Born Again Gym Rat: Knowing What Ails You is Half the Cure

Saturday, August 29, 2015

Knowing What Ails You is Half the Cure

Looks like a pillowcase!

When I woke up at 4:30 am in excruciating pain, I thought for a moment that I'd inadvertently pulled a back muscle. The pain was radiating through my torso and I couldn't breathe. Unfortunately, our society has primed us to ask "What can I take for this?" as a first step, instead of "What is happening?" As I cleared the sleep from my brain, I realized that this was the same sensation I get when I've eaten something that my stomach just can't handle. Its response is to shut down and somehow trigger surrounding nerves in the diaphragm and back. Until I manage to vomit up the offending item. It could be an apple skin. Or tomato skin. Once it was simply a stalk of watercress.

Once I did that, and drank copious amounts of water to rinse stomach acids from my throat and teeth, I fell back asleep. And I woke up feeling as if nothing untoward had happened during the night. I try to avoid foods that I have trouble with. A friend of mine asked me why I didn't just take a pill for it. She was concerned about not getting all the vitamins and nutrients found in the skin of apples and tomatoes. Uh, no thanks. I don't think I'm going to develop malnutrition from not eating those things.

This tank from Athleta is definitely lightweight, but it's so billowy that even an XS feels like I'm wearing a pillowcase. I take 20 minutes to do a "warm up" on the elliptical with program Performance #2. I hope this gives me enough time for planks, push ups and pull ups. Planks are actually getting easier so I've moved from 90 seconds to 2 minutes on most sets. I still can't Bird Dog with my lower leg straight, but I keep trying.

Added new push ups today. Boy are they hard! The first 50 regular push ups are surprisingly easy. The second set are "diamond" push ups where hands are placed close to each other, fingers and thumbs forming a diamond shape. This puts a lot of stress on the triceps. I'm glad I'm able to do 25, and I do each rep slowly and deliberately. The third set are the Dand or Hindu push ups. I'm slow and deliberate, but 25 reps are hard. But I can do them. The last set are Side To Side push ups, which means you bend and lean all your weight on one arm, push up and then lean all your weight on the other arm. By this last set, my arms and chest are tired. And then I go do more hammer grip pull ups.

At some point I'll be able to add another set of pull ups. As it is, I'm just happy I can get 3 full sets and my elbows are okay. It feels really awesome to pull myself up without struggling, and part of me is always surprised that I can do it. Not sure if it's any particular back exercise or a combination of all the work, but I'm definitely stronger than I used to be. What's odd is that today the scale read 108.4 lbs, a 3 pound drop. I'm going to asume that it's just water.

Friday Body Weight Workout
(total cardio = 4.54 miles)