Spin Me Right Round

You guessed it, spinning today! Woke nice and early this Saturday morning to get in a good bi's, tri's, and abs workout prior to the 9am spin class. I've been hitting up this class every Saturday for the past few weeks as I've found it to be the best spin class so far. Extremely motivating music (good loud beats) and lots of pressure to keep up the pace and sweat out all those toxins that have accumulated over the week (or that you drank the night before, oops!). I think I may have to buy a spin membership again because even doing it just once per week is pricier than a month's membership fee. My only complaint is that there is a serious lack of air circulation in the spin room and today's muggy, hot temperatures were not helping things. As a result, I definitely did not reach as high a gear setting as I usually do!

For weights today I did one of my typical bi/tri routines. This past week's gym workouts have been lacking as two days were forfeited for trips to Boston (to purchase a sweet new ride!) and Monday was the first of my previously postponed tennis lessons. Tennis by the way was really fun and to my delight I didn't suck as bad as I recalled! Here's a breakdown of today's routine:

Bi's/Tri's:
1. 3 sets of 8 bicep curls standing on the bosu
2. 3 sets of 8 weighted tricep bench dips with feet on a stability ball
3. 3 sets of 8 hammer curls standing on the bosu
4. 3 sets of 8 (each arm) tricep kickbacks

Abs:
1. 4 sets of 12 "air crunches". So happy my ankle is not hurting me anymore so I can get back into these and other incline crunches!
2. 4 sets of 8 leg lifts. 2 sets forward and 2 sets side-to-side. The first two sets were hanging and the last two stationary because the hanging loops seriously reak of people's sweat and there's only so much I can take of smelling that!

Dear World's Gym: Please please please replace those nasty loops!!!

3. 2 sets of 12 incline crunches, one front and one side-to-side.

Several hours later and I am nursing a bad headache, I'm guessing dehydration-caused. It seems to be physically impossible for me to drink the same amount I sweat out during spin class, especially on a day like today. All in all though an excellent workout and a great way to break into the weekend!

APP UPDATE: Spoke to the developer earlier in the week and the edits are still taking much longer than anticipated (30 mins for each shot and there are over 600 individual shots!) and he is the only person doing them. Therefore, we're pushing back the launch day to sometime around the end of August in order to take advantage of the surge of back-to-college students looking for a great new workout plan.

Easing Back Into It

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! :)

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!