This is a story about how I learned the hard way about how important it is to practice muscle balance. I should have known better, having been someone who has worked out pretty much consistently for decades. When I say "pretty much consistently" that is what caused the problem. Although I never go more than a few days without a decent level of physical activity, I've gone months at a time without intense training. For me, intense training means three to four days per week of 40 minute weight training workouts. On off days I run, or swim or just rest.

Now, when I decide to get started again with my intense training, getting started is the hardest part. I always start with my favorite: upper body, chest and arms. I'll go in the basement and bench press like the good old days! I am surprised at how little strength I loose even if I go up to six months without touching the weights. I can always get three reps with 180 lbs-- no help.

Well this incident of stupidity happened a few years ago, when "getting started" turned into a series of a dozen false starts over a period of about three months. I would go in the basement, bench, curl, maybe some triceps extensions...and that would be it for a week or more. I just couldn't get into the groove. I never stopped to think of the damage I was doing. Probably because I was just to preoccupied with all the progress I was loosing.

And what kind of damage did I do? First of my posture went haywire. I didn't even notice it, but my wife did. She would say "you're walking like Shaggy". She meant, like, Scooby Doo's pal. My shoulders were rolled forward and inward because my pecs were so restricted. And what was worse is my back weakened. Where my back weakened, right between my shoulder blades, I got a terrible chronic pain. It lasted for weeks. I told my doctor about it and he referred me to a physical therapist.

This physical therapist really knew her stuff. She did a bunch of range of motion tests. She asked the right questions and found out about my half-assed workout program. She gave me a series of stretches that helped unrestrict my pecs, and some elastic band exercises that strengthened that weak area in my back. All this took just a couple of weeks and then I was walking with normal posture again.

I had a few other things going on in the way of work related tendinitis in the shoulders and elbow. They used some techniques with massage and electrolysis that erased those problems. I highly recommend physical therapists. I would go so far as to say for aches and pains, see a physical therapist before running to the doctor. Some doctors, unlike mine, may just treat the symptoms, or chalk it up to arthritis.