After a number of unsuccessful wakeboarding attempts at a cottage a few weeks ago I came home with a bit of a bruised ego, not to mention a sore lower back. Maybe it’s because I wrenched it trying to turn the board sideways and glide it up over the water (I’m told the board does this on it’s own if you “let it” but I think one of my more successful friends was just rubbing it in). Maybe it’s because I wanted to stand up so bad I held onto the rope as the boat wrenched me through the waves.

Either way, I ended up at work the next week with pain that made it difficult to sit for any length of time. The pain made my Pilates and yoga classes even more difficult. After some rest and stretching I’ve gotten back to my usual routine, but it got me thinking. I consider myself to have a pretty strong core. I do Pilates several times a week and never neglect the less popular core muscles (transverse abdominis, erector spinae) in favor of working my six pack muscles. I make sure my movements are slow and controlled, with deep breathing and a focus on quality over quantity.

You may take this to mean that it doesn’t matter what you do or how good of shape you are in, you can still get injured. I guess that’s true, but I look at it as a sign that what I’ve been doing has paid off. It took a lot of abuse before my back let me know it wasn’t happy. Imagine I’d strained it lifting a heavy box or that it simply hurt due to lack of muscle strength. After the strain I got back on my feet pretty quickly. Because of my experience with strength and flexibility training I knew what I could and could not do and worked my way up to being pain-free. I feel sorry for people who haven’t experienced how healing strength training and can be.

crystals muscle building, resistance training, working out injury, resistance training