Depending on how many of my posts you have read, you may not be aware of how preachy I am. I once had an ebook for sale here that covered a lot of my beliefs on Funtional Fitness and fitness in general. I will hopefully someday soon have an actual book for sale that has those thoughts in it as well. I do realize, though, that many of you spend your time accessing the resources such as the workouts and video demonstrations of exercises and pay little or no attention to my ramblings. Good for you.
The rest of you (make sure you are careful not to listen to closely to me) are well aware that I preach…ah er…talk about taking things slow and listening to your body when it comes to exercising.
Guess what I did the other day? Yep, I totally ignored those rules and paid the price. I had taken some time off exercising (love vacations) and just started getting back into working out. I was only doing a workout out of K-Fit. It is not like I was going all crazy with K-Challenge or K-Element or anything. I was not going too fast. I did my Air Squats slowly.
It is like when I cut my finger off – being safe on 4 out of 5 safety issues is not good enough. i.e. wearing eye and ear protection and using a push stick, but placing your hand behind a raised blade still equates to being called 9 and a half. This is exactly what I did working out. I was being all careful, except I was too lazy to reduce my adjustable kettlebell down from its 40 pound weight to a more realistic one for the amount of Kettlebell Clean & Presses I was doing.
The result – I tweeked my shoulder. Fortunately, I still have a large range of motion without pain or discomfort and can still do most exercises. Oddly enough I can even do more Cleans and Presses, but Pull-ups, Chin-ups, etc are totally out. I now have to baby my shoulder for a few weeks and work around it. I can still whip out the workouts, but I am limited.
Why?
Because I didn’t listen to all the rules. I’m 37 years old, so I know well by now that I can be a hypocrite among many other things, so this is no surprise. But I am also old enough now to where I should be better than that!
Be consistent. Be safe
Definitely Pete,
In Mozambique I had a primitive set of barbells built out of paint pails, concrete, and 3/4 plumbing tubing. Just two gradations: half a bucket, and a full bucket, on each side . So, after about a month of getting back in shape, I was feeling good and decided to try an upright row with the lesser barbell. It was too much weight, and I tweaked my left shoulder. Thus, I violated my rule about never doing heavy weights when getting back in shape or trying a new exercise. I’ve had a nagging shoulder injury since then, but it’s all but gone now.
P.S., I’m still trying to figure out how you cut your ring finger without damaging the pinky too.
5 years later and I still haven’t figured out how I kept the pinky! Mozambique? Now that sounds a lot more exciting that West Michigan!! I love the homemade equipment you had – a man of my own heart 🙂
Yah, I grew up around table saws–seems like you got lucky there wasn’t more damage.
Mozambique is where I do my fieldwork. When I’m here, I miss there. When I’m there, I miss here. Coming back to a Upper Midwestern winter last year after a seven-year absence was magical, but this year’s winter stinks–although it’s been great for BFR.
And the homemade weights were fun, but it sure is nice to have graduated weights again! I recently picked up a set of rubber hex dumbbells for cheap from a wholesaler. Doing a wide range of lighter weight exercises is really helping my left shoulder get strong again.
Plan on making a slosh tube in a few weeks when it gets warmer–no room for it inside.
Enjoying your website …
Thanks. Wait til you get your Slosh Tube. You will never go back!
I’m now “enjoying” 6-8 (more) weeks off from running because I made some pretty bad decisions about how and when to run. Funny too, because just a week prior I remarked in a post that I felt strong, up for anything, and solid with my new skills. Then bam… just like that… it all ended when I should’ve taken it easy that one particular day. Lesson learned (again, for the last time.)
Yes I’ll NEVER do that again! mmhmmm
Great post Pete! We can all learn from your example, but odds are we’ll all do the same dumb stuff. Hope not, but you know. 🙂
Totally. Just two weeks ago I pushed myself far too hard, especially considering how little sleep I had been getting. The result – injury then illness related to the injury. Two weeks totally off, I just ran yesterday for the first time since then.
Part of pushing yourself is sometimes going beyond your boundaries. The goal is to be smart enough that you don’t result in injuring yourself when you do so.
Yeah, such an easy line to tow, eh? 🙂
So easy that I also developed tennis elbow in my right arm! *sigh*