Categories
General Fitness Health and Conditioning

Abs of Cold Steel

I was thinking about my abs workout and suddenly remembered the unfortunate story of a friend of mine (lets call him, “House”) from basic training. During the four months we were at Fort Knox for basic, we spent a lot of time getting dogged out by Drill Sergeants. This included grass drills, long road marches with all of our gear, and of course push-ups—lots and lots of push-ups. I tried counting how many push-ups I did one day but stopped once I hit 1,000.

During one of these nice, relaxing days, my friend House injured his wrist. He pushed on (no pun intended) through the pain but eventually his wrist gave out. In mid-push-up he rolled over in pain. Luckily the Senior Drill Sgt was there to apply first aid. He grabbed House by his wrist and began shaking it while saying, “There’s nothing wrong with your wrist.” We stood quietly (and that wasn’t easy) as we watched his hand shaking back and forth while he yelled in agony until someone finally realized he actually did need medical attention. My memory is blurry, but I want to say he was diagnosed with a stress fracture.

A day or two later, he returned with a cast on his arm and a physician’s order for light duty with no push-ups. In theory, this should have made his life easier, but this was not the case. Every time I saw him over the next few weeks he was on the floor doing some kind of abs exercise; V-ups, air bike, leg raise, crunches, sit-ups—you name it. He must have had crazy abs after this ordeal. This continued until he was finally sent away to heal enough to repeat basic training (that’s right, he had to repeat basic training—that alone makes me cringe).

So, next time I am struggling through my abs exercises (or any other exercise) I will think of House and let that motivate me to work harder and keep going. Find a similar motivator you can use to push yourself to the next level and don’t forget to work those abs! See you in the gym.