I tend to work out in spurts… I’ll go banzai for a few weeks and then I’ll tend to slack off for a while. Recently I decided I needed to whip myself into better shape again and started doing some very brief kettlebell workouts.

I was mainly interested in trying some creative ways to help my lower back pain and scoliosis, so I decided that perhaps if I just clean and pressed a kettlebell and held it overhead for a while, one side at a time, that might do me some good.

Well I started out the first day with the 36lb KB, and that went just peachy, holding it overhead for about a full minute on each side. The second day I did it again, but then I decided that I should try it with the 54lb ‘bell. It wasn’t too much trouble, until I decided I should bring it back down to shoulder position doing a slow negative.

Bad idea.

It didn’t feel like I really injured myself, but a couple of days later… holy cow. I could barely move my left (weaker) arm. It’s feeling better today, although it’s still bothering me, but now I’m going to have to lay off for a while to make sure it heals and I don’t aggravate it.

Just a little reminder that just because you could lift at a certain level once, doesn’t mean you can lay off for a month and then go right back to the same level. The funny thing is that if I had just waited a week before tackling the bigger kettlebell, I probably would have been fine.