Topic: Basic info on how to reverse years of abuse

[coverton]

Hey everyone,
I hope this fits here.

I am 28 just getting into parkour and I have some questions in search of advice. I have spent years upon years destroying my body. I started using drugs when I was 14. I am 5 years sober now but I can feel all the abuse. I also was an avid skateboarder for much of my life and have had some pretty nasty falls and have torn the crap out of my shins to the point where I have a dent in my right shin bone. I have pretty bad knees and my shoulders and elbow joints pop and crackle a lot. I also smoke about a pack of cigarettes in three to four days. I know that the first and foremost thing I need to do is quit the smoking and god willing I will very soon. I am trying the best I can. I go out to the local baseball field and work on jumping back and forth over the dug out bench and I practice my rolls there as well as the grass is nice and soft. Also there is a rock wall there that is graduated from about mid chest to over my head. I practice wall climbing on that. At work during lunch I practice my balance on a wood enclosure for the batchie (sp?) ball court. It is extremely low to the ground but it is about an inch wide so it is nice for the balancing and I have been practicing precisions from the ground about three feet away from it. In the house I do push ups and sit ups. I try to do as many inverted push ups (against a wall feet in the air) as I can stand.

Thing is I get tired quickly and I have tried before to get into shape but it always seems like I am just gaining no ground. I am not in terrible shape just not very strong. I weight probably 140 - 145 lbs soaking wet but I can't seem to do more than 5 pull ups.

Is there any other people here who have done detrimental amounts of damage to themselves and if so how did you reverse that?

Like I said I know I need to stop smoking, and I know that I probably just need to stay at it, and at least with parkour I have something to strive for unlike bodybuilding or weight lifting. But is there anything more that I can be doing to fix what I did to myself?

Thanks in advance for any help you can offer.

[Brandan Mendenhall]

Read this quote from Beretta; he posted it on another topic in regards to smoking. He's also a recovering (recovered?) addict, about your age, and I believe is in the same area as you (Bay Area, right?). He's a phenomenally nice person, with an insurmountable wealth of knowledge and wisdom. I'm sure he'll be posting in here before too long, but you might even send him a PM. 

Several things helped me quit, after 15 years of smoking (12+ years of pack-a-day or more):

1)Mentally preparing myself: Before I quit, I started re-programming my thoughts about smoking.  I began to hate every cigarette I smoked.  Every time I wheezed, coughed or couldn't smell something beautiful (i.e. a flower) I cursed cigarettes.

2)I limited my time around other smokers and began to hang out more with non-smokers.  This makes it easier to do things other than smoking.  It also imposes social consequences, because non-smokers don't like waiting around for you to smoke and some will even tell you how bad you smell.

3)I talked to other people who had quit and formed a support group.  This is a big one.

4)I focused on things I was doing, like parkour, hanging out, etc. instead of what I wasn't doing (smoking).  It's always easier to do something fun (PK, eat, pushups, read books) than it is to not do something you're trying to quit.

5)I picked a quit date and stuck to it.  The night before I smoked my last cigarette, crumpled up the pack and threw it away.  That felt great.

6)I bought patches and kept them around, but I had good reasons and was ready to quit.  I was quitting for myself and was sick of being sick constantly, smelling awful, paying for cancer and all the other shit that goes with smoking.  So, the patches were my back-up plan.  I went cold-turkey and knew that if I needed to, I could put on a patch.  Having a plan, and a back-up plan really helped me.

You'll get hungry more often than you're used to, so have snacks around and plan your days really well.  Learn what events (driving, breaks at work, meals, coffee) trigger cravings for you and come up with a replacement behavior for yourself at those moments (i.e. call someone who quit before, drink milk, eat carrots, do handstands, whatever).  One of the best things to do, is to do things!  Go out and be busy all day, so busy you don't have time to wish you were polluting your body with carcinogens.

Good luck!

P.S.  Also, remember how bad this relapse feels.  This pain might help motivate you to quit for good.

Edit: Oh, and welcome to APK!    You'll love it here.

[coverton]

Thanks for posting that. I lived in the same area as Beretta and have talked to him before about meeting up when I am in the area though I didn't know he was in the same type of position as I am in. Maybe something to ask about when I make it back to the Bay next. And thank you for the welcome I am absolutely loving it here. This place is a wealth of knowledge for the beginner and the people seem to be very friendly.

[Spencer B]

But is there anything more that I can be doing to fix what I did to myself?

This.

weight lifting.

See, despite any misgiving you may have about, properly performed resistance exercises will help. If you have bad knees, deep squats and other posterior chain exercises will help rehab them. If you feel you're weak, there is almost no better and safer way to go about getting stronger than weight training. But, it is entirely possible to do these things without weights. I was just trying to let you know that weight training, when done with proper form, is not bad for you.

