Frustration.

I enjoy laying down in bed at the end of a long day, or curling up for a nice post-workout Sunday afternoon nap, but being in injured and laying down for most of the day is driving me crazy.

Brief Recap:

On Thursday after two hard training weeks and a lot of DOMS, my back finally gave out. I couldn't even DL 135 (as opposed to a recent PR of 175). On top of that I couldn't pick up dumbbells from a bench to try upper back work. Walking back to work from the gym hurt, and if I thought that was bad, waking up the next morning was even worse.

I thought taking Thursday,  Friday and Saturday off from activity would be enough rest that I could do a light arm workout on Sunday without straining my back too much, but it became very clear on Saturday afternoon when I got very very sore 20 minutes into Target shopping (after a whole morning of laying on a heating pad, taking Alieve, and resting) that I was actually quite injured.

The pain in my lower back was very low in my lower back, and oscillated between twinges of pain, pressure pain and that "pushing on a bruise" type of pain. It was basically constant, and would only decrease when I was laying down or standing (briefly) in a very hot shower. Simply walking hurt, and as such, after shopping, I spend the rest of the day laying in bed. Frustrated. Angry. And trying to figure out what I did and how to fix it.

My injured life: part a

Today:

Today I feel a bit better. I could stand/walk around in the morning, but I'm not pushing myself. I realize I will probably need a few more days to feel better, to rest and try not to strain the muscles. I'm pretty sure at this point that I pulled/tore one of the muscles in my lower lower back.

However frustrating, something Ryan mentioned today helped a lot. He said that often times (not always) in order to really grow once you've been lifting for a while, its beneficial to do work close to or at your maximum. But in doing this, the chance of getting injured, no matter how small the injury, is almost inevitable. He told me that when he used to do higher rep, lower percentage of max work, he almost never got injured, but he also never saw the gains he does now that he does more lower rep, high 1RM %. This made sense to me. I asked my body to DL at its max two weeks in a row, along with a hard back workout and max squats the following two Sundays. This was simply too much. I probably should have chosen to try to max say the DL the first week and the squats the second week while lightening the other, as they both do some muscle damage to the lower back.

My injured life: part b

It kinda makes sense that I'm now sitting here on a heating pad watching episodes of The Biggest Loser  in bed and being frustrated. If I were to learn from this experience, which I hope and think I will, it will be to be a bit better at planning. Sometimes my mind gets so excited to try to max and I get so pumped up that I start to not listen to my body as much. Maybe I was getting the warning signs, but not really hearing them.

Note to self: Listen to body more. And if head becomes too loud and chanty, tune it out.

This is, of course, easier said than done...but it's worth trying.