Getting Past Inertia

Even though I cleared out some decent workout equipment four days ago in my unheated garage, I hadn't had any desire to exercise until today. Well, that's not true. But because it's a good 30 yards across the muddy yard, it does take some planning. The weather swings from 60F and torrential rain to bright sunny cold. Today it's 40F and snow/sleet in the forecast for tomorrow.

There's also the issue with, as all things done from home, getting distracted or sidetracked by other more pressing issues. It's why I like going to the gym: once I'm there, there's nothing else to do but work out. Being a place specific to exercise hones focus on exercise, unless you're there to socialize. I miss the gym.

Today, I managed to get out to my garage with most of the things I needed, but only after walking the pups (with my son who promptly went back to bed afterward), doing a load of laundry, and cleaning all the dishes (because they were literally piled high enough to fall out of the sink. It's just past noon when I can grab my sneakers (in a bag), earbuds and tunes, water bottle, gloves, and several layers of fleece. Because it's cold in the garage!

The only thing I forget is a plug to charge my phone or a spare battery. Perhaps it's because the phone is old, or because the garage is cold, but the phone goes from 93% to 35% in less than two hours with me just snapping a few photos and taking some workout notes.

I select the 5k program on the elliptical, which is about 3.1 miles. What I don't realize is that because I selected "beach," the program insists on varying the resistance from level 1 to level 6 in a cycle. Disappointingly, there's no actual visual to go with the program. Worse, the machine can't maintain that low resistance, so it periodically raises the resistance and I have to manually step it down as I pedal. Surprisingly, the HR monitor seems more accurate. Or maybe it's just less sensitive. I try pedaling backward after 30 minutes and the machine grudgingly obliges, but it's not as easy so I don't think it's really meant to do that.

Next time I'll just select Manual mode and keep the resistance at 1. That's the easiest for my knees. The HR monitor is on the static handles, although there are moving plastic handles higher up on the machine. I might use those in the future. It takes me about 40 minutes to do my 5k, so I'm a horribly slow racer. But at least I got it done. I finally warmed up after 15 minutes and had to strip off the jacket, hat, vest, and gloves. Luckily, not too many spiders in the daytime. I did a few basic core exercises, but since I was wearing sweat pants and not my regular gym pants, I was concerned about seams chafing the backside. No sideways scissors.

The biggest challenge came from attempting pullups. We have a bar that my husband installed some years ago. There are ladders and other items against the wall under it and nowhere else to put them. Being short, I have to climb up on a bench anyway. And the bar is positioned so high up, that there's the danger of hitting your head on the support rafters in the ceiling. I only do a dozen slow, careful hammer grip pullups. There's certainly no leeway for swinging or kipping!

There's also a Power-60 power band system affixed to one of the ceiling beams (my husband again) that gets hooked over the pullup bar to keep it out of the way. I'm not planning on using that TRX knockoff as much as my husband raves about it. He admits that it's been a few years since he last used that. I'm not inclined to try although I'll probably play with the DBs and EZ bar. Eventually.

Pushups are easy except for that annoying click in my left elbow. Bodyweight Squats a little taxing by the time I get to 25. Maybe next time I should do Lunges instead? Maybe attempt some stretches too? But, I'm definitely bringing either a spare battery or a power cord for the phone...

Sunday Home Workout

Vision elliptical

Program: 5k

Minutes: 42.03 

Miles: 3.11

Calories: 293

HR 74-140 (low 69)

Crunches 60/60

Elbow Plank 60s

Bicycles 60

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Pushups 25

HGPU 12

Bodyweight squats 30