Sassy69: Forum Member of the Month, July 2013
Sassy69 is a great contributor to Rx Muscle. Let's learn more about this cat loving, scuba diving, weight training, and sense-making female physique artist!
sassy69
Lots of change in your life relatively recently. In your one journal, you mentioned “downsizing, a relocation from the West Coast to the Midwest Coast (of Lake Michigan), a move from suburban living to city living, and a new group of people / clients to work with,” and more.
Q: What’s been the most difficult to adapt or adjust to?
A: I've relocated several times over the years for work, so the relocation part is always hard, but you do it. The hardest part of this move was my first time bringing cats through Security at the airport LOL! This is my first time living "in the city" as well - so got lost a number of times walking to work or figuring out where to get off the train.
Downtown Chicago
Q: I live right in the heart of downtown Chicago, so I like that pretty much everything that matters is within blocks, though I still keep a car here to drive to client sites or when I need to go run errands for bigger stuff. And its nice to know I can just get in my car & go if I need to "get out" for a while. I'm actually within (long) driving distance of family so that's a big deal too. The drawback of living in the city is now the reverse of all the other places I where I lived in the suburbs. I don't know anyone who lives in the city.
Everyone at work bails for the suburbs at 6 pm. So I fill my time, but I haven't met a lot of new people. With more shows, including the Jr. Nationals recently, and the upcoming Chicago Wings of Strength Pro Show, I’m getting the chance to see more people from the fitness community, including RXGirl herself, Gail!
The other interesting thing is I always locate a gym somewhere between work & home so I can easily get there. And I have that, but given that I walk to work, I also have to carry all my stuff, including laptop, cooler, and gym stuff. Given my current physical issues I'm dealing with, I've opted to take some time off from the gym, so I'm not having to carry all this stuff just yet.
But it presents challenges where I used to just throw my stuff in the trunk and pull out what I needed for work, and then the gym. The impact of this is that I normally look to the gym to start meeting people in a new place, and that has been sort of slow as well. Just not finding where I "fit in" yet. That said, I have to say there are some cool muscle girls here who I need to make sure I make the effort to hang out with more!
Q: What is your line of work?
A: I do essentially database engineering and digital marketing.
Q: What's the best part of your job?
A: The best part is the problem solving, and especially when we can brainstorm creative solutions in what is very fluid industry. Meaning at this point in the evolution of digital communication, clients come to us with all sorts of different requests, so we get real-life use cases that we are solving for while applying the "best practices" of the tools we use (e.g. database) for scalability, efficiency and maintainability.
Q: What's the worst part?
A: The "worst" part is a couple of things that you'd think wouldn't still be the same stuff I dealt with 25 years ago - sloppy data practices and ego-driven people within the business. But then these are the things that provide me job security. :cP
Q: What’s brought you the biggest smile?
A: Some of the stuff since I moved to Chicago include:
-living the "downtown" lifestyle in a big city & living closer to family for the first time in many years
-when I saw the vertical leg press at Quads Gym here in town where I train occasionally. I've seen a vertical leg press in real life about 3 times in 30 years
-my view (only sligthtly blocked) of the fireworks they shoot off of Navy Pier on Lake Michigan every Wednesday &Saturdaynightduing the summer
-and not to be the weird cat lady, but just the goofy stuff my 2 cats do on a daily basis
Q: At 47 years of age, lifting since 1981 and with 12 years of competition under your belt, what advice would you give a 30something sassy69?
A: Perfect your form! (Shit starts to fall apart when you hit 40!)
Find regular people to train with (meaning people to train with regularly - who in this sport is "regular" anyway??)
Get involved in other sports to complement the lifting. Some days you just shouldn't be stuck inside in a gym or with the same crowd all the time.
I spent many years doing the "per-muscle-group" type of training and I think doing only that takes away the "functionally correct" movement of the body so you can actually apply the strength you develop in the gym, to other things.
For women now, the competition scenery is changing – it’s not about getting "bigger" now. I think with that, not that it was ever actually limited, but I think now there are more apparent options for women around "strength" or "fitness" activities and maybe the stigma of having some muscle is a bit less.
I think I'd tell "gym girls" these days to open your world up as wide as you can to get the most out of what your body is capable of. And with that, I'd throw in the reminder that the greater conditioning, flexibility, excellent form and functionally correct activity you do, the more you will appreciate it as your body begins to age and you can't muscle through stuff so readily. And for God's sake, respect your joints! That will be the weak link as you get older!
Q: You’ve had arthroscopic surgery where they removed the arthritis, cleaned up a bunch of frayed tendons and scraped down your clavicle a little to reduce inflammation when the area got irritated. Massage therapy, physical therapy… what other methods of recovery or rehabilitation have you tried?
A: The arthroscopic surgery I had in 2008 was originally driven by a lot of pain I was experiencing it in my right shoulder, with an MRI that implied a pinhole tear in the rotator. I did a month of rehab, but it didn't do anything, so I talked further with my doctor (great people at Stanford!) and ultimately they never found a tear, and just cleaned things up.
