295

Well, today was a bellweather day for me.

I went to the gym to lift, which I have been doing pretty regularly again. It was bench day, and I was going to do my typical pyramid down (for the uninitiated, this means you do your warm-up, then jump to a weight you can do a minimal number of reps of (I aim for two) and then work your way down. This allows for maximum tear, which allows for maximum strength increase). Last time I was going to top the pyramid at 255, but ended up throwing up 6 reps at 255 so I broke the pyramid and went up to 275. Today I threw up 7 at 275, so I went up to 295 and still did 3 on my first set. I could break 300 next week (keep reading). My goal was 300+ by April, but I've jumped 70 pounds in less than 5 weeks, so that's a cop-out (or was, keep reading).

I did 9 or so sets, including two on the negative (take 135 lbs, bring it down slow and under control, then throw it up as hard as you can and bring it down as slow as you can again, repeat). 60 lb dumbell flys. Shoulders. Because of all this upper body work, my shoulders were all tight as hell. Then I fell 8 feet off a ladder and wrecked my left shoulder.

Yeah. About that. I went to help a friend move some stuff off of a loft in his garage and I was, as usual, doing the heavy-lifting. I was on the ladder with 80 or so pounds of container, when it felt like the ladder was going to fall so I overcompensated, which caused me to fall. My leg got caught in the ladder, though I almost caught myself twice on the way down. I had all the time in the world-- it was cool. I was thinking "keep your head up" so I put my arm out. Then I thought "with your arm out like that, you'll break your wrist" so I pulled my hand in and left my elbow out. Then I thought "if that box falls on you, you're dead" so I shoved the box away, then I hit the ground, hip and elbow first. At first I had pain in my chest, presumably from the adrenaline. I sat there for a minute, then answered "Are you ok" with "I think so." Moved my arm at the elbow. Checked my hip. Then reached for the table to pull myself up, and almost passed out. After the initial shock, my arm felt all right. I have the full range of motion, with some pain. No visible discoloration. A tiny bit of swelling. In all, it's hard to tell if there were any effects, or I'm just seeing the result of the benching. Most of the pain seems to be muscular, and more neck then shoulder, but it could be broken or dislocated (I doubt it because of the range of motion), or I could have a ligament or cartilage tear. Time to elect that COBRA health coverage...

I called my dad, who knows a bit about sports medicine, and he said I should have it looked at. I talked him into having me have someone look at it if there's still a problem tomorrow. There will be. His most salient point was "don't benchpress 295 anymore." Like that's going to happen anytime soon.

So now I'm almost guaranteed to be out of the gym for 2 weeks or more. Dammit.