This week, the Mr and I have been pulling back a bit on the heavy lifting. We've been lifting heavier (for us) for about 2 1/2 months and have had mixed results with it. For as long as I have this scar tissue problem in my arm, lifting heavy isn't going to be an upper body option for me. When you actually drop a weight because you don't have grip strength and can't support the weight in your hand, that's just dangerous. I got to the point I was doing 25 lbs per hand for bicep curls up from 20 and up to 35 lbs for stuff like rows or pullovers on the floor, up from 25 lbs. The problem with that was doing a pullover with a 35 lb weight felt weird and I couldn't adjust my lower back properly before I tweaked it. I tried rolling, the Mr massaged the area, stretches and nothing helped. I couldn't even turn an inch or two much less lay on that side without a heating pad on and it was my sleeping side. It took about 10 days to heal and the thing that put it over the top to heal was lowering my weights by 5-10 lbs.
While I saw some muscle gains in the beginning, I haven't been noticing enough on that front the past month to justify the pros over the cons. My body needs to recover from the fall I took in May and I'm going to have to break down and see the chiro for a few rounds of laser zaps to aid in breakdown since it's not doing so on its own. We've both also felt so broken consistently the past month and I think we're overtraining which can set you back even further. We did a strength workout the other night and I didn't lift more than 20 lbs per hand and honestly, at times my arms didn't care for that either but I know that is the max amount I can control right now. It still gave me a helluva workout and I was so sore the next morning we skipped the walk. So I know I can still get good strength workouts in even if I'm not working on upping my weights. For so long, I've been of the mindset to just push through pain or not be "wimpy" but there ain't nothing pretty about a weight to the face when you're trying to do a chest fly and lose your grip.
I know I will get there one day but I need to let my body do the healing it needs right now and unfortunately, scar tissue is slow to break up and let go of those tendons. I hopefully have many years ahead of me to lift heavier and I'm proving nothing to anyone by trying to push at a level my body physically can't handle right now. Doesn't make it any less frustrating though. :-\
What's your body currently telling you?
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I can already tell that pulling back a little is helping. My back muscles have been increasingly sore for weeks and it is finally starting to let up now that I'm not lugging the heavier dumbbells. I think in the near future I will add them back in but not necessarily every workout. Have to vary it more.
ReplyDeleteMy body is telling me to go back to bed. This first week of school has been tough.
ReplyDeleteMy body is telling me to move more and to really get back to my water intake. I have put off swimming the past couple of weeks because of some health stuff on recommendation from the doc, but I'm hoping to get back to that starting next week. I don't like the sluggishness and that is in part due to my also not drinking my water nearly enough. I don't drink anything else, so I have no doubt I'm dehydrated which just makes me sleepy. So I really need to focus on that. Going to the bathroom more often will be my sign of improvement. LOL
ReplyDelete