After the Fourth

We decided to see the new Jurassic World movie at the first showing on Tuesday. The theater was surprisingly temperate. It's usually icy cold, but we're lucky that it was open at all. Some car hit a utility pole late Monday afternoon and took out power lines all the way past the shopping center. We're pretty sure the driver was "distracted" because road conditions were good. Power got restored to that area in a few hours. We've been fine so far although reports of outages and brownouts from the prolonged intense heat are stressing the grid. The movie was entertaining, but I wish there was more interaction between Owen and Blue. Of course, (spoiler alert!) I'm sure there's going to be a sequel since Blue opted to run off into the hills of civilization, rather than board a caged freighter to a protected sanctuary. Well. at least Claire flees dinosaurs in sensible shoes this time.

I'd planned to take my son to the gym on Wednesday July 4th since the gym only closes for Christmas and Easter. On holidays, the gym will close early around 3 pm, more than enough time for most gym rats to get their cardio done. However, we had too much prep to do since we'd invited a few families to come eat with us, have their kids run around our lawn with water guns, balloons and the hose, and then we'd all set off to the lake to set off supermarket fireworks, aka glorified sparklers. Because NYS prohibits real fireworks unless you've got that special license.

A gym rat like me doesn't let scheduling snafus get in the way of a good workout though. My son and his friends swam a lot yesterday so he was tired when I got him up this morning. I'd made an appointment with his pediatrician because I wasn't entirely satisfied with the dermatologist we saw almost two weeks ago. The little bubble bumps on his knees turn out to be molluscum contagiousum, a type of contagious viral wart that spreads easily among kids. The dermatologist says it'll go away by itself, otherwise he'd have to resort to freezing them off. At home, I tell my son to apply tea tree oil to keep them from spreading down his leg. But underneath the bubbles, there's rough red skin. The bubbles are shrinking but the red skin is spreading in patches behind his knee. My son says it doesn't itch. The derm seems not to have noticed this. Weird. The pediatrician says no signs that it's bacterial or viral, so probably just eczema. She prescribes a cortisone cream to reduce it's spread. Of course, the CVS doesn't have it in stock and needs to order it. Of course...

We get to the gym around noon. The Mayor is on the treadmill with SquareJaw. I can't believe I can hear him all the way across the gym. At least until I put on my headphones. My son and I pedal the recumbent bike and then walk the treadmill while plugged in. Once we're done with cardio, we turn off the tunes. The gym has pop music blaring in the background. I'm okay with the latest Shawn Mendez, but rap stuff definitely annoys me. There's still no replacement for the big blue mats so we retreat to the classroom after my son does his pull ups. He gets 6 today and I'm happy for him. He just rubs his forearms. He's tired from all the swimming yesterday so opts to do regular push ups instead of T push ups. I'm fine with it. We do core and both feel how shaky we are holding our positions.

Today is a Push Day. He's concerned that he's too tired to do this. I tell him: just 3 exercises, just 3 sets per exercise. Not so bad. He chooses to do the flat breaker bench with just the bar even though the Smith is available. He doesn't like how the noisy pulley needs servicing on that machine. I have to slow him down because he knocks out two sets of 12 reps back to back. Yes, this is probably too light but there's other exercises to be done. I show him how to do DB Laterals with 10 lbs. I'm worried it's too heavy because he's not familiar with this movement. He tries it, and again with 5 lb DBs but doesn't feel it in his deltoids. Instead, the base of his neck, the traps are stressed. I move him to the Lateral Machine. We add weight incrementally from 10 lbs because he's still not feeling it where he should. Finally, he moves the pin to 30 lbs and says now it feels right. Hmmm...

Last, I show him Rip Skulls with a 20 lb bar and only have him do 6 reps per set. He says this is much more a shoulder exercise than the other movements. But he also feels it in his triceps. Good! I've had friends tells me that they only let their boys do cardio and body weight (push ups and crunches) exercises because they don't want to impact the long bones. I'm not having my son squat or even use heavy weight, so I'm not all that concerned. He's got nearly 40 lbs on me and is just overall bigger than I am. I'm pretty sure he can handle the exercises I'm having him do, without any adverse effect on his growth plates. In boys, those continue to grow from ages 16-21, depending on the individual.

We stretch out afterwards and then I go shower. This will be the first time in 4 weeks that I've showered without sealing the water out of my eye, not that I plan to get water in it. I've stopped administering the post-surgical drops although I'm still using the glaucoma drops, because I don't know if the surgery has had the desired effect of lowering my IOP. I go back to my eye doc next Tuesday. My eye still feels a tad weird, as if the lid was a bit tight and interfering with my vision. How often do you feel as if your eyelids were just a size too small? Weird, right?

Tomorrow will be cardio, and a Pull Day: lat pull downs, seated cable rows, and maybe some light DB curls, or not. The gym scale tells me 110.4 lbs, which is better than I expect. But of course, at this point my stomach is growling at me and I can't wait to suck down a Fair Life milk shake in the car.

Post-Fourth July Thursday

15 Recumbent Bike
Manual Level 1
Calories 64
Miles 1.96
Average Heart Rate 106 (63%)

30 Treadmill
5% Incline
Speed 3
Calories 190
Miles 1.49
Average Heart Rate 117 (70%) / max rate 135 (80%)

Max pull ups 6
Max push ups 20

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s
Side Planks 2 x 60s
Elbow Plank 60s
Bicycles 50
Crunches 30/20

Max Flat Bench
45 lbs (bar) x 12 x 3

Max DB Laterals
10 lbs x 6
5lbs x 12
Max Lateral Machine
12 x 10, 20, 30 lbs

Max Rip Skull
20lbs x 6 reps x 3 sets

Stretch