Good Intentions

I've been trying to work out three times a week but I always manage to find something else to do. I'm lucky to hit my garage gym twice weekly. Today was the perfect day for yard work. More importantly, my neighbor didn't have any cars parked next to the driveway hedges. That offered me the opportunity to finish "trimming" the privets I'd started on last weekend as I needed to stand in their driveway (which is at least a foot higher than ours) to reach some of the bigger stems.

After four hours, I'd managed to chop most of them down to a reasonable 5-6 foot height. There are a few stems that are too thick for anvil loppers so I'll have to take an actual saw to them. After those are done, I'll brace myself to attack the privets along the road. The road is higher than the house side of the hedges so I'll have to do all my lopping from the roadway. I have all summer but it's best to do this in the spring when the shrubs will have a chance to leaf out.

After four hours, my hands are sore. Shoulders and arms will be tomorrow since I've had to hold my arms overhead most of the time. I don't want hedges shorter than I am even if they will leaf out in a few years. I must be a true introvert because I'm perfectly happy spending hours by myself clipping branches. No need to wear headphones because there's no incessant chatter or bad gym music to ignore. I heard bees humming, not in the hedges but in the lawn behind me. We haven't mowed this year so the grass is unruly and peppered with dandelions and purple spires of ground ivy.

Meanwhile, my husband turned me on to a talented acapella named Jared Halley who collaborates with himself to sing amazing covers. Here's one of my favorite videos (I just love the frames where he dances around). Hope you enjoy it as much as I do.

Sore From

It's 69F and overcast. So it doesn't take me long to warm up on the elliptical. I'm surprised when 20 minutes isn't so bad. Then I remember that I drank half a dose of SuperBeets half an hour beforehand. Normally I drink beet juice after my workout because I've read that you need to let it build up in your system. My husband swears that drinking a full dose of beet juice revs him up like an energy drink. This might be true after all.  

After core, I position myself to do push-ups, but slower than I'm accustomed to doing. I'm a bit dismayed to find that the bodyparts hitting the floor isn't chest. Nope. It's forehead, abdomen, and top of thighs. Now, granted, I have big thighs that are front-loaded (more quad than hamstring), a decent caboose, and not a tiny waist nor much of a bosom. Any size I have up top is due to a wide back, but I lack thickness. I'm built like a fireplug. My back and hips aren't sagging so the only way I'll be able to figure this out is to do a video. I didn't today but next time I will. Because if I'm going to compromise my form, I want to do it consciously for a good reason. Like painful elbows cause me to spread my arms wider during push-ups, tendonitis in my forearms and elbows means not dropping down to a full extension during pull-ups and chin-ups. 

I do the same pull-up, hammer grip pull-up, and chin-up as last week but the seam inside my gloves is chafing my ring finger. Last night's supper of homemade shrimp and garlic scampi (my husband's treat) was a tad salty and my fingers tend to swell up in reaction. Luckily, it's only temporary, but it's enough to cause discomfort today. My hands, forearms and hamstrings are also sore from Saturday's bout with whacking the driveway privets down to half their height with anvil loppers. Using them reminds me of old-time chest expanders except I'm squeezing the handles together to sever the inch-thick stalks instead of pulling springs apart.  

I'm barely able to do a dozen reps for each position and unlike last week, chin-ups this time cause my right wrist to throb. Next week I'll try the wider position, outside the mounting bracket. To change things up a tad, I do Split Squats first, then Air Squats. The latter becomes much, much harder this way and my reps slow down greatly after the first dozen. 

I add Flys to my DB superset, take out Rip Skulls, but add close-grip presses with the EZ bar. I'm ending the routine with two dozen curls and reverse-grip curls, and then a quick stretch. At least I can clasp my hands behind my back and straighten my arms. Big triceps and short arms make that last move a bit difficult. Lithe and slender I am not. 

Monday Workout

Vision elliptical

Program: manual

20 min

Miles: 1.84

Calories: 170

HR 74-148

Crunches 60/60

Elbow Plank 60s

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Bench Knee-Ins 60

Bicycles 60

Pushups slow 25

Regular PU 12 (finger seams)

HGPU 14 barehanded

Chin Ups 15 (narrow/ right wrist)

Split Squat 12 each leg

Bodyweight squats 25

DB SuperSet x 3 sets

Press x 25

Flys x 12

Alt Front Raises x 12

Lateral Raises x 12

EZ Bar 30 lbs Close Press x 12 x 2

EZ Bar BB Curl 30 x 25

EZ Bar RG Curl 30 x 25

Quick stretch

Better Than Nothing

Some days I have too many items on my schedule. Today it's 80F with the threat of hail and tornadoes. Last week there was a frost warning. Happy Spring! I barely have enough time for a workout before I need to sign on to a live webinar given by Glaucoma.org and it's something I don't want to miss. That gives me less than an hour but I can still do a quick workout.

I do a bit better on the elliptical than last time which surprises me. It's about 10 degrees cooler in the garage than outside so it's only a few minutes before I start sweating. No need to bundle up in fleece today! I really do wish I could drop the resistance down to zero. Even at level 1, my quads and hamstrings are stressed. And I really miss the StepMill!

