I don't know what I would do if I was not retired and I had to go to work for a living ─ I sleep so badly!
Although I believe that I went to bed last evening around 9:45 p.m., I only slept a short time and was up during the midnight hour.
I worked on the new post I have begun at one of my six hosted websites ─ but I did so only after initial distractions such as various news articles and the accumulated E-mails in my Inbox, and it was already after 5:00 a.m. by the time I returned to bed.
I had felt too ill-slept to care to attempt a plank ─ an exercise I began immersing myself into maybe six weeks ago.
For the record, I only perform static planks. I want to practice endurance. And so late yesterday afternoon or early in the evening, I set myself a new record.
But to preface this, I use the stopwatch 'app' in my iPhone 5. My usual procedure is to assume the plank position; and then after a couple or so seconds when I feel comfortably situated, I start the stopwatch.
Then I close my eyes and start a slow-count to 500, for I have found that just staring at the too-slowly accumulating counter of the stopwatch is for me counterproductive ─ it is exasperating.
If I count slow enough, I find that by the time I reach 500 and then log back into my cellphone to check the stopwatch (the cellphone screen fades out after something like five minutes), I am usually beyond nine minutes.
In such cases, I hold out until I achieve 10 minutes.
And sometimes I am even beyond 10 minutes by the time I check the stopwatch ─ I think I have managed to hold out for 11 minutes on seven occasions thus far. Eleven minutes have been my record.
Note that I typically exceed that point by five or so seconds before stopping the stopwatch and breaking my plank.
As a result, my total time is always at least seven or more seconds than that actual key total of minutes that I have targeted.
Well, yesterday I evidently counted exceptionally slowly to 500. By the time I logged back into my cellphone to check the stopwatch, it was just surpassing 11 minutes and 40 seconds ─ there was absolutely no way that I was not going to weather the pain and hit the 12-minute mark when I saw that!
Nevertheless, the concern with having done so is that 12 minutes now become the rabbit or prize to chase after...and I am not even remotely comfortable getting to 11 minutes!
Anyway, I returned to bed before dawn this morning as described, but I continued to sleep poorly. I even realized that I was having lucid dreams. This occurred to me when I had believed I was being sleepless; but then it dawned upon me that I was nevertheless experiencing what could only be deemed a dream, for the scenario being played out was nothing that I would have been consciously fantasizing.
This happened at least twice.
Whatever the case, the point is that I was back up from bed shortly after 8:00 a.m., and I have probably returned to bed for further (shorter) naps at least twice since then.
This sort of routine would be impossible if I had to go to work.
Yet late in the morning, I decided to tackle yet another plank. Could I count slowly enough to 500 to allow me to reach another 12-minute plank even though the first time was not quite ¾ of a day earlier?
Oh, I suffered. In fact, after counting to 200 I considered stopping because my abdominal wall felt...odd.
To explain, twice in my past ─ once around 19 years ago, and a second time about a dozen years ago ─ I suffered a small rupture of my abdominal wall while straining excessively at exercise.
I believe that the first time I was involved in a virtual marathon of push-ups; and the second time occurred while straining to do headstand press-ups against a wall after I had come home from eating at a Thai restaurant. My stomach was too full then, and I should have had more sense.
I believe that the first time I was involved in a virtual marathon of push-ups; and the second time occurred while straining to do headstand press-ups against a wall after I had come home from eating at a Thai restaurant. My stomach was too full then, and I should have had more sense.
The odd sensation today was at the same location ─ maybe two or so inches up from my navel.
I have never sought medical attention for this hernia ─ I just know that the rupture is there. Although I have too much midsection flab to clearly see my abdominals ─ that is, the six-pack that does exist but cannot be seen ─ there is a slight swelling of that midsection 'flab' at the rupture site.
It is not apparent to anyone else, and I do not draw attention to it. But I perceive it.
There is no pain. I suspect that after the two incidents, the injury more or less 'healed' up each time, but some bulge remained.
If you are unfamiliar with what I am attempting to describe, I suppose that I would self-diagnose it as an epigastric hernia.
If you look at a very fit person's six-pack, the various muscles that stand out are each separated by a sort of groove ─ the central 'groove' that separates each half of a six-pack is called the linea alba.
Those 'grooves' separating the individual abdominal muscles are actual points of weakness, even though they are fibrous connective tissue.
If you check out this exceptional young woman's six-pack, you will see the 'grooves' I am speaking of that define her six-pack:
Looking at her, I think that the probable location of my small rupture is that identical location an inch or two just up from her navel where the vertical linea alba is intersected with the rather similar horizontal 'groove' that helps delineate each of the individual muscles of the so-called six-pack.
Those horizontal creases or grooves are apparently called tendinous inscriptions. You can see the one immediately above her navel, and then the next one a couple or so inches higher ─ that's where I suspect my problem lies.
Anyway, while planking today, I almost called a halt because the strain I was feeling after a couple of minutes seemed different from what I have previously experienced while planking.
Nevertheless, it was not sharp or painful as if something had unnaturally or suddenly given way, so I bucked up and just accepted that I was only feeling additional strain because of how recently I had achieved that first-ever 12-minute plank.
Then, after reaching the agonizingly slow count of 500, I logged back into my cellphone to find that something like 11 minutes and 10 seconds had elapsed.
Heck, I had gotten that far ─ I knew that I could hold out for another 50 seconds with the 12-minute mark so near.
And so I did. I stopped the counter at 12 minutes and 6.62 seconds.
And remember, I did not start the stopwatch until I had already been into the plank position for a few seconds while getting adjusted for whatever initial comfort I would be able to enjoy.
Oh gosh ─ it is already 7:30 p.m., and my younger brother may be home at any point now from wherever it is that he has been drinking this afternoon and early evening.
I have to get this post published ─ I had at least a couple of other topics I wanted to cover, but this bother trying to explain that bit of abdominal anatomy has consumed the time I had available to me.
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