RippedNRich.oRg

You know about my shoulder problems already. Well, on Day 9, my other major trouble spot surfaced… my neck.

July 12, 2007

Day 9: Plyometrics

Although that area under my right shoulder blade felt fine when I woke up this morning, my neck was quite stiff.

My neck is my other major trouble spot. During a football game in my junior year of high school, I tackled a guy with my head down… improper form and always a bad idea because… you can do things like cause one of your neck vertebrae to tear a hole in another one of your neck vertebrae! This one hurt big time! Nevertheless, I recovered much faster than anyone would have thought. However, the year after I graduated high school, I was in the gym maxing out on tricep pull-downs when I heard a loud click and it suddenly felt like I had been shot in the neck. This time it was way way worse than the first time.

I was working as a cabbie at the time (actually, it was a little more sophisticated than that… we called it a “livery service”) driving people to and from Logan Airport in Boston. If you’ve driven in Boston before, you know that it is not the friendliest city in which to drive, although there are worse (Houston and New York come to mind). Anyway, as you can imagine, driving around Boston all day with a pain in my neck was, well, a pain in the neck!

I’m joking a bit about it now, but I can assure you that I did not find it humorous at all at the time. I was truly concerned that I might never be able to turn my head again. I was in some serious pain and my neck was seriously stiff… and I mean serious pain and seriously stiff… I couldn’t open my mouth much wider than was necessary to eat and breath. During this time, I picked up a few skills that have actually come in handy since. Such as preventing myself from sneezing (people talk about how dangerous sneezing is for NASCAR drivers and the like and say it is a reflex that can’t be controlled… well I can tell you that this is just not true… I know) and yawning through my nose without opening my mouth (as you can imagine this has come in handy on a number of occasions). I should also mention that the looks of horror from folks whom I was driving to and from the airport when they saw my neck-brace didn’t help my psyche… or my tips for that matter.

I went to the doctor and got an MRI and, sure enough, it was the same vertebrae with the hole in it as in high school. After the hole had healed up, which took a couple months of agonizing worry about whether I would ever be able to move my head again, my neck was still totally stiff. My neck muscles had totally freaked out trying to prevent further injury and they just would not budge. Plus, although an MRI indicated that the hole in my vertebrae had healed (for the most part), it, along with my neck muscles reaction to the injury, messed things up so badly that I now had a pinched nerve. Pain, pain and more pain. My physician suggested that I go to a chiropractor.

This was my blessed introduction to the wonderful world of chiropractic medicine. I walked into the chiropractor’s office in pain and agony with a neck that would not move. A few minutes later, after some prodding and poking and slapping and pushing, the good doctor took my head in both his hands, told me to completely relax, and… jerked my head around further than it went before my neck injury!… The relief was immediate! Talk about instant gratification!

Now able to turn my head again, I started going to a physical therapist, who was every bit as wonderful as the chiropractor. In fact, she taught me how to do what the chiropractor did, all be it more slowly, to myself. All I had to do was tilt my head back and, with the support of my shoulders, twist my head from one side to the other.

Obviously, I still have some neck issues, or else my neck would not be stiff right now and I would not be making this journal entry. However, I have learned to be careful with it and, much like with my cramping calves, notice the early warning signs when I have pushed it too far, and take appropriate action.

Even though my neck was quite stiff this morning, I didn’t think it was so bad that I couldn’t do the plyometrics even though they are high impact. I just lessened the impact as much as I could. I remained with at least one foot on the ground throughout the workout and, although I did hear a few quiet clicking noises on occasion, I made it through just fine.

I think that it may have been the Ab Ripper X from yesterday that did it. So, I think I’ll just skip that part of the program until my neck feels back to normal.

I do hope my neck feels better tomorrow.

I’m happy to report that, less than eight weeks into P90X, my neck feels better than it has since high school! Amazing!!!

This entry was posted on Friday, August 24th, 2007 at 11:12 pm and is filed under Exercise, P90X, Ripped. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.