Born Again Gym Rat: Your Body Knows When You're Slacking

Friday, September 25, 2015

Your Body Knows When You're Slacking

I wasn't really apprehensive about today's procedure on my left eye until the technician took preliminary IOP (intra ocular pressure) readings. 14/28. What? The right eye registered 28? It's the eye that's already been treated! That's the highest reading I can remember for my eyes, and that was before my sight started to degrade. The doc assures me that pressure fluctuations are normal. When she retakes the pressure, my left reads 22, up 8 points in a matter of minutes. After the procedure, it reads 18. She tells me that some glaucoma patients have a different type of glaucoma because their sight deteriorates even though they have normal or very low pressure. She says it's due to restricted blood flow damaging the optic nerve. I've never heard of this before, but she's a specialist. Now I'm even more worried.

The SLT procedure itself only took a few minutes, but I can always feel some vague pain in my eye when she's firing the laser. She also had to switch lenses halfway through because my left eye appears to have a narrower angle, making access to the trabecular meshwork more difficult. I go back for a pressure check in 6 weeks. My eye feels a little sore but I've already decided to go to the gym. I don't get there until well past noon. There's only half a dozen people in it, but that's normal for a Friday. No one wants to go work out on a beautiful sunny Friday afternoon.

from epainassist.com

Online, I discovered epainassist.com and find information on Substernal Chest Pain, and this fits my symptoms better. Uh oh. This could actually be serious. Now I really have to have it checked out. Bummer. The web site lists a slew of serious ailments from cardio problems to anxiety attacks. It could be caused by costochondritis, or an aortic dissection. Oh jeeze. I can rule out cardio stuff just from the subsequent list they provide: "Some of the associated symptoms which can determine that the chest pain is less likely due to a cardiac cause are:

Presence of a sour taste in the mouth or a sensation of regurgitation where that the swallowed food reenters the mouth
Individual having problems with swallowing
If the pain changes in character with changing positions, be it better or worse
Worsening Substernal Chest Pain with breathing or coughing
Presence of chest tenderness with deep palpation
Individual having symptoms of heartburn with a burning sensation behind the breastbone"

Yes, there's been a bit of reflux, and some heartburn last night. Changing positions definitely changes the discomfort. And if I press, it definitely hurts. Okay, this is a major bummer. But it's not like it's my liver, right?

30 minutes on the cross-trainer is followed by push ups and planks. No pull ups today until those sore tendons, ligaments and/or muscles heal up. Because I normally pre-exhaust myself doing pull ups, I'm curious to see how many regular push ups I can crank out for my first set. It turns out to be quite a lot. One hundred to be exact. I do admit that I had to pause a moment at rep 90, slow down, and pause again at rep 95 before finishing. I wonder if I'll be sore. I'm pretty happy now.

I feel my sore abs when I drop down for planks: 30 seconds elbow; 30 seconds straight arm, 30 seconds elbow, finish last 30 seconds straight arm. The next set of push ups are standard Diamond push ups. 30 is all I can do without worrying too much about the click on my left elbow. I try doing straight arm and leg Bird Dog. The support arm is shaking like crazy. After 30 seconds, I have to drop down to elbow and knee Bird Dog. Another 30 seconds, and I switch sides none too gracefully. My last set of push ups are 30 Dand (or Hindu) push ups. Some web sites mistakenly call them Dive Bomber Push Ups, but those are harder on the shoulders. This isn't really hard, but I do them slowly to experience the upper back stretch and Downward Dog position for each rep.

My last set of planks is hilarious. I start off with Elbow Side Planks for 30 seconds, then try lifting the top leg upward. Okay, now straighten the supporting arm. Soooo hard to stay balanced! Now switch sides, starting with Elbow Side Plank again. While I'm focused on not falling on my face, a bunch of guys show up on the Mat to toss medicine balls at each other. I'm not sure if they're HS seniors because while they're all out of shape, one of them sports a full beard. My cue to head back to the cardio platform for 30 minutes on the elliptical!

A quick lower back stretch and then I'm done. I need to pick up some groceries and get home before the school bus arrives. I'm actually really surprised when the gym scale reads 109.0 lbs even. I'm not even trying to lose weight at this point so I've been eating whatever. Whatever probably just happens to be fairly healthy, i.e., I had a cup of plain Greek yogurt with a tsp of molasses in it for breakfast. Of course, I was absolutely starving by the time I got to the gym, but I only drank half my water bottle. I'm not sure how long to wait until I attempt pull ups again. I guess I'll play it by ear. But my body knows when I'm slacking.

Friday Cardio and Core Workout
(6.29 miles total)