I am experiencing a crisis of
faith. Not in religion or politics or those other silly things people spend all
their time debating, but the real important area of my life – jazzercise.
For those who don’t
have the pleasure of seeing me in person, it may shock you to know (especially
since I
used to talk about it all the time) that I haven’t been consistently going
to jazzercise for almost two years now. This is because of my knee. It is a
fail knee. It should not have passed inspection.
Back in April 2014,
while at jazzercise, something went horribly, horribly wrong. I stepped out for
a lunge and immediately felt something in my knee hate me. Being me, I finished
class. I could walk at first, but the more I tried to power through the evening
the stiffer it became, until eventually
the entire knee locked up and I could no longer bend it. This continued for a
few weeks with the knee doing better in the morning and consistently getting
worse as the day went on. Eventually, I went to a doctor, and per their
suggestion did MULTIPLE MONTHS of physical therapy. This didn’t really fix the
problem so I went back to the doctor, and they basically said stop doing stuff
and rest. And thus began a cycle of me “resting” my knee by doing literally
NOTHING for a bit, then trying to strengthen it up, and then just merely
walking too much in a day would regress it back to being locked up and sucking
at life.
It has been
frustrating. And while at this point it’s doing the best so far since the
initial incident, that’s because I have pretty much changed my entire lifestyle
to avoid doing things that irritate my knee. That includes driving. I now drive
entirely with my left foot (don’t worry, I’m really good at it by this point.
It’s not illegal, right? I have yet to investigate).
Workouts have been
one of the most frustrating parts. When I injured my knee I was at my peak. I
was going to jazzercise 4-7 times a week, walking to hit 10,000 steps each day,
and starting to do some ab routines at home as well. I looked and felt great.
During the first year of injury I tried doing other workouts like swimming or
walking that are low impact and were recommended, and I still ran into problems
if I tried to do as much as I wanted. I purchased PiYo during one of the good
periods, but found that the intense schedule of several days of working out in
a row was doing more harm than good. My goal throughout it all was to find
something I could do in order to build up the muscles and get back to jazzercise.
I’m kind of at that
point now, but it’s still not ideal.
I have been able to
walk or do workout videos at home for a few months without setback. Buoyed by this
success I went to one jazzercise class in November, and one again this past
weekend.
The great news is I
could make it through the whole class and didn’t hurt myself. Yay!
The troublesome news
is that it wasn’t very satisfying. In order to not hurt myself, I had to modify
a LARGE amount of the routine. I thought it would be okay, because as any good
jazzerciser knows there is typically both a low-impact and high-impact version
of the song. But I’ve never done the low-impact before, so I don’t immediately
know what it is. While the instructors will show you the low-impact version,
what I found is that several times they do it halfway through the song. I
totally understand that with pacing and whatnot this may be necessary. It doesn’t
really help me though. I spend the first half of the song rambling about like a
buffoon, and mainly just doing side steps because I DON’T KNOW WHAT ELSE TO DO.
The other problem is
that jazzercise is now focusing on several different class types. This last
weekend I ended up in a Strength class. This class doesn’t really have the
cardio aspect but rather uses the routines you normally have at the end to
strengthen muscles. Almost all of the routines were standing. And guess what?
Standing legs consists mainly of squats and lunges, NEITHER of which I can do
more than a few comfortably.
I suppose I could
have tried and figured out something to do on the floor, but that would mean I’m
completely messing up the room to go try and come up with my own routine. At
which point, why am I even at jazzercise?
What I used to love
so much about jazzercise were things like the music, the dancing, the camaraderie,
and feeling accomplished with myself for working out. On Saturday, I liked the
music and seeing some old friends, but that was about it. I felt more frustrated
than anything because I couldn’t do so much of the routine. I felt the same
even when I was in the normal class in November, so I’m not sure that’s going to
change.
Am I over jazzercise?
I truly hope that at
some point my knee will be more stable and I will be able to fully participate
again, but for now (and possibly months or *gulp* years to come), I’m wondering
if jazzercise IS NO LONGER RIGHT FOR ME.
This feels so wrong
to say, like I’m renouncing the beliefs of my childhood.
But here’s the thing,
if I don’t feel good about exercising I’m not going to do it.
I know what works for
me. I need a routine to follow. I need to be able to modify when necessary
without feeling like I’m throwing others off, and I need to have a routine that
I modify sparingly, not something where I’m changing basically the entire damn
workout. Because I am so unexpectedly social these days, I also need to be able
to fit my workouts in when I can instead of going to a dedicated class every
night.
I’ve found all these
things by staying in and using a combination of walking and workout videos I
enjoy (Tracy Anderson to name one, which targets all the muscles physical
therapy really wanted me to focus on). I still get motivated by talking to
others or doing online challenge groups. I was doing this as a placeholder to returning
to jazzercise, but at this point, do I
even want to return full time?
And I swear to god if one more person suggests
weight-lifting as an alternative, I WILL HIT THEM. OH, YOU THINK NO ONE HAS EVER
MADE THAT SUGGESTION BEFORE!?! IN WHAT WAY IS THAT ANYTHING LIKE JAZZERCISE
OTHER THAN THE FACT THAT IT IS EXERCISE? WHILE WE’RE SUGGESTING RANDOM ASS
EXERCISE OPTIONS, WHAT ABOUT WATER BALLET?!
Oh hold up, that one might actually be interesting…
