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Does this sound like you?
You work out as hard as you can five or six days a week, making sure to include all the good stuff—intervals, squats, pull ups, push ups, and other good-for-you whole body exercises.
You make sure and walk or bike when you can, and if you don’t live in a city, you make a special effort to walk your dog or go for a stroll in the outdoors at least a couple of times a week.
Basically, you’re pretty active.
But what do you do on your off days?
1…2…3.
I still remember that day. The day I did my first real push up. Actually, the day I did my first three real push ups, to be exact.
I was visiting my parents, so I must have still been in college. And though I’ve always acted strong and tough… In reality, I had a pretty weak upper body my entire youth.
How weak?
I didn’t get an excellent on my Presidential Physical Fitness Test in grade school because I couldn’t do a single pull up (my good friend and athletic arch rival Renee did two).
I definitely couldn’t do a push up.
And until about three years ago, my brother called me “spaghetti arms.”
Now, to be fair, I have a build somewhat like my Dad’s—we’re both tall and lanky, with long, stringy arms.
We’ve both always had a hard time getting long sleeved shirts that would cover our entire arms. In fact, my arms are so long my high school basketball coach asked me if they ever drug on the floor (I was not amused at the time).
“My toilet seat is so low. I’m thinking about getting an extension. You know, so my knee won’t ache when I’m getting up.”
This is what I hear from the room next to me, as I’m laying face down on a squishy chair in my chiropractor’s office. The voice is husky, man-like, though obviously coming from a woman.
I hear my chiropractor ask the woman if she got new shoes as an electric current goes through my neck and causes a muscle spasm I can’t control.
“Yep,” she says, in an obviously disgruntled voice. “Velcro ones. I can’t bend over, you know, ’cause I’m so heavy. Once I lose a few pounds, I can get ones with laces.”
She then goes on and on to talk about her various health issues. About how she has a new folding cane, one that can fit in her purse so that if she has to go anywhere, she won’t slip and fall. She talks about the toilet seat again, and I hear my chiropractor, a petite woman in her forties, act interested.
God, I think, as another spasm takes hold of my body. Don’t let that be me.
_______________________
Like it or not, we were given one body to last us a lifetime. We can take care of this body, nurture it, keep it strong and healthy, or we can let it fall apart, so as the years go by we can do less and less with it.
It may be about looks now, but this body of your will be with you when you have children (if you don’t already). And it’ll still be there with you when you turn into a grandparent.
In fact, long past the time when you give a damn about what the opposite sex thinks of you, your body will still be yours.
“Crack.”
That was the sound of my neck one evening.
Now I’ll be the first one to tell you that cracking bones is no abnormal occurance for me. I’m a regular snap-crackle-and-pop machine (it creeps the hell out of my sister).
But this crack… this one wasn’t normal.
The pain started soon after. I lost the ability to turn my head to the right, and shooting knife-like sensations started firing into the back of my neck any time I tried to move it like a normal human neck is supposed to move.
I tried to sleep, hoping the night’s rest would make the pain go away, but I had no such luck. I called up my chiropractor the next morning and she agreed to meet me within a few hours.
Turns out, the knife-like pain in my neck was nothing serious. The chiropractor gave me a very painful massage and a few adjustments, then sent me on my way, telling me to rest, rest, rest!
But the whole episode got me thinking. This weird can’t-move-my-neck experience has actually happened to me once before. I’ve also knocked a rib out of place a couple of times—an incredibly painful experience.
What did all these painful experiences have in common? I’d been training a lot, doing something heart poundingly hard nearly every single day… but each time, had forgotten to take any time to recover.
In short, I was overtraining.
