Sia: Start your day with coffee

"I HURT myself today."

So began a song by Johnny Cash. And so began my day last Tuesday - I really did hurt myself. Not because I'm emo, but because I got careless at the gym.

It was 5:30 a.m. when I got there, and the attendants were pleasantly surprised to see that I had made a habit of getting there at the crack of dawn to run a few laps on the treadmill or to pump some iron, depending on my workout schedule. Despite feeling really groggy for lack of coffee, I felt really ambitious that morning, and so I decided to add a few more plates to the bar than usual for my weekly big three exercises, in the following order: the bench press, the deadlift, and the barbell squat.

The first two exercises went well without a hitch, though I grunted a bit louder than usual each time I lifted. As for the third... I suppose I didn't do it right. Perhaps I let the bar rest a little too much on the nape of my neck, which is a big no-no when it comes to doing squats (the bar should be lower than that and held more securely with both hands).

I felt an unpleasant crunch travel down my spine as I unracked the bar and therefore all the plates I slipped on it - 70 pounds of glory, not counting the bar itself.

Even worse, I did my usual number of sets and repetitions. With each lift came a little more pain, which I ignored. Partly out of bravado, partly out of hating to admit to myself that I got it wrong, and partly out of grogginess. In the end, it doesn't matter why I made that mistake when I did. What really mattered was that I wound up spending the rest of the week feeling nauseous whenever I had to exert myself and feeling literally out of alignment.

Now that I've had my spine fixed (it still feels a little sore in case you're wondering), I can think clearly again and look back to where I did wrong. There's this African proverb I learned as a boy that goes: "Don't look where you fell, but where you slipped."

And my slip-up began even before I left the house. I might have been in a hurry, but I still should've had some coffee.

If I took the time to drink coffee after waking up, I wouldn't have moved about in a daze like I did that morning. Sure, I might have gotten away with it the past few times, but only because those exercises weren't as risky as the three I just talked about, with barbell squats being the most dangerous of the three.

If I drank my coffee that morning, I could have had enough sense to use my phone to check the Internet for what the proper form for squats should look like. But no - I thought that the exercises in and of themselves would be enough to wake me up. Physically they did, but mentally? I suppose not.

Somebody once wrote that every failure, every misfortune carries with it the seed of a much greater benefit. In my case, I have since learned not to take the little things for granted. Just because they look little, they feel little, doesn't mean that they are little. You have to be certain. And now that I've learned my lesson, I'm having it published here on Sun Star so that you won't make the same mistake I did and, God forbid, wind up in a much more painful predicament than mine.

Drink your morning coffee!

(jamesedgarsia@gmail.com)

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