How could this happen?

suezeekay · 10-Aug-03, 03:52 PM

I'm 60 years old but I swim 45 laps a week, do stretching exercises in the pool, and kicks; I walk .33 miles (have hip replacements so I'm limited), do 10 minutes on the bicycle, and also do various weights for arms and back. Four weeks ago I was taking down a couple of sections of my back fence and had to move them only about 7 feet; I also had to knock down a post, which after hammering on it for a while, finally had to push it down with the car. So...that's what I did. Two days later (and I also don't understand why it didn't hurt right away) I get out of the car after shopping, and boom, I have this terrible pain in my upper left hip muscle. It only hurt when I walked but it really, really hurts. I missed the gym one day but went back to only swimming for a couple of days. It has taken almost 4 weeks for the pain to go away completely. I was very, very disappointed that this could happen. I thought if my muscles were strong it would protect me. Not only that, my calf muscle was having this tearing pain for three days after I mopped the floor. Those muscles are as hard as rocks. What am I doing wrong so this dosn't happen again?

Symzie · 10-Aug-03, 04:44 PM

We can only guess, hammering can jar your joints and bones or you could be using muscles doing the fence that you weren't used to using maybe

I hurt my arm arm wrestling my friend once, because it's hard on the tendons etc. No amount of exercise will make you immune to getting injured but it will help. Hope you're better.

RichUK · 10-Aug-03, 04:51 PM

Perhaps you just twisted at the wrong angle when getting out of the car and strained the muscle? I do it to my back all of the time. If it took 4 weeks to fully heal then it sounds more like a muscular tear of some kind however.

Funny how you can tear muscles by doing the little things - a family member (also in his 60s) managed to tear the top of his right bicep this spring by digging over a flowerpot with a hand-trowel! This took several months to heal.

Hope it's feeling better now anyway.
Rich

Alex(AJ) · 10-Aug-03, 05:17 PM

it's all about luck.

i tore my forearm by flexing. haha, as ****ty as that sounds, yet, when I dropped over 500pds on my neck squatting I didn't even have a scratch. Same when i dropped almost 300 on my chest benching- nothing, just a bruise.

It's kinda odd how the most serious injuries we walk away form, yet it's the little things that really put us out