As of yesterday, I have a membership in the Redford weight & fitness room. I am just getting over a torn muscle in my lower back (still sensitive, but LOADS better, thanks for asking) caused by picking up a tool box that I was able to handle without regret this past summer. In fact, I’ve taken some tools out of it since then. It was lighter a couple weeks ago than it was last summer.

Enough is enough … I’m overweight and under strong.

Last year, I spent a week in Aruba and was too embarrassed to put my pasty self in a pair of swim trunks. I pretended to work on the computer while Avis took in the sun and surf with a woman friend.  A whole week there and I never even took off my shirt except to take a shower. What a missed opportunity! In March, I’m going back for 2 weeks (combination of work / play) and I don’t want to reprise that humiliation.

My old HS chums will recall that I was quite skinny and way stronger than my size would have suggested (anybody unclear on this ask Russell (aka “Mr. Clean”) Sands … btw — where IS he? Did he and Janie  tie the knot or go their separate ways? I still remember them dancing to Innagaddadavida (Iron Butterfly) at a sock hop and ALL of us forming a circle to watch the performance. Good times!)

At any rate, I carried Russ up the pegboard in the gym one afternoon while my arms were fully extended (5 pegs apart) and my back was to the wall. He had jumped up and grabbed my legs to pull me down. I had hold of both pegs at the moment and absorbed the shock. Then, grinning at each other, I proceeded to take him up, across and down with me. (ISTR that the board was 6 pegs wide, but my arms would only span 5 pegs.)

He said that he was impressed because he couldn’t get up it facing it, one peg apart. That’s when he stopped calling me "Squirrel". (yea!)

I want that back.

If I can’t have all of it back, I want as much of it as I can get. I’m tired of minor injuries pushing me to the sidelines for weeks and months at a time; I had just begun a program of walking when this back (re)injury nailed me – and set me back 2+ weeks.

Phooey.

Tomorrow morning.

Since there is no "pro" on hand to guide my use of the equipment, I’ve spent as much time as I could today researching useful exercises and how to do them properly. I see that a lot of bench exercises that would be unsafe using a bar (overhead lifts) can also be done using dumbbells. That’s a plus. That means that there is no bar to come crashing down if I have a melt-down or lockup.

I used to be able to lift (from the waist) & throw (forward & up) ~350# when I was working at G&L Pallet yard right after HS. The boss (Eugene Putsche) saw me do it and had the pallet taken down to the lumber yard and paid to have it weighed because he just had to know.

I’d be happy to clear 150-200# sometime in the next year. But, if more comes ))

I’ll keep you posted on the results.

BTW: as of today, I weigh 210 (graduated HS @ 135). I used the BP machine at Meijers yesterday. It didn’t give me consistent numbers but, out of 8 tries, all 8 indicated slight to moderately high for either the systolic or the diastolic pressure (but never both at once). My relaxed pulse was in the high 70’s / high 80’s. I can recall that, when I was trying to enlist in the Navy (in the months following HS), my pulse would race up to 110 or so at the enlistment center … but would be dead on 60 bpm at home.

I’m not interested in bulking up … the usual goal when weight training. I’d much rather slim down and strengthen up … like before.

I’m tired of hiding out when I could be at the beach. Wearing a t-shirt is NOT the answer.

1 Timothy 4:8 For bodily training is beneficial for a little; but godly devotion is beneficial for all things, as it holds promise of the life now and that which is to come.

This is sometimes used to deride physical training … as if it was actually a bad thing. But this is NOT what Paul is saying. Paul here points out the relative value of physical training vs spiritual training but he doesn’t say that it is a bad thing. Indeed, he points out that it is actually a beneficial thing.

Paul lived in a world where the sedentary lives and high calorie counts we “enjoy” (they are actually at the root of many, if not most, of our health ills) were all but unheard of.

I’m not training for ‘the games’ or to be in any sense competitive, but to stay alive and to be effective in my ministry. This past two weeks I’ve twice had to cancel studies with 2 individuals due to this back injury. That injury was caused by physical limitations and I intend to correct that so that, if possible, it never happens again.

– Bill