Listening to Body at Exercise

Leveling Posts for Water Harvest Shed

Ladders creak, and so do I. I listened to my body as I executed my 16 session Kettlebell strength regimen today and came up with a catalog of creaks and pops that presented fodder for blogging today. I first noticed a creaking in my neck that got me thinking about listening to my body. I heard the creaking while performing the first round of KB swings. I realized that by watching myself in the mirror I caused my neck to rotate at the head, which remained stationary, while my torso bent at the waist. If I stopped looking at myself in the mirror and let my head follow the torso my neck stopped creaking.

When performing KB rows, my right shoulder and elbow popped on many repetitions, but on the left side, only my elbow popped. I couldn't find a position or method that stopped the popping as the sound occurred intermittently.

The next sound I heard was my left knee popping when doing KB goblet squats. That occurred pretty consistently, but a squat is a squat and I didn't know how to reduce the sound without reducing the effectiveness of the squat. I also found right shoulder presses caused right shoulder pops and finally I heard the sound of my elevated heartbeat at the end of the session.

I googled "joint popping" and found a joint popping article on John Hopkins Medical Center web site, along with other sites that say the popping is nothing to be concerned about. Occasionally my pops inflict pain, but nothing to write about (hah!)

Which leads to another type of body awareness to mention here - that of feeling and quantifying pain. Prior to starting this exercise regimen I had noticed that the inside muscles of my right elbow hurt, possibly from a strain due to improper bowling. It wasn't enough pain to prevent me from working out, but I noticed a diminished ability to perform right-side exercises due to weakness around the right elbow. Being right handed I found it odd that I was able to perform more reps on the left side than the right side. However, several weeks into the strength sessions, I find the pain has diminished and the strength is slowly returning to my right arm.

Throughout the course of exercise I constantly notice tiny twinges of pain in various locations, perhaps a right shoulder twinge caused by favoring the weakened right elbow, or knee and hip twinges while doing squats - an exercise I haven't performed in years. The pain is always light and fleeting though and I carry on. But I always listen because I never want to go over the boundary of creating a real injury.