This past weekend my 67 year old Mom, my 45 year old self and my 10 year old daughter participated in Mudgirl (check it out, I highly recommend it). A 3 mile loop with 18 obstacles over some very dirty terrain.

If you were to tell me a year ago that my mother was going to shoot me a text asking if I would be interested in doing this with her I would have told you you were out of your GD mind. Yet, here we are. And she totally did it!

Historically, my Mom was one helluva athlete. She was in the military and competed in beach volleyball for many years in her 40s. However, over the last 15 years the stress of work and the slow down that came with an empty house and aging really had a negative impact on her health and overall well being.

Her body started to betray her and she was NOT happy about it. Knee pain. Shoulder pain. Rib pain. Cramping. You name it, it hurt. For so many years she thought she was just doomed to live a life of pain.

So what changed?

1. She retired.​
   I place this as the event that had the most drastic impact on her recovery. Why? Because it removed the one thing that was stressing her the F out the most and causing her the most discomfort. Once she retired she was finally able to free up the mental and emotional energy it took to even believe that she could start doing something to better yourself.
2. She started strength training.
   She finally came to me and said she was ready to do something. She started super slow and was incredibly apprehensive but she started. Little by little she was able to do more and more.
3. She found something to train for.​
   Once she found this event, she was DETERMINED to get it done. With me and my daughter flying out there was no way she was not going to cross that finish line. That meant she was going to train hard for it and on the day of the event there was nothing that was going to stop her.
4. She accepted the possibility of pain.​
   Though she trained her little booty off for this thing she was not opposed to experiencing discomfort during or after the event. She knew it would likely hurt. The plan was to go slow, stop when she needed to stop, and to keep going anyway. One foot in front of the other until we were done!

And she did just that! She conquered every single obstacle, walked more than she had in years, and did it alongside her daughter and granddaughter, setting the standard for what it is to overcome.

What's the lesson here?

• You cannot heal in a strained environment.​
  Not easily anyway. Decreasing stress is the number 1 thing you can do to decrease your healing time.
• You have to commit to putting in the work.​
  Healing doesn't just happen. Sure, you might get away with decreasing the severity of pain by just waiting it out but if you truly want to fix the root cause of your pain, you are going to have to actively do something about it.
• You need a reason to push yourself to be better.​
  It's gotta be bigger than "I want to be pain free." WHY do you want to be pain free? Is it to be able to pick up your grand children? Is it to be able to travel? Is it to spend more quality time with your active spouse? What would your life look like if you could do more? Envision that and work toward it!
• You may need to push through discomfort before healing.​
  Listen, it's not going to feel good all the time. You may need to reintroduce some scary ranges of motion or push through some discomfort to get back to doing what you used to do. It's also likely not going to feel good forever once you do get over your irritation. There will be highs and lows to your training; the pain will come and go. The goal is for the severity of your pain to decrease, the duration of your pain to decrease and the time spent between bouts of pain to increase.

I'm so incredibly proud of you, Mom. (I know she's on my email list 😍) Thank you for showing both me and Raya what it is to put your mind to something and get it the F done!!!

I realize you have a choice when it comes to who you allow in your inbox.

Thank you for choosing me.

-Ty

​TyTraining.com​