A Sprained Knee With a Side of Bruised Ego, Please!

So I didn't get to write an entry last week. Big surprise huh? Aside from being consistently inconsistent, your trusty old PhilAsifer is also consistently getting hurt. This time it wasn't a phantom injury from coach potatoing it up, however. I decided to dust off my sneakers and played an impromptu game of pick-up basketball.

Here's some news for you: I Injured myself, AGAIN. I injured myself because I'm out of shape. Meaning I'm overweight at the moment. Meaning I'm too overweight to be playing basketball. 

Hey But Wait a minute, Asif, look at this!

Maaaaan. Number 1) That guy is about 6'10. I'm 5'6 on a good day. Number 2) He's DEAD! (RIP Escalade) He died from heart disease which I'm positive had to do with his unhealthy weight. and Number 3) Thanks a lot for making me feel like a schlub when even immobile obese heavyweights can ball better than me. 

Back to the subject at hand. What I mean by being too overweight to play is that I'm too overweight to play the way I like to play. My problem is the way I play basketball has not evolved from the way I played it when I was 16 basically. Which needs to change! I resort to trying to be quick and high energy and going hard in the paint trying to do acrobatic layups and And1s. When you're about 50+ pounds overweight, your knees are going to hate you for that style of play, which in my case, they want me dead.

So I was playing basketball and I was feeling myself, having a good all around game. I decided to get a little fancy, went for a pump fake. The guy bit on it and I glided into the paint for a driving layup when, CRUNCH! I came down on my leg and yelled "OH, SHOOT!" (This was a masjid/mosque playing area) and went down on the pavement. I got flashbacks from when I was 17 and I tore my ACL the exact same way. I got up and my knee buckled. I couldn't put weight on it. I was helped back home by some brothers at the mosque and went immediately into RICE mode. The way it felt, I was sure I tore something. I don't have the funds or resources to go get it checked at the moment so my doctor became Experience and Google working in tandem.

I come to the conclusion that it isn't a serious tear and can be anything between a bad sprain to as serious as a partial meniscus tear. I hope to God if it's the latter, it doesn't require surgery. So I'm recuperating at the moment and trying to heal up.

What I've learned:

• Give Basketball a Break: And I mean a break as in a break from it being my main source of cardio. I have been trying to lose weight and basketball has been my go-to which I am learning is a bad idea when I am overweight. My knees need a break and doing all this high impact cutting, twisting and jumping with all that extra weight is just asking for stuff like this to keep happening. The fact is that I bore easily when it comes to jogging and ellipticals and crap. But I need to invest in changing my routine so I can play ball WHEN I'm at the optimum weight to play and when that extra pressure is taken off of my knees.
  
  
• I'm Not Invincible: This injury made me reminesce on an older and more serious injury I had when I was 17 and tore my ACL and meniscus in my left knee. At the time I was probably in the best shape of my life. I was weightlifting, doing cardio and at my athletic peak. And yes, I had a little bit of a big head about it. I was feelin' myself. And feelin' myself led to lots of irrational fantasy thinking. I felt like I could stop bullets, beat up 20 guys at once like Jackie Chan and prevent 9/11 from happening with my glorious pecs. I tried dunking constantly at that age but couldn't quite get there and it took a toll on my knees. I felt like I was unstoppable. And reality hit me that fateful day I tore my ACL. Sucked the arrogant right out of me. That "other people get injured, not me" way of thinking. God has ways of humbling people and that was his way of doing that to me and I feel that he was giving me a refresher course even though I'm not in prime physical condition like I was then.
  
  
• I'm not 16 Anymore: It's just reality. Even if I get in shape again and drop all the excess weight, it's true. I need to suck it up and adapt an "old man" game when it comes to bball. That means stretching a bunch before I play, covering myself in knee supports and sleeves and taking jumpers and passing mostly. Hero ball, my sweet comfort, must go by the wayside. Let the young boys do all the work and I just park at the three point line. I don't get paid the big bucks to play a child's game and there are no cameras so what am I trying to prove?

So boys and girls, that's where I am right now. As I sit here finishing up typing, stinking of Icy Hot and guzzling down some Ibuprofen, my ego has conceded to the truth. We are all fragile human beings, we are not masters of the universe and we will be humbled from time to time to remind us in case we forget. Basketball, we will keep seeing eachother, but it isn't going to be intense and passionate like old times. I will miss the feeling but, it's for the best.

Better start YouTube'ing a low impact alternative for me to get back into shape. Oooh, this looks intriguing.