Double Ouch – Eyes and Back

The Eyes

Eyes - by StaR DusT

A few days ago my wife had her eyes lasered. She had decided that rather than going through the daily contact lens routine she would prefer to live a hassle free life of perfect vision. There are only two downsides:

1. The cost – although they advertise rates at £395 per eye, what they don’t tell you is that this is for a slightly drunk med student using a chisel and hammer. The better techniques cost considerably more.
2. The fact that a person is going to cut open your eye and mess about in there using lasers. This may put some people off.

The surgery itself only takes about 10 minutes, but with paperwork, prep-work and waiting around they expect that you’ll be there about two hours, so I planned to go along to the gym and have a quick workout.

The Back

Although my specific training this month is for the Great Winter Run (a 5km run in Edinburgh) I decided to go for some heavy deadlifts to continue with my strength training, and also so that I could avoid a shower by not working up too much of a sweat.

The warm-up was fine, and I managed my first heavy set OK. However on the second set I felt something give in my back.

I just stood there for a few minutes, gauging how much damage I’d done to myself and cursing myself for my stupidity in injuring myself the week before a race.

I finished up, met my wife and we compared our pain. 

I’m still not sure exactly what happened, but I think it’s a combination of the following:

1. The previous day’s workout hitting the back, with kettlebell swings.
2. Being a bit ambitious with the weights not having performed deadlifts for almost a month.
3. Not paying enough attention to form.

Whatever it was I’ll be paying by taking easy workouts over the next few weeks with anything involving the back – which is just about everything. I’ll also be more careful about my form and weight choice in the future.

If I tread lightly over the next few weeks I should get away without suffering any long term issues.

Workout: 3×5 heavy deadlifts