I'M BACK TO THE IRON!

Wassup, MY BRUDDAHS!

Yo, thank you so much for each and every one of you guys that reached out to me to check if everything was alright, how my recovery was going, even the complaints about why I was posting so infrequently these days brought me a lot of joy, HAHAHA!

Don't worry, I'm cooking something AWESOME for you guys!

Back in March when I had my accident, NGL, it was tough— I was prepping to compete in powerlifting, hitting the biggest lifts I've ever hit, feeling like a freaking tank, but turns out, feeling like a tank doesn't turn you into a literal tank, HAHAHA, so the damned traffic accident mangled me pretty hard.

Initially, I got pretty bummed out about it, but then I just decided to stop feeling sorry for myself, and just focus on recovering and coming back stronger than ever— I'm EXTREMELY proud to say, that the first part of the project was a SUCCESS ��!

The list of injuries was, broken toes and mid-foot (right foot), a bunch of cracked ribs, mangled shoulder (broken acromial, partially torn ligaments, rotator cuffs, rear delt, and fully torn some fibers on my front and side delt, there are two "holes" on them now), and a bigass concussion.

Foot: Still hurts, but just because I was going insane from not doing anything, and started jogging on top of it— as you guys know if you read my tips for recovering, the very best thing to accelerate recovery is to just CHILL OUT, if you keep pounding a nagging injury it'll keep nagging you and never fully recover. Either way, it's fine, it's manageable pain, and the fact that it's still there is basically elective. I've chosen to run on top of it, so no reason for me to cry about it.

Ribs: 100% recovered, I can finally laugh out loud again, sneeze, and get up from bed without feeling like I'm being tortured.

Shoulder: "Full Range of Motion" 99% restored, between quotation 'cause I used to have REALLY great shoulder external rotation, and I probably lost a lot of that permanently, which sucks but not that much— I can fully deadhang again from a pullup bar, pain-free, fully extend the arms overhead for presses and jerk motion, only thing is that behind-the-neck stuff aren't an option anymore, but they're not a great idea either way, so no problem losing that.

Concussion: After the initial seizures, no more events, already cut the anti-seizure meds for a couple of months, no more headaches, brain fog, and a bizarre thing where I was repeating words when I wrote sentences and didn't noticed noticed. (HAHAHA, this is just an example of the bizarre thing I was going through)

Only problem lingering on this front is I'm having trouble with impulse control, which is a classic CTE symptom, my nasty cigarrete habit went from a couple of packs a week, to a pack a day, not to mention I'm running on so much coffee it's not even funny— but I was able to notice that, and am already fighting to cut it back. (Although not ready to give it up entirely HAHAHA)

With all that said, the recovery part is already DONE, now it's time to get STRONGER THAN EVER! HAHAHA— since I've been cleared by my doctor to get back to the gym, and BANG SOME IRON!

I don't want to toot my own horn here, but given how mangled my shoulder was just 3 months ago, I want to point out how important taking rehab, and all those daily practices I'm always raving about seriously.

The timeline for me to have a "decent" pain-free shoulder, according to the doctor, was 12 months— the other one that put my arm back in place immediatelly after the accident, told me I wouldn't be able to benchpress heavy, fully extend, and rotate my arm ever again, and that I would have to put a titanium plate and a bunch of screws in there.

3 months of daily, TEDIOUS, mobility and rotation drills using bands, 1kg plates, and a pullup bar— multiple times a day, passing by my pullup bar was the trigger, I would access every possible motion my shoulder was supposed to do, up to the point where pain would start, stop just short of it, hold and go back— and sure enough, day by day, that point of pain was a little bit farther.

The thing about tendons, ligaments, and overall soft tissue damage, is that YOU CAN'T truly rehab it without moving them— they REQUIRE movement in order to get nutrients, so even though it looks utterly stupid, to try to lift your arm half an inch higher every day. I knew I had to treat those tiny victories as true MASSIVE PR's, just like I would when squatting or benching.

I was eating as much protein as possible, and overall stayed on a bulk to make sure my body had the building blocks to fix everything that was broken (yup, I'm looking as wet as a watermelon HAHAHA).

But the TRUE MVP of my speedy recovery, no doubt about it, was SLEEP.

Dude, every morning I woke up with the sunrise to set my circadian rhythms, jogging or just a sorryass walk, every evening, I was outside getting the sunset light on my eyes, and sure enough, my sleep schedule got PERFECT— and all the growth-factors required to TRULY heal your body are 100% dependent on this.

Not only sleeping enough time, SLEEP TIMING IS CRITICAL— your circadian rhythms work like a schedule, not exactly a clock— when you go to bed at 10pm every day, right around the end of that first sleep cycle, is when your body will produce a fuckton of GH, IF YOU'RE ASLEEP AT THAT TIME, if you happen to go to sleep 3hrs later, you'll still have GH being released, but nowhere near the amount your body "ordered" to get the job done.

This obviously applies to overall gains, even fat loss, not something that only matters for recovery and healing.

But that's it, guys, thank you so much for being here with me, I'm finally back to my usual routine, did some squats, bench, and rows today, and I'm feeling so freaking great (although I was moving sissyass weights, that didn’t bothered me HAHAHA)— now it's time to stop being so fat, and weak BY GOING THROUGH THE FLAMES OF THE IRON PATH, MY BRUDDAHS!!

HAHAHA, I'm so happy, I'm not sure I was able to convey it, either way— GO BANG SOME IRON TOO!

Big KISS,

THE POTATO MAN