Silly Rat, Crunches Are For Abdominals

It seems that every week conspires to keep me at only four days in the gym. This week was no different.

It all started last Friday when I was working legs at the gym. I pulled some weight off the rack and start to do straight leg deadlifts since these offer a great stretched position for the hamstrings... well, on my second rep, I noticed my form was all wrong and I was actually curling my back on the lift (think the part of an abdominal crunch where you lower your neck and shoulder blades back to the floor again; only standing). OK, fine, I noted it and continued with the determination to fix the bad form on the next rep. You'd think I'd listen to myself after all this time, but "no," what do I do but repeat the same bad form.

I knew it didn't bode well for me. Sure enough, Saturday, my back told me in no uncertain terms that it quit; nice sharp pain in the mid part. After icing it all weekend, the muscles figured they had punished me enough and stopped their little jihad.

Just to be safe, I gave myself another day off to let the muscles fully forget that I was not nice to them... today was the first day back.

Note to self: Remember the notes to self.