old man – Briana Hansen

I hurted my self a little.

Mom, be cool. I’m fine. No need to call me and suggest I go to the doctor right now. This post was written about a week after I hurt myself and will be published about a week from the day it was written. By the time you read it, I’ll be absolutely back to 100%. Also I love you and please send money.

I woke up one morning with a severe pain in my lower back. I couldn’t figure out what I did. I have a pretty strong back and am careful about doing certain back exercises because plenty of people in my family have hurt their back through work injuries or dumbass crossfit instructors.

But this was a definite pain in my lower back that wasn’t like a pinched nerve or a tight muscle (which I’m unfortunately extremely accustomed to). This was like that dull, debilitating, feels like it’s coming from your spine pain. Yeah. It sucked.

I had to slowly get up and down from my bed and chairs for about a week. I hobbled around like an old man because the only position that felt comfortable was slightly hunched and walking slowly. I yelled at kids to “Get off my lawn!” even though I live in an apartment complex. I avoided back exercises and stretched as best I could I did whatever it took to felt better.

As I was trying to figure out what did it and a particular move came to mind. The day before I woke up in pain I had been doing dumbell deadlifts. I had used a higher weight than normal. It had been a while since I did a deadlift. I got cocky and paid very little attention to my form because I never had issues with them in the past. I made sure to really use my back and rely less on my hamstrings and arms to make up for it.

Basically… I over did it.

It took about a week to recover. I’m slowly starting to get back on track (BACK! HA! GET IT!? BACK on TRACK!? BAHAHAHAH… sorry). By next week I’ll probably start to reintroduce some back exercises to help strengthen it again so this doesn’t happen. And I’ll introduce them slowly. And carefully.

It’s like that old saying goes, “Once you go bad back, you don’t ever go back.”

This happened. For real.

I was sitting on the leg press machine at my gym between sets. An old man approached me and asked if he could use the machine. I was between sets, so I said I was using it.

See, when you lift, you have to give yourself a little rest period between sets to let your muscles recover. This is usually the case. Sometimes people change it up depending on their specific goals, but usually you do a few sets of stuff and you rest between each one.

I was resting.

He asked to use the machine.

That’s what I told him.

He then yelled at me and told me because I had my phone in my hand (I don’t have a handy dandy phone holder to workout with… yet).

So I yelled back.

I’ve written about this before. I’m not the friendliest in the morning. I’m a bit edgy if I haven’t eaten breakfast (or written). Those things calm me down. I didn’t like the tone he was taking. So I sassed him back.

He was condescending me. As if to say I didn’t know what I was doing there. So I yelled back.

I also yelled because I wanted to make sure the people around knew he was being a dick to me. And because he’s an old man, so I didn’t know how good his hearing was.

I told him he could use it quickly after I finish my next set. And that I was indeed resting between sets. And that I know what the eff I’m doing on these machines.

He sat on a machine next to me and bitched with another old guy who said, “I leave my phone in the car when I workout.” I had taken my headphones out at this point to listen to them. After my set, I told his friend, “Every generation is different. Mine doesn’t judge. And you don’t need your phone with you. You’re retired and don’t listen to podcasts. So it’s understandable you wouldn’t have it with you.” His friend just smiled at me. He obviously didn’t expect me to fight back.

I’m a college educated, highly intelligent, strong-willed, hard-working woman who’s been taught to respect others and expect the same. I’m a different generation than the young women he grew up with. They had a different culture and different expectations. And I won’t just back down when being condescended to.

So I glared his friend down who darted his eyes after I told him off. And turned to glare to the old man as he used the leg press machine.

Then I got on and did twice what he did… just to make a point.

Again… all this could have probably been avoided if I had just had breakfast before working out.

…probably.

Needless to say, I’m not making new friends easily at my gym.

Tag: old man

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