Born Again Gym Rat: I Don't Want to Do It But I Do It Anyway

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

I Don't Want to Do It But I Do It Anyway

There are few exercises that I hate more than HIIT cardio but it's not so bad when I'm actually doing it. It's the anticipation of having to do it that gets me. So I don't listen to myself. Especially when I'd rather be doing other cardio. It's only 10 minutes, otherwise I might've bailed on it a long time ago. Luckily I do it toward the end of my routine, followed by LISS as a reward. Today I managed to get all the way up to 140 SPMs and still kept my heart rate under 120. Cool!

Back Selfies Are Hard and Tan Lines Don't Help

Monday I got to a max of 288 SPMs. Today I can only hit 280. But Monday I broke my HIIT into 5 minute blocks, followed by 5 minutes of LISS. Today I do 10 minutes straight through. My legs are a tad sore from yesterday's cardio and core workout. But what's really bothering me if the sudden stiffness in my left lower back just over my hip. It's probably because I jerked during the Seated Cable Row with 120 lbs. Usually it's my right side that gives me trouble so I'm taken off-guard by this. I modify my subsequent routine so as not to exacerbate any potential injuries. It's hard to tell at this point. I'll have to sleep on it and see how everything is in the morning.

I started out with my standard 15 min warm up on the LifeFitness cross-trainer. Tattoo Tank is on the Max Rack so I do two sets of RG BB Rows in the Smith. Luckily he's just about done and I do the rest of my routine there. The Smith kind of sucks for doing heavy RG BB Rows because my hands rotate and I catch the bar in the stays while rowing. Today I notice that I must be standing tilted in the Max Rack because the tracks don't allow any lateral movement. Odd. I do reps because I can't go heavier without destroying my form. I pyramid on the Seated Cable Rows, but still manage my standard routine for One-Arm Seated Cable Rows. These are real bicep-busters. My lower back feels stiff and I have yet to do Lower Back Extensions. I almost decide not to do them. Instead, I allow myself to do just 12 reps per set instead of 15.

I like the partial Drag Curls a lot because they don't hurt my elbows. I'm considering upping the weight because I get 14 reps on set 3. Maybe I should up the weight a tad on the RG BB Curls too. Now I have to do HIIT cardio and it's all I can do to ignore the whining in my head. My lifting gloves are coming apart at the seams and they smell bad. I've sprayed them with fabric refresher because I don't think they'd survive laundering. Usually I wear them during cardio to give my fingers a little extra padding. Today I go barehanded. The Precor nags me to punch in my weight and age so it can calculate whether my heart rate is in the right range. I don't understand what it tells me: max rate 160, average rate 129 and 3:19 in the zone 80-120. I've been watching the heart rate display and most of the time it read 115-120 so the 3:19 makes no sense to me. Oh well...

Tomorrow I'll have my son in tow. I'm planning to whack the kickboxing machine, and maybe take my son to visit the Buddhist monastery. He doesn't remember going there when my dad passed away because he was barely 4 years old.

Back and Biceps Workout
(4.15 miles total, 37,560 lbs moved)