More than two years ago I started doing some upper-body strength-training to help with my shoulder pain. I did it for a while, but I eventually quit doing it. Letting the muscles atrophy may have exacerbated the cervical spine issue.
On the advice of my chiropractor, I bought some five pound dumbbells. Then they sat on the bedroom floor. Five pounds is nothing. I can easily lift them. Then, today, I did the exercises she told me to… and it hurt. I’m glad it’s only five pounds.
This is one of those things that isn’t so much for weight loss as it is general health. If my neck gets worse again, I’ll be off the bike. I can’t have that. I need to stay mobile.
If you can swing it, some of the best money I spent in the last 5 years was on a few personal trainer sessions to give me a little direction and get me started with routines this summer. When it comes to weights of any kind, technique is EVERYTHING. He also got me thinking about how core training affects performance, and now I’m kind of programmed to think about posture 24-7. I’ve got away from it with work being busy, but it made a definite improvement!
Amen on the core training point, BikesNCoffeeDave! I grew up doing gymnastics and dancing, so my core was always pretty solid. Now that I’ve lost a lot of that core strength, I notice that my back gets out of whack pretty easily. Blargh! I’ve added a core strengthening routine (when I remember to do it; I am horribly, horribly disorganized right now) and I’m hoping to get back into ballet this coming year…