Episode #28: Inspirational Interview | Don’t Let Surgeries Stop You From Barbell Training or Powerlifting
Surgery after surgery could easily stop someone from continuing to powerlift or barbell train. And oftentimes we’re faced with the worry that we’ll never get back to where we were before surgery. It’s important during these times to shift our focus and our mindset to what we can do in order to stay motivated and not lose what we’re so passionate about.
Our goal with bringing on some of our clients is to share their unique stories, experiences with barbell training, and how their training has impacted their lives positively despite the negative medical narratives and belief systems surrounding barbell strength training in hopes that it inspires even just one person out there.
In this series of interviews, each episode consists of a PRS client sharing their journey of overcoming injuries and illnesses, recovering from surgeries, and navigating changes in their lives and the role that barbell training has played throughout this process for each of them. These are just a handful of our clients that are truly inspiring and motivating and we hope that sharing their stories will inspire you, your patients or clients, or your family to incorporate barbell training into your life or continue barbell training during challenging times.
In this interview, we’ll sit down and speak with PRS client, Melissa who is a 40 year old lawyer who’s been a Nationally competitive powerlifter for over a decade. Over the last four years Melissa has experienced four major surgeries both related and unrelated to lifting, pregnancy, and becoming a new mother amidst the pandemic. Despite what seems to be multiple setbacks, Melissa has never “missed” a training session and her positivity and commitment to training prevail.
In this episode, Melissa shares her experiences with multiple surgeries, pregnancy, and becoming a new mom and how she reframes her mindset and perspective about training and competition to stay consistent with her training. We hope this episode inspires you to look at setback after setback, injury after injury, and stress a little differently so you keep putting one foot in front of the other instead of giving up.
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Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:00:43] We're back with another episode in our series of inspirational client interviews. Our goal with bringing on some of our clients is to share their unique stories, experiences with barbell training, and how their training has impacted their lives positively despite the negative medical narratives and belief systems surrounding barbell strength training, in hopes that it inspires even just one person out there. In this series of interviews, each episode consists of a pure US client sharing their journey of overcoming injuries and illness, recovering from surgeries, and navigating changes in their lives. The role that barbell training has played throughout this process for each of them. These are just a handful of our truly inspiring and motivating clients. We hope that sharing their stories will inspire you, your patients, your clients, or your family to incorporate barbell training into your life or continue barbell training during challenging times. In this interview, we sit down and speak with PRS client Melissa, a 40-year-old lawyer who's been a nationally competitive powerlifter for over a decade. Over the last four years, Melissa has experienced four major surgeries related and unrelated to lifting, pregnancy, and becoming a new mother amidst the pandemic. Yet, despite what seems to be multiple setbacks, Melissa has never missed a training session, and her positivity and commitment to training prevail. In this episode, Melissa shares her experience with multiple surgeries, pregnancy, and becoming a new mom, and how she reframes her mindset and perspective about training and competition to stay consistent with her training. We hope this episode inspires you to look at setback after setback, injury after injury, and stress differently, so you keep putting one foot in front of the other instead of giving up. Melissa, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast. We're excited to have you chat with us today because you have a really, really interestingly unique story, I think, when it comes to.
Melissa: [00:03:00] that is one way to put it.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:03:01] I mean, it's interesting. I don't think I've ever come across someone who has been through as much as you and continues to persevere with training. But, you know, the things you've had, like successively, have been things that would just throw people out of training and competing. So just a little intro on you, Melissa. You and I have known each other since like the beginning of at least my powerlifting career. I think we met at Raw Unity in 2014.
Melissa: [00:03:42] I had already been powerlifting competitively for five years.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:03:48] Yeah. Yeah.
Melissa: [00:03:48] I'm a little bit older than you.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:03:50] Yeah, just a little. But age is just a number, girlfriend. But we met years later. I guess it was like 2018. I have helped you with water cutting for the Arnold for one year. And then, in 2018, you reached out to me because of a major shoulder injury that occurred just before leading into nationals of 2018. And you took a token bench to get through the competition. And just for reference, Melissa's a high-level, national-level competitor. And I say it in the present because we will be returning to the platform one day. But what we will talk about in this episode of the podcast is why she's not currently competing. But, you know, so you've competed in primetime at Nationals and at the Arnold. So this is considered high-level powerlifting. So we know as a high-level athlete that you are a highly motivated person. However, even high-level athletes and very high, highly motivated individuals can still face things that can derail their motivation and willingness to continue in their sport. And also, we tend to have major injuries or surgeries. So we can have identity shifts that make it very difficult for someone to even want to engage in the type of sport they were doing if they're not at that same level. So a little bit about you is you had this major shoulder injury, but before that, you had had, I think, one or two hernia surgeries.
Melissa: [00:05:31] So I had one, and that was in 2016. I had an inguinal hernia that had to be surgically repaired, derailing my competing that year. Nonetheless, I came back maybe a little too quickly, but I came back, and I cut to 57, competed in the 57, and qualified for nationals. However, the outcome of that inguinal hernia repair was that I now have a hernia in the location where they went into my belly button to fix the inguinal hernia. I have a hernia there now, so one fixed came out of it with a new one.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:06:13] Right? Right. So we already have this like core that is a little bit weaker and relatively weaker to the rest of your body. We ended up with a shoulder injury leading into Nationals 2018, and then you and your husband embarked on the conception growing the family journey after that Nationals. And you had come to me for shoulder rehab with spoken to the doctors, and surgery was like I'm trying to avoid surgery. But then, once you got pregnant, you decided to, and we had worked on your shoulder for a while, and it just wasn't. And I'm going to have you talk about the decision too, which is one of the most interesting things that I want you to talk about. While you were pregnant, you decided to have shoulder surgery. So then, after your pregnancy or as a result of the pregnancy or at the end of the pregnancy, you ended up with a C-section. So we've had this inguinal hernia, this slightly, I don't want to call it an umbilical hernia because it's above your belly button, but you have a hernia. Then you had another major surgery, which is the C-section. And then, after you recovered from the C-section, I guess your daughter was about two years old. You embarked on having massive bunions corrected. When I talk about massive bunions, please don't get offended.
Melissa: [00:07:49] I was scrolling through my photos last night because I was working on, like, some holiday photo albums, and I happened to come across the photos of my before x-rays that I had sent to you, Rori, because we were both like, Oh my God, Like, we knew it looked bad. But when you look at this x-ray, bunions had bunions.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:08:08] I mean, your toes were they were.
Melissa: [00:08:12] More than 45. Yeah.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:08:14] They were.
Melissa: [00:08:14] Like the opposite.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:08:15] Or completely sideways. So you had a back to back surgery for your bunion. So I can't remember if it was. They were six weeks apart or 12 weeks apart. I think they were 12 weeks apart.
Melissa: [00:08:26] 12 weeks apart.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:08:27] And then all the while, you also have a vascular condition in your legs that requires, I forget what the the the term is that when you go into the veins.
Melissa: [00:08:38] the scleral therapy injections I get a few days a year.
Dr. Rori Alter, PT, PRSCC, SSC: [00:08:42] So Melissa, you've experienced things that are almost like one step forward, ten steps back every time, you know. And talk to us a little bit about the mindset around all this stuff because one of the most, and I say this to you in your check-ins, like every week. If I don't say it every week, I think about it every week. I'm just like, how is she? Like, how does she do this all? And on top of that, you're a lawyer and have a three-year-old. She's about three, three, and a half now.