Too Tired to Know if I'm Tired?

Thursday is Push Day. There's also a chance of going to cardio kickboxing tonight. The summer schedule came out and in two weeks it'll be difficult for me and my husband to take the same class because everything's shifted around. Not that we've been able to make many of the classes lately anyway. We've also been looking at actual kickboxing classes given by MMA (mixed martial arts) gyms but I think we're too busy, and too lazy to actually pursue those venues because they're miles away.

This morning I eat a 1/2 cup of (pre-cooked and microwave reheated) oatmeal with a teaspoon of honey, and I manage to wash it down with my cup of instant Starbucks. Push push push. I feel defiant and set the cross-trainer for 45 minutes and plug in my old standard cardio mix to get 5.13 miles. Happiness is doing more than 5 miles. Okay, I've got a weird sense of priorities and that's why I'm a gym rat.

But I'm not feeling the love today. The gym is too crowded and too noisy even though the product sales display is gone. I see my opportunity to use the Decline Bench and grab it (there's only one at my gym). I go fairly easy today since I benched heavy on Monday. Pros only work one body part a week but I'm not comfortable with that.

Self portraits are surprisingly hard to do.

I pyramid up to 3 sets of 13 reps with 95 lbs (bar + 25 lbs each side), and then pyramid back down until my last set is 25 reps with just the bar (45 lbs). The dumbbell area has cleared so I amble over there to do delts. I ditch the pretty shiny chrome-plated 15 lb "beauty bells" and opt for standard dumbbells. My forearms and elbows ping slightly with sets of front raises but otherwise everything feels fairly routine. To add a little spice, I opt to do bent over rear flyes instead of seated incline rear flyes. This means basically putting your chest in your lap and slowly flapping your arms like a wounded bird.

Normally I'll do abs and the cage stretch/kicks, then return to the Smith for more benching, but I'm not motivated to do any more chest today. Besides someone's using the Smith to do military presses. I grab a 15 lb dumbbell and do a set of tricep extensions. Switch to the 20 lbs to do 3 more sets but the left arm lags and I can only get 8 reps at the end. Abs beckon and I grind my way through the twisting situps, kickouts and weighted situps. I get impatient so my first set is 50 reps with the 10 lb plate. Then 2 more sets at 25 reps. I think I'm tired but I'm not sure.

I can't find the angled bar for tricep pressdowns so I have to use the straight bar that's already attached. It puts more pressure on my wrists and forearms than the angled one so I don't feel I can push as much weight. Still I get a set 12 at 40 lbs. Normally I get 3 sets. Instead, I pyramid down to 30 lbs (12 reps), then 20 lbs (25 reps). I'm done. And I wonder if I'll fall on my face doing pushups at kickboxing class tonight. Hell, I knocked out 51 of them on Monday and I wonder if I should do more today. But that thought lingers for 1/2 second before evaporating with my water. I've drained my water bottle and I refuse to drink from the fountain.

Stretching out on the mat is very comforting even though I'm usually moving to the beat in my iPod so I'm usually pretty sweaty even doing a "cool-down" stretch. But it feels good. And the hot shower afterwards feels even better. The scale reads 106.4 and I wonder what that's about. But I don't wonder too hard. Because, damn it, I'm tired. And hungry (the protein shake is in the car), and I still have grocery shopping to do. (sigh)