on the subject of hamstrings

Forget los cajones. The hamstrings should ascend to primacy as far as debilitating-when-injured body parts are concerned. Take out the hamstrings and you impair the function of the entire apparatus. I think most of us are familiar with the memorable scene in the movie Spartacus where Kirk Douglas "hamstrings" a Roman slave driver: biting him on the ankle, cutting through his hamstring and laming him for life. Well, there are other and far more painful ways of gimping yourself up, let me tell you. I have had a rather hostile relationship with my hamstrings for most of my life. I respect the fact that they let me cavort, prance, and mosey about, but as of this writing it seems that they're a lot more trouble than they're worth. I first ran afoul of them when I began to play soccer as a kid—after the first practice session of the season, after the 10-minute stretch routines we did before practice started, my hamstrings would protest mightily. Even today, I am forced to touch my toes a few times every morning to loosen the buggers up, or they'll torque my back the wrong way and my old sledding injury will flare up. My latest adverse encounter with my hamstrings wasn't caused by anything so grandiose as being attacked by a ruggedly handsome, sandy-haired quarry slave, nor even the noble sport of soccer. Nope, not at all. It was the jumping jacks that did it. Yes, the jumping jacks. I did three sets of 100 jumping jacks at around 9:00 p.m. on Sunday, shortly before I went to bed. Why was I doing jumping jacks at 9:00 p.m.? My metabolism, that's why. I have the metabolism of a nonagenarian tortoise. A few push-ups or pull-downs every day and a nice constitutional before dinner is about as strenuous as my exercise routine gets. But I had heard somewhere that working out before bed is a good thing. It heightens your metabolism just before your body shuts down for the night, meaning that you burn off some extra calories while you sleep, or something. What I hadn't been told was that working out before bed is nefariously bad for a good night's sleep. I had the most immaculately horrible night's sleep on Sunday of any night since I had the stomach flu. It seemed like every hour I was awake, tossing and turning. Add in that dry Mojave air which sucks moisture out of my mucus membranes faster than a vampire on a date, and I might as well have stayed up listening to conspiracy talk radio for all the rest I was getting. To add insult to injury (literally), I was sore the next morning. And I mean full body sore: my arms stung from flinging themselves over my head 300 times, my diaphragm ached from yanking my arms and legs into that ridiculous star shape, and my hamstrings...well, if anybody's invented a way to turn the Holocaust into a salve, they must have rubbed it on my legs that night. It's only gotten worse today. I had to get up at 7:00 to help my father return the big U-Haul truck, and then drive him to work. Upon returning home, I half-fell out of the Jeep and stumped to the front door like a—like a—my gait beggars description. Like a stork in splints. Sort of a ridiculous, stiff-legged waddle. Anything to avoid flexing my ankles and thereby setting my strained tendons on fire. As if a rough night and impaired locomotion weren't enough, today my mother and I are going to be shifting all the furniture that she and Dad moved home from Wyoming into its proper place. This includes things like desks, heavy dressers, and even a huge sheet of plate steel that Dad salvaged from Uncle Joe's house. That ought to work wonders for the ol' hamstrings, yes sirree. It took me by surprise, I must say (as Marvin Gaye sang). I've done thousands of jumping jacks in my 23.011 years. I don't lead the healthiest of lifestyles; in fact, I like to eat and drink until I pass out. But even so, sometimes I feel like I'm at war with my body. Darn thing's always giving me a pain here, or an ache there, or stiffening up on me like a frozen fish. I guess that's what it means to be out of shape. I'll grant you that I'm ten pounds overweight and haven't done a significant number of jumping jacks in something like five years, but come on. I'm not that out of shape. I don't deserve to be waddling about like an arthritic jaçana. Particularly not when I'll have to bend over soon and pick up a wad of plate steel.