Last Monday, I started developing a mildly runny nose, which led to a little throat irritation. I was feeling less than a 100%, so I decided to skip the Cardio Kickboxing class. That night, I took some cold medicine and went to bed. When I woke up the next morning, I felt exhausted. I lay in bed for a while, waiting to see the feeling would pass. It didn't, so I took the day off from work and went back to sleep. I finally woke up again after 11:00 AM. I felt better, but not great. I took it easy the rest of the day. I was feeling more like my usual self by bedtime. When I woke up the next morning, the symptoms I was having were pretty much gone.
Around the end of November, I was at the gym, doing some bench presses. One lift went awry and felt pain in my left elbow. I was able complete the move and rack the bar, but the area was incredibly sore afterwards. I soon discovered that direct pressing movements were going to be out of my workouts for a while. So, I had to remove exercises like military presses, tricep pushdowns, pushups and flat bench presses from my routine. Fortunately, movements like flies and angled presses were unaffected by the injury. I was able to work around the injury and continue my workouts.
As time went on and my elbow felt better, I reintroduced some of the pressing movements, using small amounts of weight. I gradually increased the weight, taking care to stop when I felt pain. Last week, my bench press was approaching normal levels for the first time since the original injury. As I locked out, I heard a kind of popping noise and I thought, “Oh crap! I've really done it now!” To my surprise, my arm felt great. I’d expected pain, but I felt relief instead. I finished the set and did a couple more, adding weight as a test. Everything was fine. What I think happened was what I thought to be an elbow strain was probably a dislocation, which popped back into place during the exercise movement.
In both instances, illness or injury, the discomfort was manageable and the recovery fairly quick. I’m even more of a believer now.
My best moment of inspiration for the week came from my four year old grandson. He was looking at pictures on my phone and came across a recent “before and current” comparison photos. He pointed to the image on “current” side and said, “Pop-Pop, that’s you.” He pointed to the “before” image and looks at me with a confused look. He asked, “Who’s this other Pop-Pop?”
Reps and steps!
