Help, I Can’t Move My Arms!—How To Work Out the Wrong Way

Six months ago today, I quit smoking cold turkey.  I just woke up one morning and decided to lay down a 22 year, two-pack-a-day habit for good, and  I haven’t looked back.  (Feel free to applaud at any time.)

I’d love to say I feel great, but I really don’t.  Yes, I can breathe better, and  I have my sense of smell and taste back, but I’ve been constantly sick with something ever since I quit smoking.  But hey,  I can walk up a flight of stairs without wheezing now, and I actually know what my tofu scramble tastes like when I eat breakfast in the morning.  (It’s delish. :D)  If those two things aren’t incentive to stay away from cigarettes, then the fact that every time I smell cigarette smoke I gag is.  My God, those things smell like burning rubbish!

Unfortunately, like many people who quit smoking, I have replaced cigarettes with food.   I have eaten my way to a fat backside, people.  I seriously have gone up three sizes in six months.  At first I tried to blame my gall stone pancreatitis, which causes swelling, but it isn’t that.  It’s that I made upwards of FIFTY trips to the fridge and pantry a day.  OH. EM. GEE.  I was out of control, and could no longer fit into my clothes.

When I realized how fat I had become (it just comes on all of a sudden!), I joined a gym.  It’s been great fun.  I’ve taken up Tai Chi, Yoga, and Zumba classes, and am losing weight.  Woo hoo!

A cross trainer similar to the one that tried to kill me last week. (Photo credit: DanieVDM)

Last week I decided to try this cross trainer machine that promises a full body workout.  Everyone at the gym gave it rave reviews, so I thought, “What the heck?  I’m going to get on it.”

Day One was OK.  After I got off this thing my arms and legs were sort of numb.   All right, they were A LOT numb.  They were so heavy that I could barely lift my arms up.  But at least I wasn’t in pain.   In fact, I felt pretty energized.

Flash forward to the next morning when I wake up—there was intense pain in my biceps AND triceps.  And there was a lot of pain in my neck and shoulders as well.

“This is normal,” I thought.  “I just have to work through the burn…”

Day Two I went a full 30 minutes despite the pain my upper body was in.  I even adjusted the tension on the legs because I wasn’t “feeling the burn” like I thought I should have.  BIG mistake.  I slid off the machine after the 30 minutes were up, barely able to get outside without help.

Day Three (yes, I went back for more)  I was unable to do more than 15 minutes on the cross trainer and went home, grimacing in pain.  When I got home, I coated both arms in ActivOn (that stuff is completely useless) and wrapped them in heating pads.  I had a restless night because the pain in my arms kept waking me up.

Day Four I decided to stay home from the gym and rest my overworked muscles.  I will probably be out the next couple days.  If the bends in both of my arms could talk, they’d be screaming profanities at me because they let me know they’re unhappy with me every time I try to lift my arms for any reason.

These past few days have taught me a lot about how to work out the WRONG way, so I am going to pass some of these tips onto you, dear reader.  If you want to be like me and be in such pain that you can’t move without crying a little please do all the following steps!

STEP ONE

Get on a machine that you’ve never been on before and put it on a resistance that makes you really uncomfortable.

STEP TWO

You see an extremely fit man on the same type of machine a few feet away.  He’s working really hard, and you don’t want to look like a noob, so you decide to go at his pace.  Oh, boy, you’re feeling the burn now!

STEP THREE

Do not, I repeat, DO NOT, stretch out your muscles after an intense workout.  Stretching is for wusses.  It’s better for you to let all those acids build up in your muscles and torture you for the next several days.

STEP FOUR

Repeat Steps 1-3 every day and pay no attention to your body’s cries for help.  Everyone is a little sore after a workout.  Just work through the intense pain and ignore what fitness experts say about how it could make your muscles weaker in the long-run!

If you do all the above steps in that order, I guarantee in less than a week you will feel like complete and utter crap!

Now if you’ll excuse me, I think I am going to go jump in a bath so hot that all three layers of my skin will fall off before I even hit the water….

Related articles

• Eating Fruits and Vegetables May Help You Quit Smoking (forbes.com)
• Herbal Vaporizer, Ingesting herbs has some incredible health benefits (naturalhealthezine.com)

Posted by Angie Hottentots-Laurel on July 22, 2012

https://dailyhottentots.wordpress.com/2012/07/22/help-i-cant-move-my-arms-how-to-work-out-the-wrong-way/