Interesting Ski Trip With Examples Of Awareness And Lack Of It

Hi folks,

Great ski trip this weekend, with over a dozen friends and family, and lots of kids and teenagers, keeping FitOldDog young at heart – and two interesting events, one due to lack of attention and the other an example of unusual self-awareness.

Accident due to lack of awareness: Simply put, this ended our trip at Ski Patrol office, and then the Emergency Room. A 14-year old boy stays up too late watching a movie, the next and last day of our trip he elects to complete one last extra run on his snowboard, of which he is a master, catches an edge, falls backwards and breaks his wrist (distal radius). This experience, which is a real bummer, is exactly what one of my previous blog posts, ‘Accidents Happen When You Are Tired Or Distracted,’ is all about. I guess that it was an ‘I told you so moment,’ but I resisted the temptation to say that. Who can blame a 14-year old boy for that extra run when he’s on a snowboard on great snow. The error was ours, in that we allowed him to stay up late, though he bears some responsibility – an interesting ethical question. Youngsters mend quickly and like all of us he’ll learn from his mistakes.

Excellent example of awareness in the weight room: whilst chatting to a friend, Brent, who is in excellent physical condition (he better be with a new baby to raise), he recounted an interesting story. It is rare that I hear such examples of body awareness fixing a problem. It went like this: “Brent had been having trouble with a painful shoulder, which was aggravated in the weight room during straight bar, flat bench press. The standard routine for this exercise is to lower the bar onto your chest, and back up again for several repetitions. Brent noticed that in his case, due to long forearms, he had to hyperextend his shoulders when lowering the bar to his chest. Along with this realization came his decision to lower the bar only to the point that his elbows were bent to about 90 degrees, making his upper arm parallel to the floor, whilst the bar was still four to six inches above his chest. Once he modified his bench press accordingly the shoulder problem started to melt away.” This is an excellent example of self-awareness, the powers of observation, and the fact that training is not a ‘one size fits all’ undertaking. I was impressed!

The moral of these stories: get plenty of sleep and stay aware to avoid accidents and injuries.

-k @FitOldDog

Today’s workouts:

Swim coach, Rick Fee: