Alas, I have been a silly salmon.
Yours Baldly has picked up a nasty shoulder injury.
Believe it or not, it’s my first ever shoulder injury in some fifteen years of hard training. An achievement I attribute entirely to how careful I have been when it comes to “horizontal pressing” movements (think bench presses and suchlike).
And I have not been careful at all for the last couple of months.
You see, I still possess something of an ego when it comes to training. I am very good at suppressing it and I am even better at warning others to control theirs, but every now and again it comes to the fore and I do something dumb.
In this instance, I have got it into my head that it is not “good enough” to do fewer than 25 reps per set of pushups while wearing my weighted vest.
Consequently, I have been using a good deal of momentum to get those reps in.
This made my rotator cuff very unhappy.
Mr Rotator Cuff warned me of his displeasure but I ignored him, and now I struggle greatly to put any weight through my left shoulder.
Bother.
Why am I telling you this?
One of the disadvantages of bodyweight training is that you can very easily find yourself using suboptimal form because you’re not being kept “in check” by an external load like a barbell or pair dumbbells.
Moreover, because the reps per set tend to be higher than with conventional weightlifting, using less than stellar form results in you quickly accumulating an awful lot of ugly reps leading to nasties like tendonitis, torn muscles, and even slipped discs if you’re particularly unlucky.
The lesson?
In this instance, don’t be me.
Remember:
It is ALWAYS better to do fewer, better reps than it is to shoot for the sky and come crashing back down to Earth in a fireball before exploding into giblets upon hitting the ground.
Anyway.
If you think you are the sort of person who pushes too hard sometimes and believe you would benefit from having a third party tell you to hold back, and you are interested in learning how to get strong and in shape potentially without ever setting foot in a gym, I recommend my new 10-week programme:
“Bodyweight Buccaneer”
Which you can read all about here:
https://philtyreman.co.uk/buccaneer/
Thank you,
Phil Tyreman