On my run the previous evening, I’d experienced some sharp pain in the muscles wrapping from the rib cage around the right side of my back. It only hurt when I breathed deeply, which was every step of the workout, but other than being an annoyance, I saw no reason to let it interfere with the workout. Later that evening when Holly asked me to take a walk with her, it returned with a vengeance. She could hear my labored breathing in the darkness of the street and suggested we turn around. “No big deal. If I hold my breath, I’ll be okay,” I said. We kept walking for 45 minutes, but it was unpleasant.
I felt it throughout the next day, but went to the Metropark to do the Survival Workout hoping it would loosen up after a couple of push-ups. I stopped in the Ranger Office before heading to do the workout to report what I’d found two nights earlier. I could tell from my explanation to the three Rangers in the office, they didn’t really know where I meant and none of them seemed interested enough to ask me to take them there. I never see these guys on the trails…they’re security folks who drive in cars…and I don’t think they know the park except from that car. I decided I’d check out the site I’d found in a couple of days to see if they’d done anything with the information.
I did some stretches for my back once out of the car and then managed 70 push-ups for my first set without a hitch. Maybe I’d be okay after all.
And I was until I tried my dips. It was in the down position that the pain seared and I stopped. At this point, it would have made tremendous sense to head back to the car and give it a rest...and in most aspects of living I have good sense, but somehow when it comes to my own exercise...it’s nowhere to be found. I moved down the trail to my rock lifting station and did a set of rows for the back before climbing to the top of the ridge to determine if the shelter I’d seen two nights before was still in use. It was and so I climbed back down to the trail to resume the workout, but when I hit the next station and tried to do a lift and the pain sucked the breath from my lungs, I knew it was time to stop.
I returned to the car at a slow walking pace and knew it would be a few days before I’d be doing the Survival Workout again. The thing that always concerns me about these kinds of injuries is I have no idea what I did to cause it and therefore don’t know what to do to prevent it from happening again. I hate to just blame it on age and I haven’t changes anything in my routine to explain it...but for sure it’s there. I’d like to get on the bike over the next few days before winter sets in...and that may be all I can do anyway.
Survival Workout duration: 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100 to 150 bpm.Calories burned during workout: 300.
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