A month of rehab to get back the range of motion and I was 100% again. Through two national shows and up to a week before a qualifying show in 2010, my shoulder was fantastic. But lifting too heavy at a week out, I jarred it again. Right after that show, a lot changed in the path I was following.
The path I intended to follow was getting my national qualification so I could spend a year prepping for 2011 Nationals. Right around that time, the new Women's Physique Division (WPD) was being promoted, Women's Bodybuilding was being "anti-promoted"... I seriously experienced some depression about that and how the industry was viewing women's bodybuilding and were now starting to act on it with more vocalization about it relative to Women's Physique.
I was 45. It seemed all of the tendonitis I'd ever had all decided to show up at once. My shoulder was flaring a lot and it was very apparent the wrong muscles were being recruited when I'd try to lift, my whole upper right back would spaz out and I was visiting my chiropractor regularly to get ribs and scapulas pushed back in the right place.
After a good 4-6 months of dealing w/ my body just not cooperating the way I wanted it to, I decided to downsize for WPD, which meant changing how I trained and giving up those goals of big lifts that kept me coming back to the gym for 3 decades. Then trying to figure out HOW to go about that downsizing. I thought giving my shoulder a break from the lifting would help, but everything else I tried aggravated things.
From boxing, to swimming, to yoga, to crossfit, whatever else I could think of. Eventually I ended up back in the gym following Poliquin's German Body Comp training - giving me my lifting fix while getting an ass-kicking workout w/o the heavy weights. It was still not really fixing anything however.
After 2 1/2 years of annoying pain, I decided to attack this. I started w/ an MRI to confirm nothing was actually torn. Then I talked to my chiropractor and had an evaluation by the physical therapist on staff. Between that and a new set of x-rays, the consensus was that the shoulder was a symptom of the larger push/pull imbalance in my body, ultimately originating from an off-center pelvis.
The shoulders and pelvis tend to mirror each other - so for people who have shoulder problems, if they go to the chiropractor and are told the pelvis may be off, that's exactly what I'm talking about. My x-rays also showed my neck actually has two curves in instead of one nice, continuous curve, probably from a car accident I had in 1988. To me it wasn't a big deal - my car got totaled from a passenger-side impact, but for me, it was just a big scare and a minor whiplash.
Apparently it was a little more than a minor whiplash. The end result is my lower neck vertebrae degenerating while trying to fuse to support my head. This is just one more no-win situation over time. Additionally I’ve apparently got some undiagnosed scoliosis – could be a contribution to the overall imbalances. I’ve also got some lower back disk degeneration.
At each local point, if everything isn't in good balance w/ good mobility, things start to happen to keep the head upright. Things like the wrong muscles doing the work, degenerating joints, overstretched ligaments, loss of mobility at odd places like your rib cage / thoracic spine, the little joints, etc. This becomes apparent in so many different ways as you get older, that can ultimately impact your quality of life, much less your time in the gym.
Q: Do you still visit a chiropractor regularly?
A: I'm currently in week 5 of a 6-7 week intensive phase of chiropractic, massage and physical therapy to re-establish balance in my shoulders (scapula - clavicle axis) & pelvis, and increasing thoracic mobility. So far we are seeing a lot more movement in all the right places.
The next step will be to let my body start to adopt this new balance. I'm also putting together a new training program from several different sources - building around the rehab stuff I'm doing now as well as some regular-style training (higher rep / lower weight focus) with some cardio. I'll probably reduce the chiro visits to once/week, maybe even less, for another 6-7 weeks, and pick up the intensive phase to continue the move toward total rebalance.
The real goal of all of this is to get the right balance in place so as the ligaments of my bum shoulder can regenerate at a normal degree of stretch, as they replace the over-stretched ones that are causing my shoulder issues. Given that ligaments take 3 years to regenerate, we're looking at an ongoing process, not a quicky fix. And while I'm at it, all of this should also help reduce a lot of the tendonitis and other little things that have really flared up over the last several years.
Q: Would you say lifting has created these issues?
A: It really is interesting to see how the body works to support itself through life. Ultimately none of the things I've been addressing, at least per any of my doctors' input, has been due to my lifting, but rather just my body, the way it is built.
At the moment, I'm really doing a complete lifestyle overhaul to understand how to eat & train with the age change. I haven’t been in the gymspecifically so I can spend that time working w/ my physical therapist and let those adjustments “take”.
Next phase is to take what I’ve learned and reinforce it. It’s definitely different, but I'm looking at it like hiring a new prep coach and taking a new approach to progress.
I'm learning a lot and looking for ways to incorporate it into the lifestyle I've always enjoyed. And like we always say, it's a journey and not a destination!
Q: How did you learn about Rx Muscle Forums?
A: I heard about Rx Muscle as soon as Dave & John left MD. I attempted to continue as a mod there, but didn't feel my input was of value to them, and particularly in the arena of female competitors and women in general.
Q: How would you improve the forums?