Only other thing I can recommend with the info you gave is start conditioning and to look at and try to improve your diet.

[Chris Salvato]

OK, firstly: Welcome, friend

Re: Cigarette Addiction

As a preface, I cannot really speak about conventional addiction though I do consider myself to have been addicted to video games and junk food for most of my life up until about 4 years ago.  I was never addicted to any drug, thankfully - I guess I am just not an addictive personality in that regard.

That said, I do a lot of reading on compliance and persuasion because its a main part of my job.  One thing that Beretta did not mention directly is to make your commitment to quitting public.  Public commitments go much further in driving behavior modification.  To give you an example, one technique I have heard is that you can make a business card (get a pack of 100 for 12 bucks) that just has your name on it with the statement "I am never going to smoke a cigarette again" and give that to everyone that you want to respect you - family, friends, etc.  Think about how much they would be disappointed if you went back on your word - they will always have the card that says you were going to do it and it would be horrible if that weren't true.

Kind of just a side note from some of the reading I have done.

Re: Years of Abuse

While you can never really go back in time and change things you have done, you can still be a beast and live with yourself.  To give you some hope, I had 4 shoulder surgeries for chronic dislocations and I grew up with osgood schlatters and am highly prone to patellar tendinitis.  I used to not even be able to reach into the back of my fridge without my shoulders popping out of their sockets....so how could I even think about being a traceur?

I attribute my shoulder stability to a few things.  Surgery certainly did help but that was not nearly as critical as the amount of strength work I do.  Overhead lifts used to scare the shit out of me because I would fear a dislocation where the weight would come crashing down on my head.  Now I can do full range-of-motion handstand pushups, a 1xBW Overhead press with a barbell and tons of gymnastics work on bars and rings that involves some pretty brutal forces on my shoulder joint.  The point is, get started on an exercise program, particularly focusing on strength, and you will see a lot of improvement in the "shakiness" of your body. Having a list of goals here would help us to help you get started. Exercise also helps on kicking addictions, btw.

If you want to be strong, let us know the movements in which you would like to be strongest.  If you want to be big, let us know how much weight you would like to accumulate.  If you want to go slow, let us know.  If you want to go balls out, we can arrange a program for that, too.  Let us know what works best for you based on the kind of person you know yourself to be!

[coverton]

Alright,
A list of goals then. I am not looking for getting big number one but I am looking to get tone and strong. I would like to be able to do pull-ups 15-20 at a time. I would like to be able to do push-ups 75-100 at a time. I would like to be able to get to this point rather quickly as I feel like I have spent much of my life tearing myself down and now I want to get back up and in peak condition as quickly as possible. I would like to be able to run an eight minute mile without feeling like I am going to die by the end, be able to hold handstands for 20+ seconds. I can hold a handstand indefinitely if against a wall but once I am free floating my balance becomes nil and I have about 2-3 seconds of not landing on my ass. I think this is most likely due to bad posture and technique.

I suppose the main points are better endurance, better flexibility, and better upper body (read arms) strength. And I would like to do it fast.

Thanks guys, you all are very helpful and I am truly grateful - Chris

[Spencer B]

Alright,
A list of goals then. I am not looking for getting big number one but I am looking to get tone and strong. I would like to be able to do pull-ups 15-20 at a time. I would like to be able to do push-ups 75-100 at a time. I would like to be able to get to this point rather quickly as I feel like I have spent much of my life tearing myself down and now I want to get back up and in peak condition as quickly as possible. I would like to be able to run an eight minute mile without feeling like I am going to die by the end, be able to hold handstands for 20+ seconds. I can hold a handstand indefinitely if against a wall but once I am free floating my balance becomes nil and I have about 2-3 seconds of not landing on my ass. I think this is most likely due to bad posture and technique.

I suppose the main points are better endurance, better flexibility, and better upper body (read arms) strength. And I would like to do it fast.

Thanks guys, you all are very helpful and I am truly grateful - Chris

Well, honestly your goals barely reflect these... The mile for endurance maybe, but no flexibility goals, and no strength goals. Here... Read some of these stickied threads... They contain 70% of the info you need to know...

http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php?topic=9469.0

http://www.americanparkour.com/smf/index.php?topic=15354.0

[tombb]

Coverton,
I'll preface by saying that I haven't had any addiction even to smoke or drink (I don't like them and wouldn't use them myself), but I'll give you my two cents of advice anyways.

I think the main thing I would suggest is that really your path to training is still the same regardless of all that you mentioned.
You'll still want to have a good training and nutrition program and take things incrementally, and doing so will actually improve your health and general condition in the long run. For the most part there are no special faster drug-damage-reversing exercises etc.

What is different is that you'll have less leeway in making mistakes, overdoing things etc.
So, the main things will be: listen to your body, if your knees or other parts are hurting, don't push through it. Rest if you need rest, make sure you warm up more next time if that was the problem, etc. Basically don't ignore signals, and help your body heal up or adjust a bit more gradually if it needs time to do so.

