Phase two and a road block

Well its been a pretty interesting couple of months…

Trying some new exercises, playing around with my diet and seeing what works and what doesn’t. I’ve been loosely monitoring my body stats over the past couple of months and its been interesting to see my body hydration and how it fluctuates. Its hard to not get to wound up in numbers and percentages when your trying to achieve a certain goal, whether its adding mass or loosing body fat. I’ve even gone so far as to remove scales etc from anywhere that I use on a daily basis, instead they stay in a cupboard and only come out once a week.

So thing are going well, stats where looking promising…well going the right way at least, which is always a good sign. Then, guess who pushes it that little step to far? Yep, that’s right, yours truly…

Just an ordinary morning like the rest, I’d got up at 7:00am, sorted the kids out and got them off to school. I got down the gym for around 8:45am and feeling up for a hard workout…by this time the No-Xplode was doing its thing and I was ready for tearing it up.

Warmed up, and hit the smith machine…

No just rewinding quickly, I’ve had a semi-weak lower back for sometime after numerous skating injuries and a rather lovely mountain bike prang a few years back…

So, back to the present you’d think I’d know better and concentrate on building strength in the lumber region. Nope…being the dumb fuck I can be, I fell fowl to the most common reason for injury in the gym, basically not thinking. It wasn’t ‘ego’, I don’t believe that belongs in the gym, let alone in everyday life and I try to rid myself of it on a daily basis. I was feeling strong, I had been working on my core more in the past couple of months than anything else…so just wanted to see what my one-rep max could be on dead lifts.

…at this point anyone who trains with weights regularly is now going are you fucking mad, one-rep max with a trick back, you dumb ass.

You know what? you all absolutely right, never have I been more annoyed with myself than today. I built up slowly and got to 120kgs (264lbs) easily without any twinges and tweaks, so added another 10kgs (22lbs) and again all felt good…a little pressure in the hips but nothing that got alarm bells ringing. So here I was 130kgs (286lbs) on the bar lifted with minimal problems, not at all easy, but no immediate alarming signs of potential failure. At this point I was confident I could add another 10-15kgs and be at my max.

I added 5kgs to the bar, got myself in position and started to lift…felt a slight burning in my left hip, but instead of stopping which I should of done I lifted through to straighten out. It was at three quarters of the way through the movement I know I’d made a mistake push this. Finished the movement and lowered the bar, and immediately hit the treadmill to try and walk off any start of stiffness…this wasn’t going to help.

So for the next 24 – 48hrs it’ll be hot and cold packs…and making plans for strengthening the lumber area. Your only as good as the weakest part of your body, and today I know I could have lifted heavier but the lower back wouldn’t have none of it.

Moral of the story, no matter how amped you feel when hitting the weights…keep your head on your shoulders and lift with your brain as well as your muscles…