Stripped

It's been almost two months since my last entry. Where should I begin?

After my last workout, the pain on my left arm was not going away. Navy PRT was in April, so stopping was not an option. I had/have a suspicion that it was/is a stress fracture of my left upper forearm due to pushing my limits on the bench and deadlifts. But I couldn't quit on account of that, either: I did that when I broke my rib and though I was medically waived from doing the PRT then, they dinged me on bodyfat and that didn't help my case.

First, I cut the deadlifts, every variation I was doing. That helped a bit, now I could sleep through the pain. But that wasn't enough. I ditched all board pressing, then replaced the dead benching with machine benches. No dice. Ditched the shrugs, then all bicep work. Started having less stiffness in the arm, but that's all it did. Not much more I could cut.

At around the same time, I slowly started to run again. My first run was horrible and would have failed me outright. It was a bit better than the month before but that was no consolation. All the elliptical work I was doing was not helping me there. Between being banged up and the bad running, I felt like I was on a downward spiral and stuck.

At around the beginning of March, I stopped lifting. I needed to get my arm healed and my mind right. The PRT was in April, and this had to be my new priority. I knew from boot camp and training for deployment that I could train everyday with bodyweight stuff. So I started to do 3 sets of pushups and situps daily, and added assisted chinups to maintain back strength while relieving the pressure from my forearms. After a week, it became 4 sets. I started running every other day using intervals, and walking using a hill program the other days. This week I just walked: in one of Stew Smith's programs for beginning runners in the military he says to do this because of the high incidence of injuries in the third week.

And here we are. PRT for me is on April 16. I'm getting my "legs". My arm is holding together pretty good. Will do this program until May, then take a week off and go see a doc. That will give me a good aerobic base to keep light while the arm heals, and 6 months until the next PRT. Boring as this might be, I will start logging in workouts. I miss the weights, but this will give me time to think.

Here we go again.