Just a quick in-and-out back & chest routine at World's this afternoon. I was dying a slow death from boredom at work this afternoon so I booked it early to hit up the gym before the usuals got there. The dirty retired old man usuals are unavoidable but at least I avoided the younger meat-heads that have been cramming the place lately. I suppose I do go to what is now known to be the meat-head gym of Portland but its been more irritating than usual lately. I even went so far as to go to Planet yesterday because of it! Okay, so maybe it was partially because my neighbor told me there was a new stud working out there but at least it was a nice change of scenery. And no, no stud was in site. Although the guy behind the counter wasn't too hard on the eyes haha.
Anyway, my workouts have been slowly improving lately as my ankle seems to be mostly better and I've been able to incorporate more and more balance work each day. I haven't attempted a run yet though. I am contemplating starting with a short 1-miler at some point this week but we'll see. I had to beg and plead to get my formerly scheduled June tennis lessons postponed to July so I wouldn't want to re-sprain my ankle and then risk missing out on tennis all together!
Today's fast routine consisted of 15 minutes on the elliptical to warm-up and then the following three weight routines:
1. 3 sets of 10 free weight chest press on a stability ball
2. 3 sets of 10 lat pull-downs, using a different hand grip each set
3. 3 sets of 10 seated rows
My abs are quite sore today and I'm not sure why other than perhaps an effect of increasing the weight on the stability ball leg lifts I did yesterday so today all I did was 4 sets of 30 non-weighted stability ball crunches (2 sets forward and 2 sets side-to-side) and finally 3 sets of 30-second planks (front, left, and right side planks).
Tomorrow my weekly schedule comes full circle again. Friday was my off day so I skipped the gym and opted for a long dog walk instead. On Saturday I got to the gym bright and early and did an hour of legs before a ridiculously good spin class. Then on Sunday I did bi's & tri's, and shoulders yesterday. Thus, tomorrow is legs again. Doing legs at Planet totally blows so my stud finder will have to wait a day or so before I turn it on again haha.
APP UPDATE: Pics/Videos are still being edited so launch date is unknown. Hopefully soon... Getting soooooo excited / impatient! :)
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Sunday, June 10, 2012
Making Do
Good Morning, Gym Rats! It's a beautiful day here in Portland so I got up nice and early and hit up the gym for a solid morning workout before heading downtown for the Old Port Fest this afternoon. First things first, the "system shocker" I was planning out in my head last weekend has been somewhat postponed. While my knee and shins appear to be back to normal, this is a direct result of a serious lack of cardio this week due to my SPRAINED ANKLE! I mean, really, can I not just have a few solid weeks sans injury before bikini season really kicks in?! I think the yoga I did last Saturday aggravated whatever damage those unsupportive sandals did because starting Saturday night, I was limping around like a serious cripple. Trying to avoid paying an unnecessary doctor's office co-pay I decided to wait a couple of days in hopes that it would go away on its own. On Monday, I was hobbling uncomfortably around the office so I took the recommendation of several coworkers and purchased an ACE bandage to wrap it up with. I have to say, the pharmacist at CVS was completely unhelpful in my purchasing decision but I ended up buying one that seemed to do the trick. I had it wrapped all week long and by Thursday I was walking somewhat more normally although the pain was still there. Luckily is was Employee Appreciation Week at work so we were allowed to wear sneakers and jeans everyday. I don't know what I would have done had I had to wear dress shoes since I don't own a single pair of flats! Since I was walking better I didn't bother to make a visit to the doctor. However, while walking my pup around my neighborhood on Thursday morning I happened to run into my doctor so I explained what was going on and she said I most likely sprained it so that's what I'm going with.
Anyway, enough about my latest injury. After a few days of no cardio and Employee Appreciation Week unhealthy treats in the office everyday, I was feeling like a major slob so I decided to try out the stationary bike which I haven't used in at least a couple of years. I used the one where your feet are out in front of you so there's not much pressure on your foot. The first day I tried this out I think was Wednesday and I did only 10 mins and used mostly my right foot to peddle. Yesterday I was up to 40 mins and while I don't feel this is a very effective form of cardio, I did at least break a sweat so it's better than nothing!
