Body Worry : A Painful Time to Talk About Exercise

Injuries are on my mind a lot right now. My right shoulder is having a hard time taking the amount and intensity of stress my workouts inflict on it. Several months ago I tore my rotator-cuff muscle, one of the three muscles that hold the ball and socket of the shoulder joint in place. As that tear healed, scar tissue formed.

As I continued to work out, scar tissue rubbed against bone--especially during exercise movements that required me to raise my arms over my head--causing more swelling, which eventually affected my shoulder tendons.

My back injury is much more painful, however. I hurt it on my last day in England, during my last workout with my hunk coach, David Prowse. I had insisted on trying a far heavier dead lift than I have ever attempted--150 pounds.

A dead lift is really a leg movement when it’s done correctly. You squat down, grasp a bar, keep your arms and back absolutely straight and stand up. Because your arms are simply holding the bar, the pressure is on your legs.

Do it right, and your legs and your back eventually get stronger. Do it wrong--use your arms to lift the weight or try to shift the weight away from a hurting shoulder, for instance--and you get hurt.

I did it wrong.

I’m giving you all these details because injuries have suddenly jeopardized my year at the very time I had wanted to push myself the hardest. The shoulder injury has nearly stopped my upper body work many times. I have been unable to find a way to work around it, to work muscles from different angles of attack.

My back injury has halted all gym work for the time being. Though it gives me the most discomfort, it will heal faster than my shoulder--within three to four weeks--if I leave it alone. I don’t know what will happen next with my shoulder.

Some doctors have said I should give up lifting, but I am not going to listen to them yet. My exercise program, both aerobically and strengthwise, has given me more energy than I’ve had in 20 years. And I can just begin to see the faintest ripple of new muscle on my body--if I strain enough to herniate.

To me, finding a new muscle, however small, is like a prospector uncovering the first specks of gold dust in his pan after years of dreaming. That’s not the time to quit. If I have to, I’ll just build up my left arm and become a lopsided hunk.

My back injury, incidentally, is being treated with special exercises that may help you if your back doesn’t feel right some days. Many studies show that about 80% of us with back problems suffer unnecessarily. Most of these problems are related to lack of proper exercise, poor posture, obesity or injury caused by improper movement.

Christopher Scott, the exercise physiologist on my Body Worry committee, says that back pain is often caused by muscle inadequacies. “As we become inactive, our abdominal muscles become weaker, and our hamstrings, the muscles in the back of the thighs, become tighter,” Chris says. “A tight hamstring tilts the hips and causes stress on the lower back, the most common area of back pain.”

If your back pain is caused by inactivity, the following two exercises will help you. They are certainly helping my injury. Do them carefully and slowly.

Stomach crunches. Lie on the floor with legs resting on a chair, your knees bent at a right angle.

Cross your hands on your chest. Do not put them behind your head. (You can hurt your neck that way.) Try to sit up, counting, “one-one-thousand, two-one-thousand,” etc., as you do so, but only raise yourself off the floor about 6 inches. Work up to three sets of 10 each day.

Hamstring stretches. Lie on the floor with your back flat and your knees bent. Place both hands on the back of one thigh, close to the knee, and slowly pull your leg toward your chest until you feel a slight strain on the back of your thigh. Hold it for five to 10 seconds. Do this three times on each leg, daily, gradually extending the leg as you become more flexible. When you can do the exercise with your leg nearly fully extended, loop a towel behind your leg on the calf, and use the towel to pull your extended leg to you.

I am doing both of these exercises and am also hauling a lot of scuba tanks up and down the ramps at the Underwater Explorers Society--about the only lifting that doesn’t hurt my back or shoulder. But, until we can find a way around my injuries, I am stalled on the road to hunkdom. I feel like a duck who’s just learned he may never be a swan.

A good, inexpensive, supervised back program is offered by 1,500 YMCA’s in the United States. The program is called “the Y’s Way to a Healthy Back,” runs for 13 sessions and costs $64. Most insurance companies will even pay that, if you get a note from your doctor. The exercises and stretches can be done by virtually anyone, and they almost always bring at least some relief from back pain. They prevent it, too.

Progress Report

Beginning 22th Week Waist: 43 inches 35 inches Right biceps: 12 3/4 inches 12 5/8 inches Flexed: 13 inches 13 3/8inches Weight: 201 pounds 175 pounds Height: 6’ 1” Blood pressure: 128/68 124/68 Pulse: 64 66 Bench press: 55 125 Hunk factor: .00 .33