When the Body Hits Pause: How Training Prepares You for the Unexpected
A quick THANK YOU! to all of my personal training clients over these last weeks for being flexible with your training!
When I went in for emergency surgery, I didn’t get a say in the timeline. My appendix had ruptured. The infection had spread into my abdomen. The only way forward was through it — hooray for laproscopy!
For someone who lives by structured training cycles, managing load, and tracking performance, this was an ultimate loss of control. No prep window. No progression or peak week. Just: go.
But that’s when training really shows its value — not in the numbers you track when everything’s going right, but in how your body responds when everything goes sideways. While this is a lesson as old as time in life and in the fitness industry, it’s still a great reminder of how certain physical, but equally psychological benefits from training serve us.
The Invisible Training Effect
Within 36 hours of surgery, barring some moments, I was a lot further along than my post surgery care team thought I’d be. That speed of recovery isn’t random — it’s a direct result of the invisible carryover from months and years of consistent training, nutrition, and sleep. I had reserves coming in.
Cardiovascular fitness improves circulation and oxygen delivery — both essential for wound healing and preventing complications.
Muscle mass acts as a biological buffer. More lean tissue = more reserve when the body’s under stress.
Nutrition and recovery habits established over time meant my body already knew how to regulate inflammation, fuel repair, and rebound.
In short: I didn’t train for surgery. But training made surgery (and recovery) better and easier in the places where that was possible. Most of us know how improved health is going to improve recovery.
Recovery Is Still Training
Recovery isn’t passive. I’m not fully back to speed, but right now feels like a different kind of training under different rules.
There are inputs:
Sleep
Food
Hydration
Stress management
Light movement
There are outputs:
Healing tissues and organs
Energy levels
Pain tolerance
Digestion
Mood
There’s progression:
Walks get longer
Pain decreases
Appetite returns
Sleep gets deeper
And eventually… the barbell and my running shoes come back
Mindset: Where It Gets Hard
The hardest part isn’t the mechanics or the progression— sometimes it’s the mindset.
High performers are conditioned to do more. Lift more, run more, grind harder. Recovery, on the other hand, rewards less. The discipline isn’t in effort — it’s in restraint.
This is where surrender becomes strategic. But it’s not just about holding back. If surrender is the brake pedal, then finesse is the steering wheel — knowing how to apply the right dose of effort, at the right time, in the right way.
Walking when you can.
Resting when you must.
Fueling without overdoing it.
Moving pain-free, not pain-proud.
Recovery isn’t the absence of work — it’s the refinement of it. The same patience and precision it takes to build a PR squat is what rebuilds tissue, energy, and resilience.
Why You Train (Even When It’s Not for Performance)
I had just finished my last long easy run before our Half Marathon coming up this weekend and I had this thought even during my run as I did at the hospital:
You don’t just train for performance. You train for life and its glorious curveballs.
The setbacks. The surgeries. The stressors. The illnesses. You don’t schedule them, but you’ll face them. I sometimes think about what my next will be and I didn’t realize it would be this one. Yes here we are; and when YOU do, it’s the foundation — not the peak — that determines how well you weather the storm.
Every rep you’ve ever done, every night you prioritized sleep, every nutrient-dense meal — it all adds up. They aren’t perfect, but you keep doing your best each day. Training isn’t just about what you can do when everything’s perfect. It’s about who you are when everything’s not. Sometimes there are additional lessons to be learned as well. In this case, I’m taking some pressure of the gas pedal and using a little more finesse in the months to come.
Right now, my consistency looks like doing less, slow walks, deep breathing, simple meals, more mindful movement (translated by some as higher reps and lighter weights for a while lol), and long sleeps. From the outside, it might look like I’m doing nothing. But this is the block that makes every future block possible.
So keep showing up. Not just for aesthetics. Not just for PRs. But for the moments you can’t predict — and the body that will carry you through them
📣 Quick Announcements:
💥 Come join our small semi-private group class our come in for some individual attention with personal training to get in your best shape this summer. There is RUMOR of an UPCOMING EVENING CLASS TIME ADDITION. Are you interested? Let us know
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Marcin is back for now with some availability in the weeks ahead. If you have some unresolved issues and haven’t experienced his expert hands in conjunction with a good movement routine, see what he can do to help.
Coach Stephanie Stephens will be ramping up her schedule in the weeks ahead. Look for more info about her and her bio soon…
Need help building a plan that works for you? Reach out — we’re here to help you train with intention, even when things feel off