Stronger, but Colder

My car takes a really long time to warm up. After 10 minutes, only the lower part of the windshield is clear. I scrape the rest and hope the winter sun will help defrost the rest. At 7:27, it's 18 F as we drive past the bus stop. A girl comes out of her house to wait for the bus that won't arrive until 7:35 at the earliest. She's not wearing a coat. I've offered her a ride to school before but she declined. I don't know when the bus actually arrived today, but if we see her tomorrow, I'll offer again. Because no teenage girl should be standing at a bus stop all by herself with no coat on in freezing weather for a bus that is routinely late. She'll probably decline. Tall and skinny, but she doesn't look cold, even just wearing a sweater and jeans. Oh well...

I get to the gym and I feel cold until halfway through my cardio warm up. My heart rate bounces all over the place, hitting its lowest point midway through the routine. No pull ups today. Just push ups and crunches. I count the alternating bicycle as a form of crunch. The Smith is occupied by a swarthy, big, middle-age guy who I haven't seen in a while. He showed up late at the Holiday party dressed in a sports coat and tie, like a professor or middle manager. Well, there's always the Breaker Benches. Yep. I am gratified to see two other women in the free weight area. Both are younger than I am, sporting different levels of fitness. One has a nice shape to her arms. She's been working them hard. The other woman wears a weight belt as if it were part of her outfit, since it's not really called for in the movements she's doing. Both women are moving real weights though, and not the plastic baby bells. I can't help but smile to myself.

I press more than I thought I could, but less than I have in my historical past. I can only get the bar to about 4 inches from my chest. As the bar descends your elbows should drop below your chest. Mine don't because the bench is too wide and the back of my arms hit the side of the bench prematurely in the descent. Which means I can't lower the bar to my chest either. Oh well. That doesn't stop me from doing this movement. I just don't do it with perfect Range of Motion. I can drag a smaller, narrower bench to the Smith, but I'm stuck with the width on the fixed Breaker Benches.

I look over at the Smith and the professor has finished but a college boy is now benching there. Ugh. Too late now anyway. The DB Lateral super sets are routine, and feel pretty good. I'm a bit nervous about the Rip Skulls though. I'd like to move up to 40 lbs but a slight twinge in my left shoulder, and a vague soreness at the bottom inside of my elbow make me hesitant. Instead, I grab both sets of magnetic discs (totaling 7.5 lbs) and stick them to the 30 lb barbell. This doesn't feel bad at all. I'm more confident that I'll be able to handle the 40 lbs next week without any issues.

I have to ignore the little voices of self-doubt that make me fear worst case scenarios. In my personal life, anxiety and doubt paralyze me from actions that entertain the risk of failure. I'm not a good loser. I have a hard time dealing with rejection and defeat. I never learned this type of resilience. I have endurance and perseverance at the gym. I feel in control at the gym. It's not this way with the rest of the world. I haven't quite figured out how to transfer these gym qualities to other aspects of my life.

When I finish Rip Skulls, I'm actually cold and I put my warm-up hoodie back on. 15 minutes on the recumbent bike gets me mildly warm. Oddly, my heart rate is low, but not hibernation low. Yes, the lowest I've ever recorded my HR is right before my eye surgery, when I couldn't eat or drink and sat in a freezing hospital room. The HR monitor kept beeping and I asked why. Because your HR is below 50. What?! And it was, hovering around 46 bpm. LISS cardio guidelines suggest a HR of 100. It's hard to get warm while not raising your heart rate. Lately, I've cut back on my stretching because for someone like me, too much stretching can have detrimental effects, like muscle knots and spasms. But if I could work out all day, I probably would. I'm a gym rat and exercise is my drug of choice.

Tuesday

30 min elliptical + 5 min cd
Program 2
Calories 307
Miles 2.79
HR 148-186 (79)

Push Ups 50
Crunches 30/40
Bicycles 50

Breaker Inclined Press
Bar (45) x 16
65 x 12
75 x 12 x 3
(Left shoulder/right bottom elbow)
55 x 25

DB Laterals s/s Rev Incl Flyes
20lbs x 12/15 reps x 3 sets

Rip Skulls
35lbs x 12
37.5 x 12 x 3

15 min LISS + 3 cool down
Manual level 1
Recumbent bike
Calories 66
Miles 1.32
HR 105-113

Stretch