This Title Sucks, But I Couldn't Think of a Good One.

Burn Intervals and Ab Burner last night.  Both of these are getting much easier for me now.  Especially the Ab Burner.  I still take some reps off and cut some exercises a couple seconds short in the Burn Intervals, but I can power through all the Ab Burner now with no breaks.  It's a killer feeling.

I want to take a second to talk about my left arm.  Back before I even started the workout, I'd been feeling some pain in my left arm, up high almost in the shoulder.  My pinky and ring finger on that hand would feel numb from time to time as well.

Now, there's a couple exercises in particular that really aggravated that pain.  The V-Press Bicep Curls and the Standing Overhead Press.  The Press I could just grunt my way through, but the pain in the Curls was agonizing.  Every time I cut that exercise short, completing at most 4 reps.

Sunday's workout, Push Circuit 1, features a set of these curls.  I was determined that the pain was just something I could overcome.  I had researched this on the intertubes quite a bit, and most of the results pointed to a slipped or bulging disk in my neck that was pushing against the nerve for that arm.  My neck didn't ever hurt me, so I decided that it was probably more because I was being a giant vagina about it.  (Was that offensive?  I'm sorry.  Go watch The Notebook, it'll make you feel better)

So I dialed up the weight (17.5 lbs), and started doing the exercise.  You curl halfway up, then open your arms up wide, and lift straight out with both arms.  It looks like you're trying to do the YMCA if you're an idiot and thought a 'W' was actually an 'M'.

The pain came right away, and it was acute.  Agonizing, even.  But I decided I could push through it.  Four reps became five, then six.  On the seventh, something strange happened.

It felt like something in my upper arm let go.  Like a water balloon bursting.  My entire arm went numb, including my hand.  It was all I could do to concentrate on not dropping the weight.  I stopped for about 20 seconds, letting the numbness start to subside, and moved on to the next exercise.  After a few, the numbness went away, and my arm felt AMAZING.  I talked to a good friend of mine, a licensed massage therapist whom I trust.  I shared with her what had happened, and asked if I could just have had a very large persistent knot in that muscle.

She said it was possible.  Improbable, but possible.  A knot is a buildup of lactic acid that occurs when muscle fiber is broken down through exertion.  The lactic acid will collect in one spot, forming the knot.  For it to have occurred like that, in that place, with that persistence was unlikely, but plausible.

Monday, being a rest day, didn't offer me a chance to test that arm.  Tuesday's workout is a heavy legs/lower body day, so again, not much chance to test it.  The Burn Intervals workout, though...it has the V-Press Bicep Curls, and a couple different types of Overhead Presses.  I would find out last night, if that pain would be gone.

When I got to the Curls, I went with light weights (7.5), as you do with all the weight exercises in that workout.  In Burn Intervals, you go light weight - high rep in the weight portions (for muscle endurance), then crazy intense cardio.  You alternate that for 47 minutes.  With the light weights, I was able to do the Curls with no problem.  It was sore, but not the same.  This was muscle fatigue sore, probably because I had been favoring it for so long.  This wasn't 'my tricep feels like it's about to explode out of my body' pain.  Just sore.

The Overhead Presses were the same.

I'm still of no good mind of what happened.  But I'm happy that I don't need to think about that so much anymore.

301 on the scale this morning.  I should be under 300 by March.  That will be a day long remembered.  By me.  Not anyone else.  That would be creepy as shit.