My ham stings hurt! They hurt, because I was silly on Saturday night. I blame the booze of course, but most likely it’s just my own stupidity.
Long story short, my eldest brother John and his fiancée Charu came over to stay for the night, which was nice because I rarely get to see my brother as he lives over 200 miles away. A very convivial evening ensued, with good food, fine wine and plenty of engaging conversation. The talk ebbed and flowed as the tides of wine rolled over us, and as ever, chat meandered to diets, and weight loss, and exercise, and strength.
I mentioned that I could easily lift John for example, despite the increased size of his girth making him probably the heaviest I think I’ve ever seen him. Charu started egging John on to see if he could lift me, and my wife me, to show off in lifting him. In typically modest English fashion, neither of us were initially inclined to demonstrate our physical prowess, but we were fools to think we could withstand the social pressures of respective ‘er indoors for long. As predicted, it was relatively easy for both of us to simple lift each other off the floor by wrapping out arms round the others buttocks, not at the same time of course!
However, here’s where it gets a bit hazy. I’m not entirely sure how we came to the next test of strength, but suffice it to say that I appear to have been volunteered to do a double lift, both my brother AND my wife, at the same time! Their combined weight is about 25 stone (350lbs or 160kg) which is just about my Crossfit max dead lift weight of 157.5 kg, and hence my addled mind seemed to back up the fact that this was possible.
So, I stood them side by side and get them to place an arm round each other, and their outer arms on my shoulders. I stood with each of my legs in between each of theirs, and did what I could to reach behind them to put my arms under their bums. I forget whether I managed to link my fingers or not. And then I stood up!
Judging by the cheers of Charu and the flailing of legs I could feel and giggling going on, I appear to have successfully dead lifted the 350lb beast that was my brother and wife, clean off the floor. I have to say, the rather surprised look on Johns face was worth it: “Wow, I couldn’t have done that!” he said. And all was well.
Until Sunday morning when I got up and realised that quite apart from the banging in my head, my ham strings hurt! Not a lot, I’ve not sprained them I think, they are just sore and achy, and I can only imagine that it was due to my un-warmed up, drunken self, performing a most undignified lift the night before. Ho hum, still, it was funny. 😉
