In January I returned to the gym after a long hiatus and while I was doing shoulder presses felt my neck crack a little bit. My life was not yet ready for an insertion of regular gym time so I didn't go much after that. Meanwhile my neck developed a tendency to make noises while moving, and when I go to bed, especially when I try to get out of bed, there is neck and shoulder pain that's sometimes bad enough that I have to find careful ways to roll where I want to go. It feels like a pinched nerve causing my right shoulder to freak out.
I wondered if this indicated any exacerbation of a possible injury sustained while snowboarding a decade ago. I still remember looking in a daze across the mountainside after it had reared up and hit me in the back of the head, to see how my skis and other gear had arranged themselves into a yard sale. But last week's X-ray indicated that the "bones are normally mineralized. There is straightening of the normal cervical lordosis. No evidence of subluxation or fracture. Disc space narrowing and marginal osteophytosis is present at multiple levels." In other words, normal shit for a man my age. But today I fancied my upper arms feeling as though circulation was slightly cut off, and my fingers seem weaker and less agile than usual. Am I imagining a quick trip to an arthritic paralysis? Probably. Imagining, I mean.
I really want to go back to the gym. Weight training is a classic means of staying strong. Last weekend demonstrated some of the benefit of staying strong. But, on a day by day basis, I cannot make time. Now that's the problem? Well, with the Jeep becalmed by a broken clutch, I've decided I need a backup vehicle, and so if I have a free lunch hour I try and do something about that. Or go to the bank (lots of financial whatever going on). There are work meetings sometimes. Sometimes I come in late and leave early and that doesn't really allow for a mid-day break. Et cetera. Excuses abound.
I see my mid-section soften and feel my legs weaken and reflect that it's in his late fifties that the typical healthy male finally feels the burden of time. But, well, but OH FOR GOD'S SAKE QUIT WHINING.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
8 comments:
Yeah. Quit whining. Yer just a pup.
Seriously, the muscle loss thing is demoralizing if you've spent your entire adult life in at least a semblance of fitness. I finally bought some dumbbells, and do pushups and lots of walking--all that sort of covers it, and the time investment is mainly for the walking--maybe an hour to an hour and a half a day. I don't really want to go the Jack LaLane route and pull tugboats from Alcatraz to the city or whatever.
Where do I get that hour a day? Simple: I don't do yardwork. And during my walks, I get to look at other people's pretty yards.
^^^^^ What he said.
You carve out time for anything you find to be Important Enough. When it becomes Important Enough to you, you'll make the time by not doing something that is suddenly (l)ess (i)mportant.
I do my hour in the gym most weekday mornings. I used to also walk the mutts twice a day. Then I stopped doing that because I Didn't Have Time. I'm making the time to put the walkies back into my day, however. A 20 minute stint during the work day (instead of sitting around doing Facebook or blogs, f'rex), and then the 20 or so minutes in the evening by NOT working 10-13 hour days but only 9 hour days instead. And not sitting in front of the computer or the tv instead of walking the dogs.
Oh! Get you some dogs!
Yes, what Roy and N said!
So, get a pull up bar for a doorway, find some stairs to climb and start doing pushups. That's all you need. Not having time for the gym is no excuse.
On a kinder note, I have shoulder impingement from years of an imperfect freestyle, which puts a kink in my swimming such that I work up to about a mile then have to cut back; a knee that knocks intermittently on walks; and an ankle that is healing from a bad sprain on a geologic time schedule. I know how you feel. I had to stop running for exercise in 1985. I'd give almost anything to have that back.
geologic time schedule
Ain't it the truth. Like, getting a cold. You catch something in October, and around the end of November, you start suspecting that maybe you finally shook it off.
Yep. I make time for the gym about 3x per week. Might nudge that up a bit now that there's more daylight. Haven't been writing as much and don't care. It doesn't feel as important as gymming and socializing at the mo. Hope your neck feels better ASAP. The one useful thing I got from my chiro years back was shrug. Yes. Shrug backwards for a set of 5 then frontwards. Do it often. I'll never be 100% but I'm working on having less pain.
That's no lie about the colds, Roy. I just had one of those. I swear at times it felt like I had always had it, and vague memories of a time without it were just hopeful daydreams.
Post a Comment