Fun & Fitness over 50

Pain ... The Good, the bad and the ugly

I'm in mostly wonderful pain today! Lest you think I'm sick-o ....

As you may know, if you've been following me, I really love having the well deserved pain of an intense workout. The proper muscular pain that you are trying to achieve in order to strengthen and grow those muscles.

I'm not sure why I like it. I can only speculate.

Perhaps it makes me feel more alive, more "in my body". Or maybe it's because it's associated in my subconscious with the euphoria of the activity that caused it. Or maybe it's just the sense of accomplishment, that I achieved what I set out to do.

This is from skiing yesterday. I didn't feel like I worked out that hard. It was mostly fun. But today I'm feelin' it almost everywhere, shoulders, pecs, calves. I had cramps in both my calves at different times last night and had to get up and walk it out.

I know as I get moving more today it will lessen. That's the good.

On the other hand, I have some bad pain. Not from skiing.

I've had a problem with my right shoulder for some years now. It's probably a torn rotator cuff. Went the doctor on Wednesday and he thought both shoulders might be torn although I've never experienced any pain in my left.

I don't think it's caused by but is exacerbated by bike riding, especially climbing or standing out of the saddle. In these situations there is some pulling up on the handelbars and I have learned to pull from my lower arms and abs rather than from the shoulder but it only takes forgetting on one pull to impact the bad shoulder negatively.

But even that is not what brought me to the doctor.

It's a new problem that is pain along the inside edge of the right shoulder blade (scapula) and travels down my right arm in various locations that change and ends in numbness of the fingers, primarily the thumb and forefinger and to a lesser extent the other 3 fingers.

I can't point to any event or activity that brought this on but I'm beginning to suspect it's posture related. I can control the pain by being careful about my posture. I need to either sit up perfectly straight, not rigid, or lean back slightly. Standing, it's harder to control.

I went for X-rays this Thursday and start physical therapy next Thursday.

I'm looking forward to physical therapy. I always like the opportunity to learn how to take care of my body from the experts.

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On another note, the Mrs. and I got really muddy yesterday. This red mud that won't wash out! I'd like to say it was from flying through muddy washouts at high speed or spectacular crashes or even late-season pond skimming but it was from falling off the rope tow on the bunny slope!

We walked over the the beginners hill to watch our fam from Virginia and decided to take a little cruise to show them how it's done by the "experts".

First off, I grabbed the handle on the rope tow while standing perpendicular to the slope (duh!) with predictable results. Later on Mrs. MtBMan1 did something similar, I wasn't watching, and got covered with mud on one side. Very cool.

I don't have to worry about trying to stay humble. Life has a way of helping out with that. That's the ugly!