I truly have the best support network anyone could want. I was genuinely surprised and humbled by the amount of public and private communications directed my way regarding my back incident and the potential ramifications should I continue forward.

Sincerely, as always, thank you.

0608

The night before I had repeated the same conversation with several of the ladies in my life. “If I do nothing then I’m guaranteeing my back will remain tight and my recovery time will be longer.” “Yes, there is the potential to injure it but if I don’t test it carefully then I won’t know.” “No, I’m not being stubborn. I’m simply telling you that I don’t trust physicians. You realize they call their business a practice. Do I really want to be someone they practice on? It doesn’t make sense.” “Of course I’ll stretch. It’s the only way I will recover.”

That morning the most special lady in my life had decided to make her grand return to the universe of fitness by going with me to the gym. Personally, I think she may have been half motivated to be there in case I did further injure myself and needed an emergency ride to the local medcenter.

As fate would have it, that morning was my Back & Biceps workout. Granted, it could’ve been any workout – they all involve the back. After a refreshing warmup I felt loose and limber. Cautiously I took a lighter starting weight than usual, but maintained the same work set weight and max rep weight.

0615

Yeah, pullups were definitely off limits. I did the first set, and a few on the second, but my lower back was giving me the warning signals. It was telling me that if I continued on with this, it would just tear itself apart. I’d learned to listen to my body, when I was willing to listen at all, and I switched to much lighter weight lat pulldowns. It was enough to work the muscle but not threaten it.

0710

Done. It was a 56 minute workout, one of the longer ones on the Bodybeast program. After some additional back stretches beyond the regular and Insanity stretches I did after every workout, I felt great. Hopefully my injury recovery would be much faster than expected. I was pleased with myself. I had dreaded being out of action, not being able to finish this program, not being able to lead by example.

Instead, I got to Beast Up, as trainer Sagi would say.