Born Again Gym Rat: Precision

Monday, July 20, 2015

Precision

Today's Selfie

I hate imprecise writing. This immediately dooms my future as a tech specifications writer, doesn't it? Poor punctuation, typography and worse, the absolute wrong word. I notice this a lot in printed and online articles, pieces that I assume have not only been spell-checked, but proof-read and fact-checked. Sadly, the written word appears so quickly these days that there's no time for review before it's being eyed by others. I've given up on the newspaper, even the once illustrious NYT is wrought with typos and convoluted sentences.

Health Blogs seem to take the most liberties. I read an article over the weekend about the 5 healthiest cheeses. I'm a big cheese fan, although I'm not particularly fond of Wensleydale. (We have blue Stilton in the fridge right now!) Okay, there's the standard parmesan, romano and cottage cheese. And then ricotta, which I like but can't really eat because of the lactose. I'm lactose-intolerant. So when the fifth cheese mentioned is cheddar, notably due to its high fat content, and thus low lactose content, I wince. What about the other hard cheeses like swiss and aged gouda? Worse yet, the author writes that the cheese is low in lactose enzyme, making it perfect for the lactose-intolerant. Ahem, anyone who's taken high school biology will tell you that a word ending in "ose" is a sugar, i.e., glucose, dextrose, lactose. Any word ending in "ase" is an enzyme, as in lactase, which is what is added to lactose-free milk. So what exactly does that last paragraph mean? The cheese doesn't have lactase enzyme in it. It just has barely any lactose sugar in it. I'm sure I'm not the only one who noticed the nonsense because two days later, the article is nearly impossible to find. Just as well.

I've been skipping breakfast lately and just drinking a cup of instant espresso before working out. Regardless of whether I eat breakfast or not, my workouts seem the same and I'm usually ravenous by the time I hit the shower. I'm not particularly fast these days, but I'm not weak either. Unfortunately, doing a few DB Presses while waiting to use the Smith machine, aggravates my right shoulder, even using a neutral grip (palms facing each other). I didn't even go heavy as sets of 12 were at 20, 25 and 30 lbs. I was still able to do high reps, and for me, high reps is 25 and over. Because of the shoulder, I skipped Inclined Benching today, and went light on the CG Bench Press.

I expected to see more people at the gym because it was already 80F by 8 am. There were some regulars. Most of them make themselves fairly scarce. Shaggy hovers a lot but The Mayor keeps his distance. I can still hear him from across the gym though. There is a new guy who seems to hover a lot lately. Tall, skinny, balding. He looks a lot like one of my neighbors but I'm pretty sure it's not him. There are too many newbies, mostly kids. Sometimes I look up from my bench and I'm surrounded by tall, thin blonde women, all wrestling with assorted DBs and BBs. And just as suddenly, they're gone.

Next week might be the start of a month-long cardio and bodyweight routine. Camp ends mid-August so I'll have my son at the gym with me every day for the two weeks until school starts, and that's always an abbreviated workout. But tomorrow we're going to see Antman. Yaaaay! And next week we'll catch an early showing of Pixels.

Oh, I took one of those silly online Fitness Level questionnaires. Because it relies on your "truthful" answers, the results are somewhat suspect. I had a good laugh though...who's to say that it isn't true? Truthfully, I don't feel old. And it's going to be a long while before I actually take advantage of any "senior" discounts.

Monday Push Day Workout
(3.95 miles cardio; 18,785 lbs moved)