So I haven’t talked about my PT program since before my surgery in February and that’s mostly because once my legs recovered my routine was pretty basic and boring. Tuesdays and Thursdays I take a Body Sculpting class which is basically light weights, high reps to the point of exhaustion. Mon/Wed/Fri was some sort of aerobics, crosstrainer, walking, stationary bike, trying to run a bit here and there but not much because 1) I hate running with a passion only a city kid can fully understand. 2) Although the muscles in my legs have fully recovered and are in great shape, my ankles, knees, and back scream at me once I go over a quarter mile. and 3) My brain freaks out when I get to that point where I have to start panting uncontrollably to get oxygen saturation.

Recently, mostly because I PT test again next month, I’ve started running again and all of that has become an issue as well as a bitchin’ case of tennis elbow. The elbow is not a biggie; I can still rattle off 40-50 pushups/minute without breathing too hard (I blame the 24 years of previous smoking on that). My lower back has become worse and worse though. Started in Body Sculpting with dead lifts (only 20 pounds, don’t start, my wife and doctors have already chewed my ass) and has progressively gotten worse.

For years I didn’t touch weights because my very first martial arts teacher back when I was 10 sneered at body builders. His point of view was that they were all muscle heads with no flexibility and no really endurance. I used to think the same thing until I did some more reading. So I didn’t even notice when I started doing less stretching, less leg lifts, less Tai Chi, less of the things I used to do for “maintenance” most of my life. My muscles were growing again. I was putting mass in the places I needed them and not losing much at all, but my waist wasn’t expanding but…it wasn’t shrinking either.

This morning I pulled out a Tae Bo DVD (any comment against Billy Blanks will be immediately deleted, his videos literally saved my career in the 90s when I was in a PT deathspin) and went through it and OMFG was I stiff! I could barely kick at thigh level much less waist level and my lower back felt like it had a hard shell shattered off of it as I started to breath and move more naturally than I have in months.

I got muscle bound. I made the mistake that I’ve known about for 34 years. I let growing muscles become more important than taking care of them.

Teh Stoopid…dat’s me.