Of course there are specific injuries and damages that need very specific consideration. It's not like "whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger', because some things that don't kill you instead cripple you for life etc.. So also check with your doctor for any specific chronic condition you might have and ask what you should look for or be careful with. If there is any type of simple measurement or checkup you can do, it's a good idea to do those often especially when you start doing new things.

And if some specific bad behavioral patterns contributed to your past abuse of drugs, maybe even excessive injuries etc, you might want to try to be more aware of them so you can avoid them, as they could cause trouble even in something as simple as taking diets to extremes or making bad decisions due to peer pressure or whatever.

Your own evaluation of your slow progress could be objective, or it might be more a reflection of unrealistic expectations on the pace at which you should be improving.
Sometimes if you think that you are not making progress fast enough and you respond by pushing yourself even harder, you might actually be overtraining and causing the slowdown in progress and fatigue yourself.

For these reasons it's useful to have objective measures and trying different things like allowing extra rest to check if you are overtrained etc. Measurements can help you to remain objective and avoiding any sort of unnecessarily emotional pattern like frustration, dissatisfaction, blame or whatever other unnecessary response when evaluating your training progress.

[Chris Salvato]

For these reasons it's useful to have objective measures and trying different things like allowing extra rest to check if you are overtrained etc. Measurements can help you to remain objective and avoiding any sort of unnecessarily emotional pattern like frustration, dissatisfaction, blame or whatever other unnecessary response when evaluating your training progress.

This will be key, imho, given your past.

It may be worthwhile to post your prospected deadlines along with your training goals that way you can have us tell you if they are absolutely ridiculous....like a one-arm-chinup in 3 months or some other absurd expectation.

That said, i think you should read the second link Spencer posted before the first because it is a bit easier to comprehend and get started with.  Reading that first link should be a definite goal - though it is a bit long. Take things a day at a time, set some good goals and we will be here to help!

[Muse_of_Fire]

I don't have the expertise these ^^ fellows do, I just wanted to say Welcome to parkour, welcome to APK, and I am holding good thoughts for you on your journey. I believe strongly that you can quit smoking and that you will be well on your way to becoming a stronger traceur before the year is out.

Now, don't make a liar out of me.

:: hugs ::

[Brett Robert]

I didn't quit smoking until I'd been doing parkour for a couple months.  PK was the best motivator, after years of attempts.  Otherwise, I use the same methods to stay off cigarettes that I use to stay clean.  I'll send you a PM that's a bit more detailed.  We're like twins, man!  I'm 29 & 5 years clean.

I have to say, it's really nice that I'm almost 30 and I'm in the best shape of my life.  My mile time now (something under 6) destroys my high school times, I can lift more, run farther, train longer, jump higher & farther and get more out of life than ever before.  Additionally, because I know the alternative, I'm extremely grateful for that.

Thanks Brandon for all the kind words.  I say "recovering," not "recovered" to remind myself that the journey continues one day at a time.

Also, everyone on this board is extremely helpful as far as constructing workout routines, and generally nice people.  There are a lot of very knowledgeable people on here who treat exercise as a science (which it is, amongst other things).  Don't get intimidated if they ask you a lot of questions or are blunt when clearing up misconceptions.  See ya soon, man!

[Chris Salvato]

Thanks Brandon for all the kind words.  I say "recovering," not "recovered" to remind myself that the journey continues one day at a time.

From the research I have read on addiction this is entirely true on a physiological, psychological and practical level.  It only takes one relapse in most cases which is why I fear seeing former smokers get around a bunch of other smokers after they had a drink or two.

[coverton]

Alright I will take the advice of Chris S to heart and post my goals and prospective dates here as 1) it will get them into the public domain so that I will feel a greater intensity to follow through and 2) they can be tweaked by people who have a better idea on the relevance to what I want and need to do to succeed in parkour.

So a baseline of my abitlities: (I have a very limited gym at my apartment complex so the machine there is what I will base some of this on)

Push-ups: I can do 5 sets of 15 before feeling too burnt to do more
Sit-ups: 5 sets of 10
Chin-ups: 1 (yeah just one)
Lat pull downs: 3 sets of 15 at 45lbs
Incline chair bench press: 3 sets of 10 at 45lbs
Treadmill: about 10 minutes at a slow jog before turning blue

One month aspirations:

Push-ups: 5 sets of 30
Sit-ups: 5 sets of 20
Chin-ups: 10
Lat Pull-downs: 3 sets of 15 at 80lbs
Incline Bench: 3 sets of 10 at 80lbs
Treadmill: 30 minutes brisk jog/slow run

EDIT:
Planche Tuck: 10 10second holds
Pseudo-Planche Push-ups: 5 sets of 10
Front Lever pull ups: 5
front lever advanced tuck: 10 10second holds

I think these are all achievable goals for myself as when my ex-fiancé and I were still together we went to 24-hour quite often and I was doing more weight than that within a month of beginning but I also had access to much better equipment and free weights.

