It was a weird weekend workout wise. I know I was going to do Abs before gym but I didn’t want to give in to my lazy side and decided to do P90X3 CVX instead. CVX stands for Cardio Vascular Extreme and it was a pretty tough workout, not because of the moves that you are performing but rather for the fact that you are doing it with a weigh in your hands. I started with 12lbs, quickly moved to 10 after about 8 minutes and by the end I admit I dropped the weight a couple of times. Now I am not a proponent of this kind of workout, I think it’s very hard on the shoulders and takes a great deal of care to get it right. For most people, I think it’s best not to have a weight at the end of your arms where it can swing with a huge multiplicative factor while jumping and running. That said, the workout was pretty tiring, it was definitely a good amount of activity and although I won’t be doing it again, it was OK.
Saturday I decided to stay with my non-lazy approach and up my Oly weights to 135 on the barbell and 185 on the bench. The proposal was as follows:
5×5 Deadlift
5×10 Bench
5×5 Hang Clean
5×5 Power Clean
5×10 Shrugs
5×5 Squats
This is pretty much what I was doing last summer without the bench obviously because I was up in the garage. I was quickly reminded that I am still a way from where I wish I was as I struggled with the Hang Cleans and only managed to do 2 sets of the Power Cleans. I finished the bench and shrugs but did zero squats even though the deadlifts were not as bad as I had imagined they would be. What amazed me was that after doing some of the hang cleans I suddenly realized that the pain in my shoulder was gone. I didn’t know if I was just being optimistic, maybe saturated with adrenaline or what so I ignored it. About an hour after the workout I had a very strange pain in my left shoulder, which has not been too bad lately but also the same strange pain in my right. However, the mobility in my right shoulder was completely fixed. I can reach behind my back and scratch my shoulderblade without any pain for the first time in about 6 months. Since I spent quite a few hours in pain at the physio while he tried to fix it without success you can imagine my surprise and happiness when the next morning the mobility and pain free situation continued. I slowly started to recognize the pain that I was feeling in both shoulders, it was the same pain I had way back when I endured separations during my rugby playing days. I am guessing that somehow my shoulders have been out of alignment for a while and doing the heavy lifting with the barbell somehow relocated them. I took Sunday off in order to rest the joints, took some advil but I plan to get back to the barbell tonight and try to complete more of the program than I did on Saturday.
The description of the shoulder pain I was feeling was intense pain at the point of the shoulder, when I had my arms in dip position, in other words the same position you are in if you go to get your wallet out of your back pocket or when you go to pull up the back of your pants with both hands. I literally couldn’t put my hand flat against my lower back at the start it was so bad. Now though, there is still a little pain, but probably only 15% of what was there before, I am not sure if that is just inflammation due to the relocation or if it will go away at all but I have my fingers crossed.