Today was a legs day so after 25 minutes on the bike, I embarked on a circuit of exercises using the various leg machines. All week I've been altering my normal workouts by doing only things that require little or no use of my ankle. For legs, this means no squats, lunges, dead lifts, or really anything that I find gives the best burn. However, I have to make do with what I can for now so at least there are some other options available! Here's a breakdown of my leg routine (all on machines):
1. Bent-over leg lifts, 2 sets of 8 each side of both bent and straight leg lifts
2. Inner and Outer thigh presses, 3 sets of 12 each
3. Hamstring curl and Quad press, 3 sets of 12 each
For abs I first did 3 sets of 12 stability ball leg lifts. I've been doing these without weights this week because I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce them just yet. Maybe I'll start out small with a 5-lb weight if my ankle continues to improve in a couple of days. Then, I finished up my workout with one set of 6 pull-ups (real ones) and 3 sets of 8 push-ups with my hands on a bosu ball. I was extremely happy that after not doing pull-ups for probably a couple of weeks I was able to do 6 of them. Must be the rest from my traditional routine that gave me the extra strength...or the pre-workout Celsius I downed haha. Anyway, that was all for today's workout other than my usual post-routine stretching. It's off to the festival in an hour so I plan to wrap my ankle up real good so I don't hurt it more by walking around on the cobblestone!
Anyway, enough about my latest injury. After a few days of no cardio and Employee Appreciation Week unhealthy treats in the office everyday, I was feeling like a major slob so I decided to try out the stationary bike which I haven't used in at least a couple of years. I used the one where your feet are out in front of you so there's not much pressure on your foot. The first day I tried this out I think was Wednesday and I did only 10 mins and used mostly my right foot to peddle. Yesterday I was up to 40 mins and while I don't feel this is a very effective form of cardio, I did at least break a sweat so it's better than nothing!
Today was a legs day so after 25 minutes on the bike, I embarked on a circuit of exercises using the various leg machines. All week I've been altering my normal workouts by doing only things that require little or no use of my ankle. For legs, this means no squats, lunges, dead lifts, or really anything that I find gives the best burn. However, I have to make do with what I can for now so at least there are some other options available! Here's a breakdown of my leg routine (all on machines):
1. Bent-over leg lifts, 2 sets of 8 each side of both bent and straight leg lifts
2. Inner and Outer thigh presses, 3 sets of 12 each
3. Hamstring curl and Quad press, 3 sets of 12 each
For abs I first did 3 sets of 12 stability ball leg lifts. I've been doing these without weights this week because I don't think it would be a good idea to introduce them just yet. Maybe I'll start out small with a 5-lb weight if my ankle continues to improve in a couple of days. Then, I finished up my workout with one set of 6 pull-ups (real ones) and 3 sets of 8 push-ups with my hands on a bosu ball. I was extremely happy that after not doing pull-ups for probably a couple of weeks I was able to do 6 of them. Must be the rest from my traditional routine that gave me the extra strength...or the pre-workout Celsius I downed haha. Anyway, that was all for today's workout other than my usual post-routine stretching. It's off to the festival in an hour so I plan to wrap my ankle up real good so I don't hurt it more by walking around on the cobblestone!
Saturday, June 2, 2012
System Shocker
I have a feeling my posts are going to be fewer and fewer during the nice months because it takes a rainy day like today to get me back at it. Ever since I started having issues with my knee and shins and thus took a break from my running routine, I've felt like my workouts have been extremely sub par. I mean, I've been going to the gym 6-7 days/week still but just not feeling like its really making any difference to my physique and overall fitness. I dunno, maybe its all in my head. Maybe its that I've been talked into getting an afternoon iced cream a few too many times lately while bored at work haha. Whatever the reason though, I know I need to switch things up again to get myself re-energized and shock my muscles into growth mode.