EDIT:
I edited in 2 pull exercises and 2 push exercises from your post Chris. Not sure if they are enough, too much, or even relevant or put into the correct units of measure but from what I could find on the net it makes sense in my head. But do correct if I am wrong, I would rather be wrong and corrected than doing it wrong.

[Chris Salvato]

Hey man, I am going to post this again:

http://www.chrissalvato.com/2009/05/fitness-goals-with-high-translation-to-parkour-and-life/

Look at the gymnastics goals for pulling and pushing.  Those are easy with just your bodyweight alone -- and a pullup bar...so you don't need a gym membership for most of them.  This is something written by me and really it is a great read for someone in your position just starting to set goals.

The goals you posted are a bit lackluster and I know thats mostly because you are focusing on using the equipment you have available to you

[coverton]

Alright I updated my post to incorporate 2 push and 2 pull from the gymnastic exercises. I also think I have a regime that I can stick with.

1 day of gym exercises incorporating the machines and the treadmill
1 day of push and pull exercises along with push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups
1 day of general practice i.e. rolls, landing, and precision work
1 day off
rinse repeat.

 Does this sound logical and is there something more I should/could be doing
Again everyone thank you for your insight and wisdom you are all a great help.

I also have a plan to quit smoking. I have set a date to stop and I have found good reason to stop. I have quit smoking before but seems like life stress gets me caught up but armed with the knowledge of my trip wires and my triggers I believe that I can overcome again and stay away.

[Spencer B]

Don't forget flexibility goals!

Alright I updated my post to incorporate 2 push and 2 pull from the gymnastic exercises. I also think I have a regime that I can stick with.

1 day of gym exercises incorporating the machines and the treadmill
1 day of push and pull exercises along with push-ups, sit-ups, and chin-ups
1 day of general practice i.e. rolls, landing, and precision work
1 day off
rinse repeat.

 Does this sound logical and is there something more I should/could be doing
Again everyone thank you for your insight and wisdom you are all a great help.

I also have a plan to quit smoking. I have set a date to stop and I have found good reason to stop. I have quit smoking before but seems like life stress gets me caught up but armed with the knowledge of my trip wires and my triggers I believe that I can overcome again and stay away.

Hmmm... First off, I hope, I really do hope you do manage to quit. Über good luck man! 

Secondly, your goals... They still seem a little off... For one,

Front Lever pull ups: 5

This is not gonna happen in a month... A full front lever takes months even years of work. And yes, I know this probably is typo and you meant Tuck FLPLU's or something, but if not I just wanted to point it out. Secondly, I'm wondering if you ever made it through Steve's How to Construct Your Own Workout Routine yet, because even though it's a long read, it's well worth it. And can help you set goals better.

Unless you're intentionally going for endurance and not strength.

[coverton]

Don't forget flexibility goals!

LOL! Great advice and advice that I was already giving to myself. I have a tab open to the flexibility thread by muse.

Hmmm... First off, I hope, I really do hope you do manage to quit. Über good luck man! 

Secondly, your goals... They still seem a little off... For one,

Front Lever pull ups: 5

This is not gonna happen in a month... A full front lever takes months even years of work. And yes, I know this probably is typo and you meant Tuck FLPLU's or something, but if not I just wanted to point it out. Secondly, I'm wondering if you ever made it through Steve's How to Construct Your Own Workout Routine yet, because even though it's a long read, it's well worth it. And can help you set goals better.

Unless you're intentionally going for endurance and not strength.

Thank you for the support on stopping smoking. I say stopping because the old adage says quitters never win. 

Yes I think you may be right about that typo I was watching some videos trying to get an understanding of what all the various exercises were and may have thought one was the other or whatnot, but I am intentionally going for more endurance than I am strength, but that is not to say I am not looking for strength. I want to work on the endurance more so because being a smoker and having done a great deal of damage to my lungs and heart over the years I feel very strongly about working those back to peak condition first and foremost. Thank you for the pointers and I will head over to the thread you and Chris have suggested that Steve put up about building a workout routine.

[Spencer B]

Cool. Training for endurance isn't bad, but once you get done with Steve's article you might be rethinking that approach.

[coverton]

Just reporting in that I have gone the day without smoking I have made it home from work without buying a pack of smokes and I am feeling pretty darn swell about the whole ordeal.

[Chris Salvato]

Just reporting in that I have gone the day without smoking I have made it home from work without buying a pack of smokes and I am feeling pretty darn swell about the whole ordeal.

great job!

On to day 2.