End of the Week

Spotted Jellyfish

We had a great time at Mystic Aquarium yesterday and had enough time to see all the exhibits. It was only the various highway repaving projects throughout Connecticut that caused anguish on our return home. A day spent viewing fish and eating fish, i.e., clam chowder, oysters and sushi has repercussions, of course. I knew when I woke this morning to puffy eyes and a bloat under the skin, that I'd reached my salt (sodium) limit yesterday.

Solution: go to the gym. Having my son in tow again limits my cardio to 35 minutes. 4.03 miles seemed adequate but I wasn't drenched in the sweaty joy I experience during longer cardio sessions. Because I'd missed yesterday, I decided to do a combination workout. Some push, some pull. Bench press reps on the Smith. Chin ups at the Cage stretch. Lat pull downs. So far so good. But by this point my forearms are getting tired so doing shoulders are much harder — I'm having trouble gripping the 20 lb dumbbells when I extend my arms outward. My fingers hurt and my hands feel weak and small. Oh well. There's nothing I can do but soldier on.

Afterwards, I superset tri's and bi's with dumbbell extensions and bicep curls. Those I can handle at 20 lbs. Abs get a cursory 2 sets each (upper and lower position) on the ab crunch station, and then a quick Mat stretch. When I've skipped this critical last phase of my workout, I'm always so much more sore and stiff the next day. And who really needs that?

Today's Total Workout:
35 min cardio = 4.03 miles
Smith Bench: 5 x 25 @ 95 lbs
Cage stretch & kicks & 12 close grip chin ups with knees curled to the chest
Ab crunch machine: 2 x 50 (upper) / 2 x 50 (lower)
Lat Pull Downs: 12 @ 75 / 12 @ 90 / 4 x 12-8 @ 105
Front Dumbbell Raises SuperSet with Lateral Raises: 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Lateral Dumbbell Raises: 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Seated Rear Inclined Dumbbell Raises: 5 x 12 @ 20 lbs
One-Arm Tricep Dumbbell Extension SuperSet with Bicep Curl: 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Mat stretch

The scale reads a whopping 109.6 lbs but considering the puffy bags under my eyes and how swollen my face looks, I'm not horribly surprised. I'm off to the beach later because my son has a play date with a friend. Maybe I'll be able to work on erasing some of these tan lines... What I really need to do is drop some of this water...