

I looked over, there's no one there.

And it's like,

I know exactly what just happened.

It's crazy.

So what I want to do now is

you did such a good job

kind of documenting month by month,

like through your recovery

on your Instagram.

So I'm going to pull that up

and just kind of show the

progress you've made

because it's significant.

And,

but before we go to that one last

Aaron Rogers question, you know, he was,

he was touting that he was able,

going to be able to play by

the end of the season.

Which is unheard of in football.

Like, I've been an NFL fan for 40 years.

Nobody has ever come back in

the same season to play

after a torn Achilles.

Yeah.

He didn't end up doing it.

He was activated by his team,

but he never took the field.

How realistic do you think that was?

I...

Because he made those claims

pretty early on, yeah?

Yeah.

And the closer it got,

he actually did kind of go

through the steps of being

cleared medically.

Right.

I can't imagine... I mean,

I can't imagine that he

actually would have been able to.

I mean,

it would have been such high risk and...

I mean, I have to believe it was more just,

I don't know,

wanting to give the fans something to,

like, hold on to.

I don't know.

I mean,

he kind of stated he was trying to

redefine the, like,

acceptable recovery time, like,

prove that it can be done.

Um,

but when you make those claims early on

and it's something that hasn't been done,

um, it's a huge unknown for you too.

And like, yeah,

that can be your intention.

But, um,

I think even coming back next

season would be incredible.

Um,

so just kind of like shooting for the

stars and then you're still

going to end up

accomplishing something pretty amazing.

Yeah.

To have a full recovery.

Cause they say,

like it takes almost two

full years to be back to normal.

Yeah,

I was told that you're still pretty

high risk up until like

that year and a half,

almost two year mark.

And then after that point,

if you were to re-injure it,

chances are it wouldn't,

tear in the same spot,

it would be a different

spot kind of thing.

Like you're, it's, it's healed.

It's a whole new tree at that point.

Yeah.

That's kind of the timeline I was given.

Yeah.

Nine to 12 months,

you should be getting back

into those higher intense

sports is what the general protocols say.

But.

Because he injured his in September.

Mm-hmm.

And he was back active on

his roster in December.

Yeah,

that would be like me just getting

out of the boot.

I can't imagine playing a

professional football game.

With 300-pound bodies jumping at you.

Yeah.

Insane.

Yeah.

But enough about Aaron.

We'll go to your Instagram here.

So I'm going to start at three months out.

Okay.

So this is you, I think,

three months post-op?

Yeah.

I mean,

not a lot of what I was doing was

super exciting,

but I did want to leave

kind of timestamps of where

I was at different spots.

Cause after I ruptured mine,

like you meet all kinds of

people who injured theirs.

And so it kind of documented

like what you might be able to expect,

but the challenges are at

different points in recovery.

So here I was excited that I

could get below parallel in

my lifters because of that

limited ankle mobility I

was still fighting for.

I think this was the first

day that I was like in the

overhead position in a

squat with a barbell instead of a PVC.

I did notice the snatch itself is muscle.

Like you used no legs.

No running or jumping at this point.

I hadn't done any sort of like hop even.

Just trying to do,

I guess we would call this

active range of motion type stuff.

And I noticed you're,

you're in your lifters for a lot of this.

Yeah.

That it raises your heel a little bit.

So you don't need quite as

much ankle mobility to hit

those positions.

So when you're doing these movements,

are you in pain at all to

get to those positions?

Yeah.

Um, there's a lot of pain, um,

kind of associated with

anything you're doing that

you haven't done in a while

back at like a three months post-op.

Um, it was kind of like stretching pains,

but up until just recently,

like if I were to do a calf stretch,

I wouldn't feel it in my calf.

The limiter would be like

down in my foot and ankle

and just like from not

being able to use or move

your foot for so long.

So, yeah,

I'm moving carefully and things

are not painless.

Well,

you are quite the testament to the

health or the what sickness, health,

wellness continuum,

because your hip mobility

and all of that really

allowed you to stay in good form,

even though your foot is compromised.

Yeah.

I mean, leading up to this,

I was nowhere near being

able to get in these positions.

Um,

and luckily it's the front foot of my

split jerk.

So that's a huge win.

And I'm excited about that.

If not,

I might've switched foot foot went

forward.

Um, but yeah,

I've always been very lucky

to have a good range of

motion for the most part,

especially in like my hips, knees,

ankles.

Um,

And I think a lot of that's

just from gymnastics

because we're always

stretching as I develop my muscles.

My shoulders do get a little tight,

but ankles and hips I've

always been decent with.

Oops, wrong way.

But always got to love the Power Rangers.

Oh, yeah.

Um, okay.

So here's four months post-op.

You got some weight on the bar.

Yes.

And so at this point, four months,

I'm not doing any footwork.

Um,

so it's either like muscle clean plus a

front squat, um, or just a standard squat,

but there's no jumping yet.

