I’m old, and out of shape. Recently, though, I’ve been working out at the YMCA with my son. We’re lifting weights 3 times a week, weather permitting (we’ve been snowed out 3-4 times in the last 5 weeks). It’s low weight at high reps, mostly because I don’t want him to get hurt (he hasn’t “matured” yet), I don’t trust that he can really spot me, at least safely, and I want to make sure that I teach him the proper technique, for when he starts lifting “hardcore” for sports (he’s in 7th grade). You’d be shocked to see how many people don’t lift correctly – even some of the “big” dudes! But, I digress…
I make sure we warm up for 10-15 minutes, stretch, and then stretch again after we lift. Today for warm-ups, we decided to play some basketball. We played for about 15 minutes, and I was feeling good! I was loose, and hitting shots from up to 25 feet with regularity. I was actually hoping we’d get into a pickup game, but after getting sufficiently warm, we decided to go lift. As I was exiting the court, I rolled my ball up against the wall to get it out of the way. The ball came back to me, because I pushed it too hard. So, I reached out with my left foot soccer-style to gently tap it back to the wall. Unfortunately, I extended too far, and turned my ankle! All that playing and no problems; but trying to tap a ball with my foot, and BAM! I’m hurt!
I immediately felt the swelling coming on, but I could walk, so I knew it wasn’t broken or that the tendons weren’t torn. I actually even lifted, minus the leg press, of course. When I got home, I took off my sock, and it looked like I had a golf ball under my skin to the left of the “knob” on my ankle. Time to ice it. It still hurts, but the swelling has gone down a bit. Unfortunately, I won’t be able to play ball for a few weeks. Back to the ellipticycle to warm up – boring!
Oh well, at least I can still keep with it. My son and I are enjoying ourselves, and we’ve definitely seen a lot of progress over the last 5 weeks in terms of our strength. If I could only eat right, I might even lose some weight! At least it’s a start…
