Challenge 2 Week 8 Recap (IR)

It has felt refreshing taking a break, although I am anxious to get back in the gym, I feel like this is doing me some good.  My three year old son on Friday made a comment to me that stung a little. During this whole process, he has seen me go to the gym, explain how I can't eat certain things because Daddy is getting healthy.  The conversations I've had with him on exercise and nutrition floor me and he is picking up the healthy life style out of it.  By him telling me on Friday when I was leaving for work, why I wasn't going to the gym, kind of made me second guess, why am I not in the gym yet?  Well we obviously know the reason, it's my back!!  That being said, I made the consicious decision to go to the gym Sunday morning to get an idea of where I was at with no physical activity in 12 days.

First, I weighed in at 249 lbs.  Then I moved over to an open area and did about five minutes of stretching and focusing more on the lower back.  I decided to try a moderate run on the treadmill to see where I was since the injury.  I did much better that I thought I would.  I was able to run 3 miles in 40 minutes at about 4.5 mph.  I was thrilled that I hadn't lost a step, I could have pushed up to 5 mph, but didn't want to risk injury with too much too fast.  I finished and stretched again for about five more minutes.  The remainder of the morning went well, but what I found as the day went through that my lower back was tightening up on me, not a good sign.

Monday morning came and it was the beginning of my challenge 2 week 9.  I went for my HIIT and addtional 20 minutes of moderate cardio.  I had a slight tingle in my back with 3 minutes left and thought, come on man, I'm almost done, don't do this to me now!  I was able to phase it out as it didn't feel like major injury, but made me wonder what does this mean.  The day went very well, but by the time I was in bed, I had some pretty intense discomfort.  Morning came and I made the decision to not hit the weights.  I can't afford to aggravate this back to where it was before and I have a family trip to FL where we are driving and there is no way that I can drive with the pain I had originally when I first got hurt.

Tomorrow is a new day, back feels ok, so I will try to keep to my cardio sessions for the remainder of the week and treat them just as I did before.  I'm hoping to Thursday complete a low intensity circuit type lifting session, just to help burn some calories and help maintain my muscle.  This should help me possibly get range and stretch in the muscles slowly.  I don't want to lose any of the effort I have had up until now.  Please keep me in your thoughts, need some of those positive vibes ;)