Shoulders & Arms

"12" arms don't drop nobody." - a saying used by some of my steroid/bouncer friends in college.

I began this program with a shoulder problem that's been around ever since the Hans 50,000 challenge which featured, in part, doing 10,000 push-ups. When I began that contest I could fire off push-ups as if they were nothing. When it ended I was injured and push-ups hurt my left shoulder pretty bad. Dumb? Well, yeah... but whatever. What's life without some silliness?

Since that time push-ups have been tough, even though I've fairly thoroughly rehabed my shoulder a couple of times. During my fit test I did a pathetic 30 push-ups. I once could do 100. During my first yoga session every vinyasa hurt like crazy. Now, thanks to S&A I'm feeling better. I've done 30 push-ups during one set of a workout.

S&A is not a rehab workout. Not even close. It's a ridiculous assault on some smaller muscles groups, given all those sets, that would make most physical therapists wince. So I was a little surprised that after the first time I did it my shoulder felt better and hurt less during yoga. The second session followed a chest and back workout that had my shoulder feeling tentative by the end. I had a feeling it might help with this and it did. Since that workout my shoulder pain has nearly ceased.

Rebabbing shoulders is always tricky and most athletes, especially as they age, have some shoulder issues. Rehab exercises tend to be high volume with very light weight. While essential to improve stabilizer muscle strength they are only part of the solution. In order to fully rehab your shoulders you need to get back to pushing heavy weights too, otherwise your large muscles become out of balance and big full-body movements like push-ups and pull-ups force excessive strain on the area. Since most PTs don't recommened heavy exercise I had to find this out by trial and error. This round is proving my theory correct. I'm guessing that my shoulders will be back close to full strength for the first time in years. We'll see, but basing things on my ability to do push-ups sans pain it certainly seems to be working.

I love Tony's intro where he talks about wearing tank tops as if they were invented for guys to show off their biceps. Perhaps this is true but it's also funny as hell. It's certainly true of Hollywood. We've always referred to curls as actor exercises because actors love to show off their arms when they've been in the gym. A no one I can think of moreso than The Shat. The good captain loved wearing tight-fitting clothing when he was in shape. So much so that in one press release my brother and I were reading the main comment for an episode with that Bill had been spending a lot of time in the gym and requested a scene where he take his shirt off. No wonder he got all those women. I'm fairl certain that as soon as he took off his shirt the producers allowed him to improvise his lines as well.

"You're too beautiful to ignore. Too much women."