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"One Step Back, Two Steps Forward" Monday, September 1, 2008 It's been a tough August. After my first Ultimate Frisbee experience, it felt like I had strained my right adductor muscle, which was making walking a very painful experience. I had to back off cardio activities for a week, but I continued to lift weights according to the Muscle & Fitness Rock Hard Challenge regimen. I just flipped the Biceps-Back day with the Legs-Abs day so that the adductor, which runs along the inner thigh and connects to the hip, had time to heal. I continued to make incremental progress in the amount of weight I was moving during my workouts, but without a strong cardio workout, I felt like I was storing fat, and I could see the scale increase by several pounds over the week. The pain from the adductor strain was so intense I decided to let a doctor take look. She said there was no tearing of the muscle and there was no hernia, but she did prescribe 800 mg of Motrin three times a day to reduce inflammation. I was grateful and it took care of the pain within two days. Last Thursday, during a morning basketball game, I stepped on someone's foot under the basket and rolled my right ankle pretty good. I tried to play through it, but I could feel the injured tendons and ligaments telling me that swelling would soon occur and that I had to drop out of the game. Again, my cardio activities had to take a back seat while my ankle healed. I popped the Motrin to help reduce the swelling in my ankle as well, but I have stayed off of it since the injury. The challenge has been to reduce the number of calories so that I don't gain too much weight while continuing the weight lifting program I started two months ago. I need to be careful not to return to basketball before the ankle is fully healed. I know the basketball crew will be at it tomorrow, on our first day of school for students, and I would like to get in on that session to start the school year off strong. Since the ankle injury, I have picked up four pounds, but I was up as much as seven pounds during the course of August. I did try to replace basketball with some stationary bike riding, which would reduce the impact on the ankle. I will be starting the third month of the Muscle & Fitness Rock Hard challenge over the month of September. Then I submit my "after" picture to them to judge progress in overall muscle development, fat loss, and improvement in amount of weights that I can lift in a session. Progress in the last area is evident, and the mirror shows some increase in muscle mass, especially in my biceps, which normally stay the same over time. The area I knew would be the greatest challenge is abdominal fat loss, of which I can see very little improvement. I attribute my lack of progress in this area due to the fact that I have not followed the diet proscribed in the magazine. My carb intake, and calorie intake for that matter, would have to be severely curtailed to have an impact on fat reduction. I sometimes experience light-headedness if I don't eat enough, so I have to keep up calories throughout the day while not taking in too many depending on activity level. It's time to enjoy the beautiful Labor Day weather. Students start tomorrow, so I have decided to go inner tubing on the Potomac with my kids. Should be fun! Stay healthy, George |
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