My Upside during Quarantine

I was sitting on a hospital bed, arm in a sling, after having just gone through surgery to fix my torn labrum (the socket of your shoulder). I played football in high school and in my very first game starting varsity junior year, my shoulder popped out. I was going in for a tackle when the running back cut back, when I turned back the other way my own teammate nailed me. My arm was at a weird angle when I struck the ground and I felt a tremendous “pop”. Due to this injury of mine, I had lost roughly 10 pounds and became a shell of my former self. Because of football I had fallen in love with lifting since we had to do it all of the time, but I wasn’t able to do anything for several months because of my labrum. However, by the time quarantine started I was finally cleared by my physical therapist to begin lifting once again.

School is basically out, and even though everything is closed down, I finally have a chance to focus on bettering myself. I was fortunate enough to have my own weight set. Starting that first week of quarantine, my “rebirth” process had started. It was a slow and sometimes painful process, not to mention very humbling. Prior to my surgery, my personal records in the big three lifts (bench press, squat, and deadlift) were 205 lbs, 315 lbs, and 385 lbs (and in retrospect, my form was also a little shaky too).

My first couple weeks back lifting, I still wasn’t able to do any type of press movement because of the pressure it puts on my shoulder. Also squatting was painful because of the position my shoulder is put in when using a barbell. With this said, the only exercises I could really do included bicep curls, some back exercises, tricep extensions and legs involving dumbbells. This was the first time I had been seriously lifting since football season, so the amount of soreness I would feel after these first few workouts was extensive. I had done biceps for the first time and I was unable to straighten my elbow for several days because of how sore my bicep was.

Besides the actual workouts, I was able to focus on my eating as well since I was home all of the time. The work outs that I did made me hungrier than I was before and so it helped me increase my caloric intake. I was consuming roughly 3500 Calories on an average given day and I could noticeably see the results starting to appear. Between mid March and the beginning of May, I hadn’t weighed myself. So when I did weigh myself for that first time, it blew me away because I had already put on 13 lbs since I weighed my lightest (145 lbs) in March. Not to mention once I started weighing myself, it became a necessity to see the numbers go up. By the end of June, I had gone up another 7 lbs and was weighing in at a consistent 165 lbs. Which, by the way, is the heaviest I'd ever weighed in at the beginning of a day.

This whole process started as a solo operation, but I still kept in touch with my friends throughout this time alone and they were amazed at the process that I had made in such a short amount of time. My parents started allowing me to have some friends over to lift with me (and swim because I was fortunate enough to have a pool). My crusade began as a one man army and by the end of June, I would have (at peak) 11 other people in my garage working to make themselves better. And I don’t want to brag, but the results that my friends had made during the summer were also amazing. My friend Justin Shaw went from never bench pressing 185 lbs before to being able to push 290 lbs off of his chest as if it were a feather. The homie Jarrett Zeitenberg added over 25 lbs to his bench press personal record as well as deadlifting over 400 lbs for the first time in his life. And Alex Gaeta (who is 16 years old) ended the summer by benching 315 lbs. I will also add that no one who has entered the premises of my garage has ever done any type of sarm (a type of drug with similar effects to that of a steroid) or steroid. There were also a countless number of other milestones that were broken during the summer, but I’m not going to list every single one because you get the idea. All in all, this quarantine ended up being one of the best time periods of my life as well as one of the most progressive times of my life.

With all of this being said, I am very well aware of how awful COVID and the quarantine was for many people and their families and I am by NO means saying that COVID or the quarantine was a good thing. However, I feel that it’s important to see the light in even the darkest scenarios and this quarantine that still is plaguing us as I write this paper is certainly one of those dark situations. What I am saying though, is that for such a depressing time, a lot of positive outcomes have come to light for me as well as a lot of people that I know. I truly believe that in tough times such as the one we are currently in, our true sides can be unveiled and how we choose to handle our time and our lives during these times can make us into the best versions of ourselves.