In place of my regular workouts, I’ve been doing various bodyweight exercises these last few weeks. I just wanted a change, and to be honest, I’ve been enjoying it and will likely continue for a while. Why not?
You know, push ups, incline push ups, crunches, etc. I’ve also done various isometrics and I’ve been paying particular attention to rotator cuff training and performing various stretching exercises to increase flexibility. Areas of my training long neglected, to my discredit.
I’ve had what you could call mild shoulder discomfort for a long time – in one shoulder before I even started training, due to an unfortunate incident several years back. It hasn’t been right since, with a mild pain from time to time in certain positions, and clicking/grinding.
I’ve definitely neglected my rotator cuffs since I began training, I’ll cop to that. And, although I’ve not really had any injuries, I’ve definitely developed further minor ‘disagreements’ in both shoulders.
Time to start looking after the small muscles, and the big muscles will take care of themselves, I think. Whatever I do in the future, I’ll be sure to include rotator cuff training, too. It’s win-win.
What else… ah yes, the stretching exercises. For my rotator cuffs I’ve been doing some strange front-to-back rotations with a length of unused PVC drainage piping. I believe some refer to this as ‘shoulder dislocations’. Whatever. It feels good, and I also feel it stretching my chest. Anything which improves general flexibility and range in my shoulders is good.
As for other stretching exercises, I’ve been doing lower back, hamstrings, calves, groin and quads.
Really, I’ve never been the most flexible person. Even as a youngster when I played football (proper football that is, not that rugby knock-off you Americans playJ) I was never the most flexible person, and I definitely suffered plenty of injuries due to overextending my muscles.
I hope that in relatively short time, I’ll be much more supple.
As far as my fat loss is going, with my primitive scales, I weighed myself as 11.5 stone a few days ago. I hope to get as close to 11 stone as possible by the end of March, when I’m finally going to begin building muscle again for a short burst. Hallelujah.