First things first, a major stretch-out of my too tight muscles needed to occur before I could feel like I had a full range of motion again so this morning I rose bright and early and attended the 8am yoga class at World's. I was delighted to find that the weird face-touching-with-greasy-fingers instructor was no longer there but rather one of the woman who used to take the class was now the instructor. She spent a little too much time with some boring meditation crap at the beginning but once she got going, despite keeping the moves pretty basic, I felt like I got a good overall stretch of my major muscle groups...and no human contact to boot haha! Of course as seems to be the case with many yogis, they are in their own little world of hippie land and pay no attention to schedules so by the time she wrapped up 15 minutes late, my bladder was bursting from the Celcius I had downed pre-class! Anyway, I do feel that it was a successful 75 minutes of my day despite the discomfort toward the end. I ended my gym sesh with incline side crunches on the back extension machine (3 sets of 12 each leg), leg lifts on a bench with a stability ball held between my feet (3 sets of 12), and 15 mins on the elliptical.
I had originally wanted to do spinning class this morning because I'm in desperate need of some good sweaty cardio to rid my body of toxins (which may or may not be imaginary haha), however the 9am class was cancelled and I didn't feel like sticking around until the next one at 11:15. My plan is now to try to make it to the 10am class tomorrow (this may be difficult since I'm about to go to a BBQ where I know there's going to be lots of alcoholic temptations!). Supposedly spinning is little to no impact on your knees so I'm thinking it may be a good cardio alternative until my knee is back to normal. It probably sounds like I'm a major complainer right now but I seem to have hurt my left ankle as well, probably from the un-supportive sandals I was wearing yesterday, so while I'd like to get back into some group fitness classes in order to add something different to my usual routine they're going to have to wait until this new issue goes away! Anyway, time to go prepare for my rainy-day BBQ. Until next time...keep shocking the system, Gym Rats!
p.s. Whoever wrote the comments to my last post, please send me a private message on Facebook since you obviously know who I am....I've narrowed it down two three people who I think are the only ones knowledgeable enough to write those suggestions :)
p.p.s. If any of you Gym Rats have some good ways you like to shock your system when you are feeling like you're in a workout run, please share them below!
First things first, a major stretch-out of my too tight muscles needed to occur before I could feel like I had a full range of motion again so this morning I rose bright and early and attended the 8am yoga class at World's. I was delighted to find that the weird face-touching-with-greasy-fingers instructor was no longer there but rather one of the woman who used to take the class was now the instructor. She spent a little too much time with some boring meditation crap at the beginning but once she got going, despite keeping the moves pretty basic, I felt like I got a good overall stretch of my major muscle groups...and no human contact to boot haha! Of course as seems to be the case with many yogis, they are in their own little world of hippie land and pay no attention to schedules so by the time she wrapped up 15 minutes late, my bladder was bursting from the Celcius I had downed pre-class! Anyway, I do feel that it was a successful 75 minutes of my day despite the discomfort toward the end. I ended my gym sesh with incline side crunches on the back extension machine (3 sets of 12 each leg), leg lifts on a bench with a stability ball held between my feet (3 sets of 12), and 15 mins on the elliptical.
I had originally wanted to do spinning class this morning because I'm in desperate need of some good sweaty cardio to rid my body of toxins (which may or may not be imaginary haha), however the 9am class was cancelled and I didn't feel like sticking around until the next one at 11:15. My plan is now to try to make it to the 10am class tomorrow (this may be difficult since I'm about to go to a BBQ where I know there's going to be lots of alcoholic temptations!). Supposedly spinning is little to no impact on your knees so I'm thinking it may be a good cardio alternative until my knee is back to normal. It probably sounds like I'm a major complainer right now but I seem to have hurt my left ankle as well, probably from the un-supportive sandals I was wearing yesterday, so while I'd like to get back into some group fitness classes in order to add something different to my usual routine they're going to have to wait until this new issue goes away! Anyway, time to go prepare for my rainy-day BBQ. Until next time...keep shocking the system, Gym Rats!
p.s. Whoever wrote the comments to my last post, please send me a private message on Facebook since you obviously know who I am....I've narrowed it down two three people who I think are the only ones knowledgeable enough to write those suggestions :)
p.p.s. If any of you Gym Rats have some good ways you like to shock your system when you are feeling like you're in a workout run, please share them below!
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