What's a Little Asymmetry?

This morning, I felt a vague heaviness in my chest and realized that that cold has snaked its tentacles deeper into my lungs. Ugh. It's messy, but it sounds much worse than it feels. I still go to the gym, but give passing thought to cutting my cardio down to just 30 minutes today. I get to the gym and promptly ignore myself, punching in 45 minutes. I don't quite make 5 miles, but I tried. The worse moment was when a wet cough let loose and spewed phlegm on the sleeve of my hoodie. Yuck! Thankgoodness it was just the hoodie, and not any neighboring pedalers! Gross. A surreptitious dab from a paper towel and no one is the wiser.

Today is Rep Push Day. It's not really any different than Push Day other than I replace heavy benching with lots of repetitions at a lower weight. I see R and wave hi but don't dislodge my head phones, universal for "I'm not chatting now". B is probably at the beach today so I'm confident I'll have an uninterrupted workout. I Smith Bench 4 sets of 25 reps at 95 lbs and walk away feeling pretty good. Not as pumped as I'd like (compared to getting 75 reps with just the 45 lb bar) but since I'm constantly clearing my throat between sets, I'm okay.

I read the most inane article the other day about machines you should never use working out, and of course, the Smith was first on the list. Why? Because you might have arms that are two different lengths and you'll put uneven force on them trying to bench and then you'll be stuck because the Smith runs its bar on a tract. Good grief. Nevermind the benefits of being able to "safely" bench with a thumbless grip because lots of us have problems with our joints. I won't tell you where I read the article (online version of a fitness magazine) but that completely destroys their credibility.

Cage stretches & kicks, then back to dumbbells for delts. The 15s are too light. I do a warm up set. The 20s are godawful heavy, and those are the ones I use. They make me sweat. After delts, I start to do one arm tricep dumbbell extension and V wanders over. Good grief. He picks up a pair of 3 lb baby bells and does some floppy shoulder presses, then lies down for dumbbell presses. I high-tail it out of the dumbbell section unnoticed and situate myself on the Sit Up bench.

V wanders over again but I've got my hands in front of my face as I twist up and back, doing about 100 reps. He finally wanders off into the men's locker room. Phew! I think my worst fear is that he'll want to chat, and second worse fear, is that he'll want me to show him what to do. I know I can always tell him that the gym has people specially trained for that, but that doesn't help how I feel. Which is that he's intruding on my space, and my time. I'm soooo not a people-person. So any thoughts of becoming a personal trainer are a just that, fantasy thoughts. Because I don't deal very well with people I don't like. I'm like my son when he was 3 yrs old: "You go now!"

Today's Total Workout:
45 min cardio = 4.90 miles
Smith Bench: 12 @ bar / 4 x 25 @ 95 lbs
Cage stretch & kicks
Front & Lateral Dumbbell Raise Supersets: 12 @ 15 / 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Lateral Dumbbell Raises: 3 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Seated Inclined Rear Dumbbell Raises: 5 x 15 @ 20 lbs
Flat Bench Twisting Sit Ups: about 100
Flat Bench Lower Ab Kick Outs: about 100
One-Arm Tricep Dumbbell Raises: 4 x 12 @ 20 lbs
Decline Bench Press: 25 @ bar / 15 @ 65 / 4 x 12-15 @ 85 lbs
Mat stretch

My husband made pulled pork and it's a tad salty, so I'm not surprised that the scale reads 108.8 today. I'm apparently extremely sensitive to sodium. I'm also apparently bigger in the chest/back and lopsided to boot! My navy blue airy tank top is getting snug just under the armpits. My lats are starting to flare a little. I look directly down and see that my left pectoral is higher/bigger than my right. Which is odd because my right arm is stronger. Soooo, I guess that means my left pectoral is compensating for left tricep weakness? I'm not sure how to fix that without resorting to dumbbell presses, and I don't do those anymore because they throw my upper back out of alignment. Oh well. It's probably not noticeable to anyone 'cept me.