My Journey Through a Health Crisis (1)

A Few Days After Competition

In late January of 2010 I noticed something just didn't seem right. I had competed in the Colorado Natural Bodybuilding Championships in October of 2009 and had done well. I had finally moved up into the light -heavyweight category and ended up placing 3rd in the Open division. It must have been a year for thirds because I placed 3rd in my Masters category and 3rd in the Drug Free for Life Category.

After dieting hard for months, I have never found it easy to stick to a strict diet. Normally that means I do fairly well during the week, and cut loose during the weekend. After two months of that, January came around and so did the extra body fat. I probably went from 6% to 16% body fat during that time. January normally is the time that I begin to work on my conditioning and strength. I work very hard in the gym to put on muscle and focus on eating "clean". Part of my conditioning program involves cardiovascular training. One of my favorite pieces of equipment for cardio is the Cybex Elliptical Trainer.

I remember getting on that machine and setting it up for a nice warm-up. After the warm-up, I increase the resistance and the incline. This particular machine has an incline that ranges 1-10 and resistance ranging from 1-100. Normally I start with the resistance on 25 and the incline on 5. For me that should be nice and easy. I do not recall what day it was, but I do recall how I felt. I had just completed my weight training and I was tired. When I started my cardio, using seemingly easy settings, something just wasn't right. I felt increasingly uncomfortable and then short of breath. I couldn't believe it. I don't think I lasted more than 5 or 10 minutes before I had to get off the machine with my tail between my legs. I was embarrassed. I remember hoping that nobody saw my pathetic effort.

I think I began rationalizing what had happened and had many different angles. My first thought was that I was just having one of those days. When you train hard week after week, your body doesn't always perform at 100%. I also wondered if the added body fat and lack of cardiovascular training had taken a toll on my conditioning. In recent years I noticed that to some degree. The winter months usually included big strength gains and an assortment of minor injuries. It also included a drop off in my cardiovascular fitness, but nothing significant. I wasn't very concerned, but what had just happened certainly got my attention.

March/April 2010

Over the weeks and months to follow, I continued to work on my diet and add cardiovascular training. I think I saw minor improvements but nothing like what I expected. I remember one day thinking, 'I must improve my cardiovascular fitness.' I decided to put on some shorts, and go for a jog. I have multiple paths in my neighborhood. One path is just over a mile. Another path is one and a half miles. The path I rarely take is three miles and has a killer hill. As I left I decided on the moderate lengthened path. At first I felt fairly good. The road out of my neighborhood is downhill for the first half mile. Then the path is relatively level. Eventually there are some minor hills to negotiate but nothing at all that should be difficult. The first half mile went fairly well. I did notice that I was slightly uncomfortable but decided it was simply because I hadn't been running in months. As the path leveled out, I began to suffer. I remember suffering just to make it to the next corner only a quarter of a mile away. I was almost pleased that there was traffic blocking my way so I could recover. The traffic cleared and my determination rekindled. After running about 100 yards up a slight incline strange things began to happen. My legs began to cramp, I started losing coordination, and my left ankle rolled. 'What in the world is going on?', I thought. I wasn't ready to quit though. For the remainder of my trip, I ran 100 yards and walked as long as it took to recover before running again.

I told some friends and a trainer what was going on. I don't think anyone thought anything of it. My next stop was a one hour spinning class. The spinning instructor loves when guys like me come into her class. There are a group of guys at my gym that love to train very hard with weights. We move at a good pace and push ourselves to the limit. Each of us have made excellent gains in strength and size. I was in many ways the leader of the gang. I put together the workout plans, trained multiple people for bodybuilding shows, outlined diets, and tried my best to lead the way in terms of effort and intensity. Jeanie the cycling instructor loves to put the beloved muscle heads in their place. My friend Quinn and I entered the cycling room knowing what was about to happen. Sure enough, Jeanie gave us all we could handle. I watched the clock and suffered through every minute. My pride was the only thing that kept me in that room and I could only endure 30 minutes. Other friends of mine who were regulars in the class tried to encourage me to stay for the rest of the class. I knew I couldn't do it. I simply did not have the strength left. I was shocked.

Over the coming weeks I returned to the class in hopes that I would improve. Jeanie knew I was struggling and lightened up a little on me. It didn't matter. At 30 minutes, I simply could not continue. Not only that, but I couldn't do what she asked the class to do. If she asked us to increase tension, I couldn't do much. If she asked us to increase RPMs I couldn't do much. If she wanted us to do "jumps" for the duration of a song I couldn't keep with it. Nothing was improving despite all my efforts.

Celebrating Graduation - May 2010

May/June 2010

I began to believe that I must have heart disease. All of the machines warn against doing an exercise when you are short of breath and dizzy. On almost every work set I did with weights, I felt short of breath and dizzy. One day really stand outs. We were doing legs and leg training always means suffering.  My buddy Quinn offered an alternative saying, "Why don't we drop the weight today, put 135 lbs on the barbell and do 30 rep sets of deep squats." After 10 reps we change our foot position; close, medium, and then wide. I made it through 20 deeps repetitions and I was done. I racked the weight in desperation and proceeded to lean against a rail as my heart raced and my head spun. 'Something is definitely wrong', I thought.

At that point I decided something had to be done. When I returned from our summer vacation, I would see my family doctor and get back on the road to health. Little did I know that there was a monster growing inside of me.