Don't You Cry Tonight

I pre-appologize for the somewhat depressing tone of this blog entry but sometimes you just gotta get something off your chest in order to put your mind at ease.

 "Can I make a song request? Something heavy and angry...I have a lot of frustration to beat out tonight", I asked tonight's spin instructor. "Sure, I've already made the playlist but I'll see what I can do", she replied, and turned away to begin class.

All week long I've been a massive ball of anxiety. I'm someone that typically lives in a constant state of stress because I take things very seriously, get frustrated and disappointed easily, and generally expect a certain standard of perfection when it comes to life, people, work, etc. that of course no one or thing ever lives up to. I've been like this for as long as I can remember and in general I think a small amount of stress is actually a good thing. In fact, when the brain perceives physical or psychological stress, it starts pumping the chemicals cortisol, epinephrine (adrenaline) and norepinephrine into the body. Instantly the heart beats faster, blood pressure increases, senses sharpen, a rise in blood glucose invigorates us and we're ready to rock. Stress is like a burst of energy; it's our body telling us what we need to do. Full disclosure: I stole those exact words from an article I found on www.msnbc.nbc.com.

Typically, whatever stress I've accumulated over the day I let go of in the gym each night. It's when stress becomes anxiety that I have a serious problem on my hands...and this began over the weekend. The source of my anxiety isn't worth mentioning here. The point is that after about 5 days of this, I feel like my chest is about to explode. You know when you're in the middle of an intense run and your heart is racing and you're gasping for your next breath? Well imagine your heart is wrapped tightly in steel wire and its pounding against your chest at about 500 RPMs. Oh, and you're sitting still, doing absolutely nothing to provoke it. And your mind is racing so fast that it's making your heart beat faster and faster and it hurts and there's nothing you can do about it. That's what I've felt like these past few days. In all honesty, I could probably benefit from a Valium or two but I prefer to fix my issues without drugs (prescribed or otherwise) and that is what led me to the best spin class of my life tonight!

Like I've said before, what divides an average workout and an exceptional workout for me is the music. Little did the instructor know, but when she chose a playlist that included songs like Pink Floyd's "Money" and Guns 'n Roses "Don't you cry tonight", she was basically designing the class just for me. Those are my two favourite bands OF ALL TIME ...and I've always said that one day I WILL marry Axl Rose haha :) Hearing his heavenly voice crooning "Talk to me softly, there is something in your eyes. Don't hang your head in sorrow, and please don't cry" was honestly all I needed out of the class but then my real treat came. Godsmack's "Keep away" starts pounding through the speakers and I think she turned it up several notches just for me. I pushed through that song, heart pounding, like it was my sole purpose in life to make it to the top of that hill despite the fact that I had to peddle through quicksand to get there. My quads were angrily protesting the entire time but I ignored them. I know I'll be crippled tomorrow and possibly the day after too but it was totally worth it. "Keep Away" was the last song of the class and the next few minutes were spent stretching out to the tune of Tom Petty's "Don't do me like that". I mean seriously, did this girl read my mind?!

I'm by no means "cured" now but that one hour was the best hour I've had all week and I'm so exhausted at least I won't have any trouble getting to sleep tonight. On my drive home while in somewhat of a trance I found myself on an empty stretch of Washington Avenue and I floored it. I don't even recall what, if anything, was on the radio at the time. I think my adrenaline was still so high from class that it didn't much matter. It's probably not the best/safest idea in the world to let it rip in a dark 30 mph zone but it felt soooo good! Plus, its always a good idea to test out your brakes once in a while, right?

I came home and opened the door to my happy, bouncing ball of wiggles, Mugsy and it reminded me that there are still some loving, good-intentioned, loyal beings in this world. Well, at least one anyway! Here's to having many more amazing workouts in my near future but hopefully not needing one as badly as tonight. 'Til next time Gym Rats...

Halloween Prescription

Happy Halloween Gym Rats! I'm sitting home right now wondering why for the third year in a row, I have gotten no trick-or-treaters. I happen to live in the IDEAL trick-or-treating neighborhood where you could hit 70 homes in one loop yet year after year not a single ring to the doorbell! The first year I lived here I bought a massive bag of candy, anticipating hordes of costumed children at my doorstep all night and was beyond disappointed by the time 9 o'clock rolled around and I decided it was time to give up and turn the front door light out. Last year I thought the chance of a visitor was too slim to bother buying any candy and I was right, no one came. Tonight I gave up entirely and guess what...nothing. Again. Oh well, at least I don't have a bunch of candy to tempt me to the dark side tonight haha. Halloween does happen to be my all time favourite holiday but more for the costumes than the candy. Well, maybe for the gummy dots...and the flavoured tootsie rolls...and just about every form of chocolate...but, I digress. This year I celebrated this past Saturday and dressed  up as a ballerina. I was very proud of myself having made a pink puffy tutu all by myself haha. I can't lie, I was tempted to wear it to the gym tonight. I mean, it is technically work out gear, but I'm glad I didn't because I didn't see a single other costume there! Boring gym rats :)

Anyway, tonight I had a solid mid-week sweat sesh consisting of some light leg moves, core, and spinning. I had planned to do a maXtreme routine tonight but I wasn't a fan of the crowd over in the stretching area where I've been doing my maXtreme workouts so I decided to bag it and do my own thing. The weight area was nice and empty tonight, well, compared to yesterday anyway. I don't know what was going on yesterday; perhaps it was because Hurricane Sandy set everyone's schedule awry on Monday but it sure seemed like every member of World gym decided to come at 5pm! It was easily as bad as the New Year's resolution crowd. Ughhh cue the January gym nightmares tonight!

