We all whine from time to time. We curse our genetics, our bodytypes and our training partners. When I’m having a bad workout I curse my long limbs and wish I was three inches shorter. I start to feel like I am just dammed and a fool to be spending my time with this fruitless attempt to improve this less than perfect body of mine.
And then Tim walks in. He makes his way to the steppers, climbs on one and goes at it. Head bobbing side to side he pumps the pedals of the stepper until he is drenched in sweat. He then moves to the lifting floor and makes his way to various hammer machines and pulleys where he continues to work his ass off.
So what, he’s like a bunch of other guys in the gym you say. Well he’s not, because Tim is blind. We’re talking white cane, red tip blind. And Tim is not some buff twenty year old that has been training without his site all his life. Tim is in his mid to late 40’s, overweight and for whatever reason has decided that he needs to get in shape.
Think about what it is like for him to overcome his disability and enter a potentially dangerous environment in order to train. You know what it’s like in a gym; dumbells all over the floor, bars hanging from cables, loaded bars on the floor. But he makes his way around with his cane and feels the weights and the stacks to determine what the poundage is. This man is driven.
When I see him, I feel ashamed about all my pissing an moaning about my lack of good genetics and long limbs. Hell, at least I have them. So with that said, I would like to dedicate this thread to all the athletes with disabilities that not only face the trials and tribulations of training that we face every day, but many more that we can never imagine. These are amazing people.
gojira,
I just noticed a guy on the street of my small town whose right leg from the knee down was a prosthetic, and I wondfered how well I’d handle that. Thanks for posting these.
Adam Bury:
A blind athlete from Windsor, Ontario, obtained his goal by hitting a top bench press of 512.5lb in the powerlifting event held in Quebec in July 2003. He also qualified for the abled-bodied world championship that was held in Poland, in September of 2003.
This subject always chokes me up. My oldest brother is a c5 quad. Before his accident he was a beast. 6’1" and 230 lbs of unbridled aggression. A diving accident landed him in a chair, but certainly hasn’t stopped him.
If you ever want to see someone do something amazing, tell him that he can’t.
The pool I swim at I once decided to switch a swim workout to Wednesday.
I was cursing the fact that I had a swim workout that day. Totally didnt want to get in the pool.
Needless to say, I finally jumped in the water. The man next to me introduced himself to me as Ed. He went on to swim a few laps, slow but he was probably in his 60s or 70s.
I do a few laps and come back. He talks to me… turns out he was blind. Shared his story how he gradually became blind, yet feels that he appreciates life more.
When I was about to leave the pool he told me that if I came back every Wednesday at 11:00 that he and I could become friends. It’s been 6 months now, and I haven’t missed my swim workout.
Took my tri-bike into my local bike shop. There was a wheelchair racer in the store getting the wheels on her racing chair changed. She commented me on my bike and asked me what distances I had done. Turns out she was the winner of an ultramarathon wheelchair race. Absolutely incredible, cannot even begin to describe how developed her upperbody was.
[quote]TriGWU wrote:
The pool I swim at I once decided to switch a swim workout to Wednesday.
I was cursing the fact that I had a swim workout that day. Totally didnt want to get in the pool.
Needless to say, I finally jumped in the water. The man next to me introduced himself to me as Ed. He went on to swim a few laps, slow but he was probably in his 60s or 70s.
I do a few laps and come back. He talks to me… turns out he was blind. Shared his story how he gradually became blind, yet feels that he appreciates life more.
When I was about to leave the pool he told me that if I came back every Wednesday at 11:00 that he and I could become friends. It’s been 6 months now, and I haven’t missed my swim workout.[/quote]
Great story. Just like the poster’s brother above, so many of these folks are such an inspiration. When folks at work start giving me their excuses as to why they can’t get to the gym. I patiently wait for them to finish and then say “Let me tell ya about this guy at my gym. His name is Tim…”.
Great, great thread, gojira. A little bit of perspective can go a very long way. For me, it’s when I’m in the gym and [i]dreading[/i] getting under that bar for another set of squats, wondering if I should just call it a day and go home, mostly because I just don’t feel like it. That’s usually when I think about my girlfriend who has spent the last 2 1/2 years fighting chronic myelogenous leukemia, facing setback after setback, going through so many rounds of chemo and who would give anything just to have enough energy to do the things she loves - horseback riding, dancing, sports.
My internal whining shuts down pretty damn quick after that.