A: Hard to say how to improve the forums. There is so much invested in the various radio shows, contest coverage, video... I can't think of anything I've seen at any other forum that stood out to me as so awesome that RX should have it. I think it is always an evolving platform. As with most any forum on the net, I'd always love to see more female competitor involvement, but I think Gail does an amazing job with spotlighting various competitors and keeping interesting articles posted on the women's forum. I think to a degree it is the nature of how women communicate on the net relative to generally a much larger male audience.
Q: What do you enjoy most about the forums?
A: I still like the sense of family and discussion of the sport and the industry amongst people who "get it". I don't feel like RX is trying to troll for the low hanging fruit to sell them something, but rather to attract quality members with quality community and information. This is my go-to every day.
Q: Tiara and sash or sword?
A: Sword.
Q: How do your Vibram 5-finger shoes compare to chiro, massage and acupuncture?
A: Some of the foot issues I have, specifically the Morton's neuromas, are specifically due to cramped space around the conjunction of the toes w/ the foot - so the Vibrams help separate the toes and make more room. Since I'm wearing them as shoes around the house, instead of some goofy "toe spreader" (they exist!), they are actually working.
Q: Obesity a disease, yes or no?
A: If it is a result of a legitimate medical issue, it's still not a disease but a result of something. Anything beyond that is a lifestyle choice. Just like alcohol, etc. may be the way someone deals with a stress in his or her life, sure, people can end up gaining weight from those sorts of stresses. Alcohol and drugs have been shown to establish a physical addiction. I haven't seen that established for food.
We already have things like "wellness" programs in our health coverage - even if "everyone" doesn't have it, it exists, but our population is still getting fatter and fatter. It actually can be addressed with a little education, self-control and commitment. It doesn't even need to be called "will power". Just making reasonable choices or changes in your lifestyle to let your body operate like it was designed.
Q: How were you introduced to the weights?
A: I used to play racquetball at the local YMCA w/ my dad when I was 15. You'd have to walk through this ancient weight room to get to the racquetball courts, so while waiting for our court to open up, I started kicking around on the leg press on the Universal machine in the weight room. Off the bat, I thought it was the coolest thing on the planet that I could push 100 lb on that thing. It started there, and even before I ever thought about it, I found this to be an awesome personal challenge and the only thing (except scuba diving) where I can be totally and thoroughly in tune, mind & body, and just "in" the moment.
Q: What inspires you?
A: People who overcome, aesthetic lines, personal integrity and personal responsibility. The perfection of the universe – meaning the way it all fits together from a cosmological level, down to a microscopic level. It's been a while since I've followed much of the science from my undergrad days studying physics and astronomy, but when I see how things work so perfectly - this could range from anything like stock market patterns to the way the body works.
Q: Did you emulate anyone when you first became involved in the iron game?
A: Initially I didn't. I was aware of Sharon Bruneau and Cory Everson at the pro level, but as I got into amateur competition, it was really my own personal adventure. I overcame so many things personally going through my first show, that I just didn't tie it to the sport at large. Over the years, the physiques I envisioned for myself to aspire to were Susanne Neiderhauser and AnjaShreiner.
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L-R: Susanne Neiderhauser, AnjaShreiner
As very simply a beautiful physique, I'm a huge fan of ValentinaChepiga, and I still think Iris is the definition of perfection.
Q: What's your favorite movie or one film out of your top 10?
A: All-time favorite movie: Office Space
Q: Favorite Muppet or Sesame Street character?
A: Cookie Monster!
Q: How were you introduced to diving?
A: I moved to S. Florida for work and a group from my office decided to get certified. After I left that job to go back to school, I met a guy who was involved in a dive club in the area I'd move to, and it just went from there. Over that time I was diving at least once / week and had completed all my certifications through Dive Master. Just like the gym, it was a nice counterpart to my Dilbert-like cube monkey existence. Just like the gym, I had a great group of friends to dive with and was spoiled rotten having a house with direct water access to the ocean.
If I could ever line up a solid tech job that allowed me to live in S. Florida, I'd move back in a heartbeat.
Q: "What do you bench?" (ducks, runs, hides)
A: These days, not much. Back in the day, 215 w/ a spot.
Q: How would you define the term schmoe and have you ever had any "fan" make you feel uncomfortable?
A: "Schmoe" - creepy fan. There have been a few. Over the years I've kept my competition stuff very low key and private to avoid it.
Q: What gyms have truly impressed you?
A: Quads Gym here in Chicago. The old World Gym in Burlingame, CA. I don't think it exists anymore. It's where all the old school guys in Nor Cal hung out w/the BALCO peeps. They had a vertical leg press too. Bigger than the one at Quads.
Q: Planet Fitness. Thoughts?
A: *snicker* Seriously? Pizza night?Bagels? That's not even decent nutrition.
Sassy69, I always enjoy reading your posts and I'm sure others do as well! You epitomize what a bodybuilder is to me, dedicated, driven, intelligent and always exploring new ways to improve yourself. Congratulations on being named Member of the Month and thank you for sharing your time with the Rx Muscle community!
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