Um,

And I noticed when I started squatting

again,

that I had quite a bit of

knee pain on that right leg.

And I think it was partly because, well,

first,

I hadn't been using it like that

for a while.

Second, when you elevate the heel,

a lot of that stress moves to your knee.

So I backed off pretty

quickly and started just

focusing on lightweight and

tempo and high reps.

to kind of reacclimate other

parts of my body.

So what I noticed is how

much smoother and faster

you're able to move through

the squat from three to four.

Yeah.

That's a one month difference.

So like I said,

every week things kept

moving in the right direction.

What kind of support are you

getting around this time?

Are you part of your gym community?

Um, um,

I do the classes still,

which is something I did

before I got hurt as well.

And anyone who's coaching is

helping me come up with

scaling options if I don't

have something in mind on my own.

And then the gym owner, Cody,

does some programming.

And then Anton,

who's another coach at the gym,

he does some of kind of the

extra compete programming.

And he's been helping me out.

Programming some specific

stuff for me to help ease

me back into everything I

am used to doing.

Love Antone.

Got to meet him at West Semis.

Got to interview him.

He's a good dude.

He is, yeah.

Okay, so that's four months post-op.

Yeah, let's see.

We go to, I think it's two back.

Nope, maybe one back.

Oh, that's pre-injury,

which confused people.

Oh, this one.

Oh, yeah.

Five months.

This was, I think,

the first day I jogged on

the Assault Runner.

I had done some light jogging at PT.

And at this point, she had instructed,

like, light jogging is tolerated,

but no changing directions

real fast or sprinting.

And then we started doing...

like small box jumps like you see here,

just a few inches really.

I'm just making sure you

absorb the landing and kind of, yeah,

when you hop off,

absorb it into that full squat.

And then actually like

coming up out of the squat,

you'll see I go onto my

toes and a little calf raise there.

And it's funny, the first time I tried,

but I didn't even have the

strength to do that.

And I, it was just,

I tried to stand up and I

didn't go anywhere.

And here I'm doing single leg calf raises.

The general rule was no

jumping or anything

explosive until you can do

10 single leg full range of

motion calf raises.

And I was really slow to

rebuild that strength.

And so my PT eventually was like, well,

let's try some light or

some really low little jumps like this.

And so we started doing that

and it really helped things along.

So we talked about the lifters.

You're now out of lifters on this.

How important was shoe

choice during all of this?

And did different shoes,

did you need different

shoes for different things?

Yeah, more important than ever, like.

Before injury,

I was the athlete who did

everything in my Metcons

and I wasn't even picky

about which brand or

anything like they were all fine.

I would like max my Olympic

lifts and then I would squat in them.

I would do everything in the

same pair of shoes, which was awesome.

And now if I'm going to be

doing any sort of running,

I like my hakas or hokas,

I don't know how you'd say it,

but something with more

padding and a little bit of

shape to them to help

I guess, absorb.

If I try and run in Metcons,

it can be a little painful,

a little less supported and

a little more impact and it hurts more.

And again, with lifting,

I never needed that heel raise.

And so if I'm doing any heavy lifting,

I'll throw on my Olympic

lifting shoes just for a

little more structure and a

little more heel lift.

But for the normal CrossFit workouts,

I'm back to just Metcons.

I can do air squats and

light barbell stuff in my normal shoes,

but if it's a lot of running,

I want more padding.

And if it's a lot of heavy lifting,

I want lifters.

Is it the goal to get back

to just wearing Metcons for everything?

I'd like to.

Um,

and I could probably force it with

everything except for the

running right now.

Um,

But it's nice to have that

little extra stability too

when I'm moving some heavier weight.

Okay,

so now we go to... I think the next

one is just when I did my first box trip.

So I didn't do a six-month hand bed.

six and a half months.

That was the first day I tried a box jump.

And you can see that stack

of plates in the background.

I literally started with the

45 and then I added a plate

at a time until it was

about the height of a box.

And then I tried a box jump.

All right.

Box jumps are even just for

average Joe CrossFitter can

be a mental block.

This is the apparatus you

rupture your Achilles on

how much mentally was this day?

Was it more mental or physical?

I would say mental.

So I kind of have a history,

at least when I was younger

of having mental blocks in sports.

Now in CrossFit,

it has always been

something I've been able to overcome.

It hasn't been that way for

all of my past sports.

But I would say in CrossFit...

like lifting really heavy

Olympic lifts sometimes

will get to my head and

I'll have that fear factor

and have to overcome it.

But I mean,

I've been able to over the

years and I've never really

had that fear with a box jump before,

I think because it was just

so similar to things I've

done in the past.

I know a lot of people do.

And so looking at this box

now after being hurt,

I, for the first time,

felt a little bit of that

fear or anxiety about trying a rep,

and am I ready for this?

