Art Van, the Bishop, and an arm cramp 3-11-11

Approximately one hour after I fell asleep last night, I was awakened by a shooting pain in my left hamstring. What is a hamstring, you may ask? It is the muscle in the back of the upper thigh. I had done some heavy squats that day, and followed it up by some equally heavy leg curls. That's the one that did it...it always is. The leg curls are supposed to prevent injury, and they do...and a leg cramp is hardly an injury anyway. It is easy to prevent, too. A leg cramp is a reminder that I did not take any coral calcium with magnesium until just before bedtime, when I should have taken it 3 or 4 hours earlier. I have had them before, and the coral calcium prevents cramping every time. The pain itself is very hard to describe, because "like a giant knife being plunged into your leg" doesn't quite cover it. But Mark, you may ask, if leg curls can cause this potential for leg cramping in the middle of the night, why do them at all? I started doing leg curls ten years ago during a foot race with a teen-aged client. Around  mid-race, I pulled my right hamstring and lost. To be honest, I probably would have lost anyway, since we were neck and neck and it didn't look like he was going to fade. After the pulled healed, I have done heavy leg curls, at least once a week, ever since. Thus, during my next middle-aged crisis impromptu footrace, I will lose because I am finally getting slower, not because of durability issues. (Of course, if I don't challenge some teenage track star again by accident, I might win.) So what, you may wonder, does all of this talk about leg cramps have to do with Art Van and the Bishop? I will explain soon...