Tuesday 6.12.12

I've been off since last Wednesday due to my shoulder.  After numerous doctor visits I was told I have a cervical radiculopathy, which is the clinical description of pain and neurological symptoms resulting from any type of condition that irritates a nerve in the cervical spine (neck).  This causes pain, numbness, and weakness in the neck, shoulders, and arms depending on the type.  I have all of that.

The treatment for this condition ranges from medication and rest to surgery.  For now, they are treating me with meds to see if they can get rid of inflammation to get the pressure off of the nerves.  The next step would be steroids (Prednazone), and then possibly surgery depending on the specific cause and if surgery could help. 

For now they tell me exercise is good and I should do anything that doesn't cause me pain.  So I'll be changing up my routine a lot and doing what I can.  The good news is that I did NOT injure myself working out.  I'm happy about that because good form and full range of motion are things I ensure when I train for the purposes of avoiding injury.

What I did today:

Warm Up:

- 500m Row (slow, just trying to warm up my back muscles)

- 3x5 GHD Sit Ups

- 3x5 GHD Reverse Hypers

- Lat and Shoulder Stetches

Strength Work:

Deadlifts (with a black average band, which adds approximately 100-120 pounds at the top of the lift):

- 135x5

- 225x4

- 315x3

- 405x1

Then

On the Minute for 10:00

- 315x3 (with the black band)

The deadlifts felt pretty good and didn't hurt my arm.  My grip on the right side didn't feel as strong, but strong enough to do what I needed to do here.  I started each rep from a dead stop and lifted each rep as explosively as possible, West Side Barbell Dynamic Effort style.  The addition of the band made the lockout much more challenging.

Conditioning:

For time:

-1 mile Run

-30 Floor Wipers with 135 lbs

Time:  10:04.

I was hoping to go sub 10:00 on this.  I completed my mile in 7:20, which is not super fast but decent for me at my body weight and not having run much in the last month or so.  The thing that most aggravated my arm and shoulder today was the running, oddly enough.  The other movements didn't involve much bending of the arm so they were okay.  It felt good to do something finally. I hate taking time off from working out, especially not by choice due to injury.