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"If you strike me down I shall become more powerful than you could possibly imagine."

Who said that, Gandhi? Wait, no, Obi-Wan Kenobi. That's right... In any case, that's how I feel! Five weeks ago I had back surgery. More precisely I had a "Lumbar 5 / Sacral 1 Micro-Discectomy". I was experiencing a LOT of pain in my lower back and down the back of my left leg due to my spinal nerve bundle being trapped and strangled by a ruptured S1 disc. I also had a cracked L5 vertebrae. Well, it's all fixed now. I feel great. My back feels ten years younger than the rest of my body. I am so incredibly glad I went ahead with the surgery. It was easily one of my better decisions.

I haven't updated this blog in quite a while. Namely because I didn't really have anything of interest to write about. Since my surgery I have, obviously, been off work. My main goal was to simply relax and heal. I believe that has gone just as planned. I read a lot, watched a lot of TV, got bored and remodeled our downstairs bathroom, and surprised my wife with a trip to Las Vegas for our anniversary. The ac unit / furnace in the upstairs portion of our house died, so I had the pleasure of getting a new one installed. By the way, if there anything on Earth more ridiculously over-priced than ac units? Besides Gillette Mach 3 razor blades? Good Lord... If you have never had to replace a unit in your house consider yourself lucky. I could have purchased a decent car for what these things cost. And I'm pretty sure the downstairs unit in my house is going to have to be replaced next year. What a rip off.

In any case, Wednesday July 11, 2012 deserved a blog update because I got back into the gym. Yes, after a nearly two month layover, due to my injury and subsequent surgery, I was finally able to workout again. This was a big deal to me as I still have every intention of getting in fantastic shape over the next year. My back injury slowed me down some, but I'm not giving up. Due to the nature of my injury and surgery I have had to re-define the term "working out" for myself. I may never be able to perform compound / Olympic lifts again. I certainly won't ever be able to pull heavy weight from the ground again. Without being able to do these things (which, might I add are the most effective muscle building movements ever contrived) most Crossfit workouts are now outside the realm of possibility for me. I am relegated to isolation movements, at least for the foreseeable future (read: the next several years). Don't get me wrong, these movements, which are the movements most modern people associate with working out, are still effective. Various bench press angles, curls of all types, dumbbell work, and machines aimed at legs, chest, back, biceps, etc. are now what my workouts consist of. While these movements and machines work, to an extent, they are much slower to work, are much less effective, provide virtually no conditioning, and are certainly much less exciting compared to what I was doing. Luckily our Crossfit gym is housed in our local YMCA. This grants me access to the traditional gym located at the YMCA as well as access to the Crossfit gym upstairs. I felt good, the doctor said it was ok, and the timing felt right to ease back into working out, so I did. I am keeping the original weekly schedule of 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off beginning with Monday. Therefore our rest days will continue to be Thursdays and Sundays. Due to the more traditional nature of what I am now forced to do we will be following the listed schedule.

Monday- Chest and Triceps
Tuesday- Back and Traps
Wednesday- Legs (Quads and Calves)
Thursday- Rest
Friday- Shoulders and Biceps
Saturday- Deadlift and Hamstrings
Sunday- Rest

Wow. What a different mindset from what we were doing. But, when life gives you lemons and whatnot. Now, I know what you are thinking...up there in that list is a dirty word. Right beside Saturday is "deadlifts". I know, I'm thinking it too. I will not be doing these at this time. I will substitute as necessary. As time progresses I'm sure I will try them with VERY LITTLE weight, keeping perfect form, and see how I feel. We will continue this schedule for at least 12 weeks and see where we are. I will probably switch the programming up at that time. I will be posting new starting numbers and photos for myself tomorrow as I am basically having to begin this process again. New benchmarks, new movements, same goals. As for my first workout yesterday? It was not much to speak of. Basically just got in the gym, rode the bike for a little while, and did some chest and back exercises to see how I felt. I felt good. That was all the testing I needed to know that it was time to get back after it. Thanks to everyone who checked up on me and sent prayers up on my behalf for a quick recovery from surgery. Obviously it worked. I'll post my first workout Friday. As always, I encourage you to follow along and post your numbers to the comments section. We can motivate each other!