What’s that in my arm?

On Monday I had a check-up and had to get a routine vaccination in my upper left arm. It’s been sore ever since. Today I was inspecting the arm and I noticed that there was a large, round, hard bump in the area of where I received the shot. “What in the world?” I thought to myself, fearing it was infected or that something was wrong.

I then inspected my upper right arm to compare. It had the same weird bump. What was going on?!?!?

I then began to realize something. It was a muscle! I couldn’t believe it. I’ve never had visible muscles in my arms before. In my legs, sure, that’s easy, but my arms were always very floppy, even when I was more slim.

I started exercising about a year ago, as chronicled here in my blog, which was an amazing feat because previously I hadn’t exercised since high school. After I stopped playing tennis and participating in mandatory gym class (which I utilized mainly to gossip in while doing the minimum required to get a decent grade), I saw no reason to exercise. But a year ago, it all changed and I realized that I had to start exercising, not only to watch my weight but also for my health. And participating in regular exercise has helped me feel better and build my immune system up.

Matt got me dumbbells for Christmas this year, which has probably made the biggest difference in my arms because now I can use them in the comfort of my own living room.

Anyway, developing muscles in my arms instead of having them look liked uncooked dough is much preferred over the prospect of having some funky vaccine-caused infection type thing!

Filed under My Life, the gym |