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After six months of motoring around Chonburi, Thailand on a motorbike I have had my first spill. Luckily, or rather because of preparedness, nothing too bad happened but not being able to train has impacted my life rather significantly...
First up my training took a backseat to my 'work' in October 2009 as I filmed the recipes for the Cooking With Conan
video recipe website, this saw considerable work throughout Nov and Dec
to film, edit, convert, upload, and write up the accompanying article
and recipe with each video.
In fact in December when I wasn't working on the
site I was drinking a bit and having relationship difficulties, so I
made it to the gym a grand total of about twice, maybe three times.
Having a niggling shoulder injury still from the armed robber we caught
and an upper hamstring injury that must have originated from the stair
running I had been doing (maybe warm-ups are in order in future) as
well as a persistent pain from my upper back from bending over to hear
people talk in noisy clubs and from slouching at the computer over the
period of 8-12 hours a day sees this as a more or less permanent
weakness that I am battling with specific back exercises.
Come January I got the 'flu and felt weak and tired
a lot. A week after first feeling its effects I felt a lot better and
immediately 'celebrated' by hitting the grog... hard. Next day the 'flu
was back and I was in bed trying to get over it the next few weeks.
You see, I prefer my body to defeat any intruder
with it's own defences, making my body stronger each time it takes out
virii, bacteria, etc. This time I got tired and went to the pharmacy
for some help. Two days later I was feeling a LOT better.
A week later I was up and about again, so I started
a new training schedule and on the first day (going to start with legs
so I can't skip them at the end of the week) I came off my huge 125cc
motorcycle and got to practise my stunt skills.
Riding near the boat ramps where old, rather ancient
tractors are putting boats into and out of the water all day the roads
are covered with thick oil from the dripping tractor motors. Meanwhile
I was looking at the stage setup for a country/western music festival
scheduled for that week and was wondering if I'd be able to hear the
music from my room.
Knowing this I wasn't travelling fast, only 30km
when I hit a speed bump that I should have slowed down more for as it
had nearly vertical sides. Coming over the other side of hte speed bump
I heard a strange grating sound, looking down I saw the front wheel
sliding through sand at a 20 degree angle to straight ahead and could
feel and see the wheel slipping further to the left.
Immediately my adrenaline kicked in and everything
went in slow motion, like the "Bullet Time" from the Max Paine 3D
shooter computer game. You see once you have been in a lot of
situations like this you can control the adrenaline rush, professional
fighters get this, long term stuntmen, people who put themselves in
'danger' repeatedly. I got it from working at really bad nightclubs
where fighting would be the normal condition for the night.
So as the adrenaline kicked in I had plenty of time to think and assess my best options.
First thought was I can't have the bike land on my
leg, I had to get clear of the bike, I had to jump. I immediately
checked the distance to the curb, last thing I wanted to do was jump
face first into a hard concrete edge, plenty of room for maybe three or
four rolls then I'd have to deal with that.
Rolls? Yes to take speed off without sliding you
need to roll, in this case I'd be lying flat with my forearms in front
which would round my back and make it easier to roll while protecting
my face, like children lying down at the top of a steep hill and
rolling down.
So I jumped and hit the road with my right hand and
knee and went straight into a roll, I rolled 180 degrees onto my back
and stopped.
You Can See The Oil Blackened My Hand
I remember sitting there for a split second thinking, "Is that it?".
In the end I took skin off my right palm and knee
where I hit the road and seem to have broken or fractured a bone in my
hand, making it hard to use my thumb, a banged knee which hurt, and the
bike got a few scratches.
Minor Motorcycle Knee Damage
I grabbed the bike, blood starting to drip out
rather profusely, soaking my pants, and dripping from my hand. First
stop the pharmacy again to pick up some Hydrogen Peroxide, Iodine
solution, alcohol and some bandages and swabs. Oh yeah, and a bunch of
Paracetamol tablets. Cleaning the wound by myself was more painful than
the accident itself.
In the end I got about a week in bed, the first few days it was painful to walk and impossible to use my hand. I am just very happy I did not have my girlfriend on the back when this happened, an untrained passengercould have ended up with all sorts of injuries, quiet common is a broken collarbone from not falling correctly, also leg injuries from not getting off the bike are common.
So now three weeks on I have been to the gym twice
in the last few days, both times using a lesser weight than before. For
chest day I was able to benchpress 80lbs, as much as a small woman, due
to the pain from my hand. So I did a bunch of machine exercises after I
did three sets of bench to the upper nech (to increase the difficulty
without increasing the weight) and got a pump and felt good.
Just doing a few days exercise has helped the wound
heal a lot, I think the minor stress and blood flow helped heal the
wound significantly.
So how do I look after 3 months of next to no training?
Bad Camera Quality But Still In Good Condition
Still in good condition, pretty lean, but a
noticable loss in muscle size, I would attribute my current condition
on my clean natural food diet since exercise took no part at all since
I was bed ridden half the time.
I tend to carry water around my stomach which flattens me out a lot in
photos, I think this may be due to the high sodium content of my
current Thai influenced diet - fish sauce and soy sauce feature in most
meals that I eat.
Looking at it now I know the size will come back
quickly, the best news for me is that I could continue to look like
this with training once a week now, or actually I would improve so all
those years in the gym have paid off longterm. I remember reading that in the early days bodybuilders would take three months a year off training after the Olympia contest, whether or not this is true it makes sense. For me not only do I have a renewed enthusiasm for the gym but my persistant and niggling injuries have had a chance to heal up too.
And the beard - well lets say there is a period
movie coming up that I have been contacted about (but is now on hold
until March) that I would be very excited over appearing in so I am
growing a beard for the audition to better suit the period character.
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