Back injury

Sometimes you should just know better, that is exactly what I was thinking when I hurt myself. Ok here is my story, just a short recap. I ran a fitness center for 18 years where I preached almost daily the importantace of complete body workouts. Guys would come into the gym and only want to work their upper bodies…

(Don’t laugh ladies) you ladies were just as bad,

you would only want to work your lower bodies. Well this seem like a good idea at first, just work on my problem areas or beach muscles and everything will be alright…WRONG!!!

This is where my story comes in; as I mention a few blogs back I let myself get out of shape and am now making my comeback. I started back at the gym a few months ago on my lunch hour with two of my buddies (co-workers).

The problem with this is I only have around 40 minutes to workout. So I decided to work arms, chest, abs, mostly upper body. I did this mainly due to time, back and legs just take too long to work and I have to admit I just hate to work shoulders. This worked great at first as I was weak as a kitten.

(a very small kitten)

but as the months went on I began to get my strength back. (Hamster power)

It happen on last Wednesday “chest day”

I only work chest one day a week, once was enough this week…Ha-ha. I had a little extra time this day so I decided to go a little heaver than normal, so I started on the free weight incline machine and went up to 405 lb on my last set…no problem. Then I moved on to flat bench dumbbell press, I worked my way up to the 110 lb dumbbells on my last set, I sat on the end of the bench with both dumbbells balanced on my thighs, and then I just lay back with them and start pressing them. For some reason this time when I laid on the bench I landed kind of crocked and had to wiggle a little to get straight on the bench before I started pressing the dumbbells. That’s all it took my back was hurt and I did not know it yet, I finished my set and racked the dumbbells , then I felt a slight strain in my back but not enough to not to finish my workout…and I did.

Well when I got home that night I whined a little to the wife that I hurt my back and kind of flipped flopped around in bed that night but woke up Thursday with only the slightest pain. By the time I got to work the pain was gone. Well until I heard my ex-boss calling my name “tiny…tiny” yea he calls me tiny, it was Mr. Duckworth needing me to help him move his office future around.

So I grab the end of this small desk and he grabbed the other side,

I was thinking it was around thirty pounds…WRONG!! More like 300 hundred as I picked up I felt it my back popped, ouch!!!! But I manned up and moved the table, then was asked to move a big desk…so I did then I limped back to my desk, hurt…very hurt. I survived the rest of the day at work before getting home and taking some pain pills I had left over from my last trip to the doctor. Hmmmm pain pills….goooood.

Well I’ve babied my back all weekend long and it feels much better now.

All this said to get to the point of this story that you must work your entire body to grow up and be strong and healthy. What happens is as you get stronger, the one thing the weights (dumbbells) look for in the body is the weak link. In my case, it was my back that was the weak link. It is a lot like that old saying “a team is only as good as its weak link”. From now on start thinking of your body as a team, and train everything just the same so there will be no more weak links.

In the morning I am starting back at the gym at 5:30am so I can get a hour and half workout in before work and plan on still going three days a week at lunch with my buddies just to work abs and calves. I guess I need to go cook now and get everything packed, 5:30am comes early. I’ll keep you updated on my progress.