Can I do it?

What's the worst thing that could happen?

Am I going to make it jump that high?

Am I going to hit my shin on the box?

Am I going to tear an Achilles?

But I think after I did one, I'm like, OK,

that wasn't so bad.

And I wouldn't say that I'm

scared of them.

I would say that I look forward to them.

box jump overs are

programmed today and I'm

excited for the workout.

I definitely still move slower on them.

I'm still rebuilding that

trust and confidence,

but I don't think there's

going to be a fear factor,

but I will say I do not

plan to rebound box jumps

again in the future.

Just not worth the risk.

So I noticed in this clip,

you're stepping down with

the left foot every time.

Yeah.

So necessity thing kind of, yeah.

At this point,

the things that are still

high risk for me are

stepping down from something like this.

And cause you have to absorb in your toe.

Um,

and you can't really control that so

much.

So like if I were to jump off,

jump off of the box or

stepping off the box,

I just need to be more cautious.

Um,

And now sometimes I'll,

I'll carefully step down

and try and alternate legs, um,

a month and a half later.

Um, but I wouldn't like hop off yet.

Um, yeah,

there's only a couple of things

that I am kind of leery about.

That's one that I've been

told is a don't do this yet.

Um, and then of course sprinting, I, um,

I'm not up to sprinting yet,

running a little bit faster,

but not anything like a sprint.

Okay.

So then we go to this.

Yeah.

So that was about seven months.

This is the first time I

built up to a heavy squat

and it felt good.

but a lot of times when I'll

max my back squat,

I'll get to the point where

I'm feeling reps and like

hopping out from under the

bar just to like really

make sure I found my max.

And I didn't want to put

myself in a position where

I had to hop out from under it.

Cause that didn't feel,

it probably would be fine,

but I just didn't feel safe doing it.

So, um,

I stopped pretty conservatively and

I added a pause just to

keep it controlled and less dynamic.

Um,

And now we're on my first

squat cycle to try and rebuild.

And I'm really excited to test it again.

And I don't know how many

weeks the cycle is.

But when we get to the other side of it,

I don't think I'll need to pause.

And I'll have a lot more

heavy squats under my belt by that point.

Well, that's not a light squat.

No.

I mean...

it's,

it's probably equal to like a lot of

competitive athletes, one RN, which is,

it's,

you kind of have to compare to

yourself that like,

it's probably as heavy as I

need to squat to accomplish

what I want to accomplish competitively.

But it's only 75% of what I

could do before.

So like, I want to

keep getting stronger.

Cause I mean, the more you can squat,

the easier other things are

going to be like,

it always helps to have stronger legs.

So.

Yeah.

When I was looking at that

and I read the caption

about like having to, the not wanting to,

to dive out from under it,

you say so perpendicular,

like your chest is up so much,

like you could,

it would pretty much just

roll off your back.

Right.

Yeah, you're right.

I do stay pretty vertical,

and it makes failing reps a lot easier,

and maybe that's why I do it in the past.

I just...

Uh, I know that when I do it,

it's kind of like,

it happens really fast and I don't know.

It just seemed like a high risk thing,

but no,

it would be fine if I just let go.

Um, probably not.

That would happen.

It's just.

I'm sure make no sense to anybody,

but you.

Yeah.

And that, and that's okay.

Like I would have freaked

out over the box jump and

been okay with this.

And you're okay with the box

jump and freaking out about this.

So like, Hey, it's your journey.

Yeah.

I think next time I'll be

less scared of failing and

push it a little farther.

But I also in recovery,

I try and not get too excited.

And I try and keep things

incremental and only let myself like,

PR once a day still, like don't.

Where's that at?

Here it is.

You actually talk about that in this post.

Yeah.

And I guess it's for a different,

for this one,

it's because I haven't had a

muscle up PR in so long

that I wanted to do it again soon.

So in this case, I knew it was a PR,

so I stopped.

And that's because,

I want to PR again.

Um, I love it.

I stopped cause I think it was a PR and

I wanted to save some more

PRS for another day.

Yeah.

Is that something you

learned in this journey or

have you always been that way?

I think that's a good rule to have, um,

in general for safety.

Um,

a lot of times.

And, but I mean, it's kind of two sided,

like part of it is like, you know,

there's more in the tank.

So like save some for later.

Um,

and part of it is when you're hitting

those super heavy weights

or like higher spectrum, like movements,

that's when dangerous things can happen.

So, um,

I don't know.

I just feel like if you do too much,

that's a good way to get hurt.

Um,

and that's more why I would stop like

with,

with my Olympic lifts and back squats,

as I rebuild from injury,

like one PR a day,

because I want to rebuild

incrementally and not skip any steps.

Um, and that's so I don't re injure it.

Um,

So my next question is

during this time you had

limited use of your legs.

Did you see improvements in

other aspects of your fitness?

Because you had to focus