I didn't want to do a serious legs sesh right before spinning (been there, done that, baddd idea!) so I opted to focus on glutes and calves rather than quads and hams which needed to preserve their energy! First I did 3 sets of 20 barbell plie squats with raised heels. Sidenote: these would have looked awesome in my leotard and tights haha. Next I followed these up with 3 sets of 12 calve raises on the standing calve machine. Then I moved on to abs and did 3 sets of 10 standing leg raises. I was pleasantly surprised to feel my abs kind of sore from yesterday's workout. Usually it takes a lot to feel anything in my abs so it must have been the extra hard concentration I did on the incline crunches or maybe the extra risers that did the trick! I then moved back to legs and did 3 sets (each leg) of 10 on the standing glute press machine and finished up my routine with 2 sets of 12 leg raises lying on a bench with a stability ball held between my feet. I have a touch of obsessive compulsive disorder (self-diagnosed) and not doing a third set to match all my other moves was not in the plan but the 5pm spin class was emptying out so I had to make a mad dash to get my favourite bike!

Spin class was great tonight with an instructor I really like as well as a good heart-pumping playlist. I've been sticking to my 2-3 class max per week rule and my quads are definitely thanking me, allowing me to train legs during the week without serious muscle fatigue like last month. There's something about spinning I noticed today that just eases my mind and allows me to clear my thoughts kind of like a massage or a bubble bath does. It's really the only hour of the day when you can just let your mind wander and you are guaranteed that no one is going to bother you. If I were a physician or a therapist I would prescribe spinning to anyone undergoing stress, anxiety or any other related symptoms. It's funny I was reading the quotes on a lululemon shopping bag the other day and one of them says "Stress is related to 99% of all illness". I couldn't agree more! If only people had more initiative to be more physically active, I think we would have a muchhhh healthier society.

Okay so I think I've been rambling throughout this entire blog entry (what's new?!) so I'll wrap it up. I'm already planning a back / chest / core routine tomorrow which I started to design while in my spinners-zone haha. Happy Halloween and happy gymming everyone. Throw out that extra Halloween candy and hit the gym hard tomorrow. That's my "doctor's" orders.

Wicked Good Workout

Well, the Mainah in me is feeling wicked good tonight, having just completed a wicked good mid-week workout! Actually, all week long I've had fantastic workouts and stuck to a pretty strict clean diet which I'm sure is helping things out a lot. I even went out to dinner Saturday night and succeeded in not accompanying my meal with a glass of wine. Success! Tomorrow is however going to have to be a cheat day because we're having Portland Pie cater lunch and I just cannot resist my favourite Harbor Master pie!

I've been testing out the maXtreme workouts each day and I have to say I am really enjoying the switch-up in routine! I'm not giving up on my usual stuff; I'm either supplementing part of my weight session with a focused muscle routine or doing a total body routine on a day when I don't really want to do a heavy-weight sesh (Saturday morning for example when I did the Rejuvenate routine prior to my spin class). Everything so far has been either light weight or body weight only and high-rep / high-intensity drills with either no or minimal breaks depending on the length of the routine. On days when I'm not doing cardio, the 15-minute routines are a great way to start out my workout and still be able to get a good sweat going! 

Today was a bi's & tri's day so I started out with the "Bicep Kiss" routine after having already warmed up with 15 mins on the elliptical. I think this is my favourite routine thus far. Like all the others, there are so many variations on things I would normally do that it's like getting a ton of new moves each time I check a new routine out. For example, I really liked the lunge row kickbacks in this routine which is when you get in a lunge position with free weights and alternate doing rows and kickbacks. Yes, I realize this isn't a bicep exercise but the focused routines thus far have been about 75% focused on the muscle in their name (biceps in this case) and the remaining 25% are complimentary moves that keep you from tiring out that one muscle group. After completing this routine I then moved out into the weight room where I completed the following moves:

-Tricep weighted bench dips on the stability ball (3x8)

-Bicep curls on the bosu ball (3x8), 1 set forward curl on both feet / 1 set hammer curl on right foot / 1 set forward curl on left foot

-Medicine ball diagonal wood chops (3x12 each side). This is a new move I picked up from an all-core workout I did on Sunday that I copied out of the latest Muscle & Fitness Hers magazine and probably the only one I actually felt anything from!

-Teepees (3x8), balancing on the stability ball in between sets

I made sure to do a lot of stretching in between sets and after my workout today because tomorrow is going to be a legs day and I need to be fully recovered from yesterday's spin sesh! I think I'm going to do the one that crippled me a few weeks back but shorten it a bit so I'm not in there all night again haha. Hopefully it will just be a good burn that I can recover from before I do spin again this coming Saturday. I think spin 2x per week may be my max so that I don't completely fatigue my quads again and can still get in some good lower body weight sessions in between. Ahhh already wishing I could fast-forward to 5:00 pm tomorrow! Well, maybe not through lunch hour :) 

Happy gymming everyone! Be sure to check out the maXtreme iPhone app and follow me on Twitter @PortlandGymRat for daily workout updates, motivating quotes and some fun retweets!