Posture.

My dad’s a dumbass. I’m just an ass.

Okay, maybe not. In either case.

It’s spring cleaning. Or whatever you want to call it, it’s the day when my dad wants to pull back everything in the living room and vacuum. So I give him a hand. Not a problem. Something you have to understand is that I don’t work well in groups, let alone him my dad. We’re completely out of sync. Moving a couch amounts to me taking a couple seconds to find my grip. Just like moving any other inanimate object, I’m careful about my grip. Then the other side of the couch moves before I even get started. *smirks* I’m sure it would be amusing to watch.

It’s funny when he’s all ready to team-move an endtable. I shake my head and pick it up by myself. What? There’s some books in it? Oh please. Only difference between a bar and an endtable is that an endtable you can’t quite get the same grip on. Bar is close to you, whereas your center of gravity with an endtable will end up being somewhere between you and the endtable.

His posture is horrible. I notice these things. He’ll go down to pick something up, with a complete arch to his spine. I point this out, and he replies, “I’m am lifting with my legs.” Maybe it’s due to our sedentary lifestyle, but most people have bad flexibility.

Let me share something I noticed a while ago. After we finished, I went and rinsed my face with cold water. We know this position. Now ask yourself: How’s your back? Is your entire body curved over? Newsflash: That’s lower back pain waiting to happen. For starters, it puts pressure on your spine to carry the load, rather than your back muscles.

Try this: Stand up straight over the sink. Bend your knees slightly. Now stick your ass out and bent forward. Odds are, you’ll feel a tightness in your hamstrings. Now you’re probably thinking, “Okay, that doesn’t feel right, why the hell should I do that?” Stand up straight. There’s a natural S shape to your spine. If you consistently compromise your back form, you’re just asking for trouble. I remember once upon a time, working at Ye Olde Panera, I ended up with slight lower back pain due to leaning over slightly and grabbing those damn paper bags.

What I described, in terms of bending over forward, is more or less a freeweight good morning. Many months ago, I decided to consistently use good form while brushing my teeth or rinsing my face. Guess what, months later, I can do it without even thinking about it. I decided it’s such a small thing to remember to do. How often am I in the bathroom a day, anyway?

It’s simple, if we want to do something, we will. In fact, we’d already be working towards it. I, in fact, do not want to power clean 315 lbs. Now if only I could figure out a way to get myself to brush my teeth more…

Things found behind the couches: Three letter-openers, a nail-file, and a ton of potato chips and spare nuts. Hey, don’t look at me, I don’t eat either of those things. And spiders. A freaking graveyard of dead spiders. I tend to have a fear of most insects, but I try to leave spiders alone. They keep the balance of power. If there’s spiders about, you can be sure they’re killing everything else. I suppose the poor spiders have to die somewhere. Reminds me, there was this huge fucker in the bathrub earlier this week. So I closed the curtain to the bathtub. Few days later, I noticed the same bug collapsed over. I didn’t bother getting rid of it until today. Eeek.

I have clean undies in the dryer. Being dried! Hurrah for clean undies!