I have just enough time to do core and a few other movements. Just for kicks, I  alternate between leg-up crunches and bent knee crunches. It's less stressful to do three sets of this combo than doing 60 reps of leg-ups followed by 60 reps of bent knees. I set up my phone to record pushups because I'm not entirely certain of my form. I guess next time I should do them slower and more deliberately as my quick bouncy reps are quite sloppy!

The hammer grip pull-ups are fine until I get to rep 14, then it all goes south. I muscle my way through the next two reps but just barely. There's just enough time for some air squats and split squats. And a few quick stretches. Something buzzes my ear as I walk back to the house. It's Spring and the bugs are all out! My son and I saw two tiger swallowtails this morning while walking the dogs. And there's a lone peeper holdout in the pond, down from the dozen last week. Scout Camp has just announced that they're not opening for the summer. School might continue online next Fall. We're just playing it all by ear. My anxiety level is at an all-time high. No surprise there!

Quick Friday workout 81F

Vision elliptical

Program: manual

20 min

Miles: 1.83

Calories: 169

HR 74-100

Crunches 20/20 x 3 sets

Elbow Plank 60s

Knee-Ins 60

Bicycles 60

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Pushups 31

HGPU 16

Bodyweight squats 25

Split Squats 12

Quick Stretch

Do No Harm

I'm discovering that certain movements leave me with unpleasant knots under the shoulder blades, mostly when I squeeze my upper back together as when I used to do close neutral grip lat pulldowns. Using the Power Straps with neutral grips also makes my shoulders unhappy. Today I skip those and do something a little different. Something that's not going to cause my upper back to knot up.

After the painful, awful, 20-minute cardio warmup (in which I could feel my slightly sore hamstrings) I do my basic core exercises: crunches, planks, knee-ins, bicycles, and pushups. It only takes me a few minutes to go from freezing cold to being just shy of sweaty. Then, instead of jumping right into hammer grip pull-ups, I do regular overhand pull-ups first. Because of the way the bar is mounted, I have only two positions I can use (narrow and wide) and I'm not familiar with either of them. The bench is more than a foot away from the wall so I have to lean forward to reach the handles.

Then I take a few minutes to review my video, swig some water, and do another set. But hammer grips this time. I get one more rep but only by muscling through. Again I take a few minutes to review the video (and edit out the beginning and end for time), then do one more set, this time underhand chin-ups. I've actually never done chin-ups before and I'm worried that my right wrist will freak out the way it did during underhand Inverted Rows on the Power Straps. But that doesn't happen. Instead, I've gotten about a dozen reps for each set, so I'm happy. In total, 40 reps. Not pretty by any means, but I'm counting them.

While all forms of pulling myself up stress my forearms (mine are weirdly undersized), I did notice some key differences resulting from the change in grip position. I only felt lat involvement during the hammer grip pull-ups. Naturally, chin-ups focused all attention on the biceps. And regular pull-ups pinged my elbows a bit. It might just be the way I'm built and we're built a little differently from each other. But it's definitely worth getting yourself a pull-up bar somewhere in your digs, unless you want to emulate the Buff Dudes videos showing him hanging off of doors and door frames. I can't recommend it, but it's good for entertainment value.


The DB superset flies by. I'm less thrilled with the Rip Skulls because I'm worried about the pressure I feel in my head and neck during the movement. I can't be certain that this is a problem with my glaucoma, but I don't want to take any chances so I'll be doing something different next time. After playing with the EZ bar for two sets of 25 reps, I do a few quick stretches and call myself done.

Wednesday workout 

Vision elliptical

Program: manual

20 min

Miles: 1.75

Calories: 162

HR 78-136

Crunches 60/60

Elbow Plank 60s

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Bench Knee-Ins 60

Bicycles 60

Pushups 31

Regular Pull-Ups 13

HGPU 14

Chin-Ups 13

Bodyweight squats 25

DB SuperSet x 3 sets all

Press x 25

Alt Front Raises x 12

Lateral Raises x 12

Split Squat 12 each leg

EZ Bar Rip Skulls 30 lbs x 12 x 2

EZ Bar BB Curl 30lbs x 25

EZ Bar RG Curl 30 x 25

Quick stretch  

Working My Way Back

I have much less of an excuse now that I've reduced cardio to 20 minutes, down from 35. But I still have to convince myself, even on a "vaguely decent spring day" like today. At 55F, it's not terribly cold after the polar vortex whipped through over the weekend. But the garage is chilly. And there is intermittent rain, although the new gravel in front of the garage door is extremely pleasant. Otherwise, I'd be standing in a mud puddle while leaning into the door to get it open.

I'm wearing gym clothes and a fleece vest and hat, but after 10 minutes I'm able to toss those items. I don't really want to get too sweaty. I do my 20 minutes while staring mindlessly at mostly nothing. Sometimes I glance at the HR monitor but mostly I watch the timer, breathlessly waiting for time to pass. (You know your equipment is old when the only way you can watch a DVD is to hook up coaxial cables to the back of the monitor.)

The nice thing about taking a few days off and allowing your body to forget it ever exercised, is that doing those exercises again will make you a tad sore, which, if not debilitating, can be a fairly pleasant reminder that muscles are indeed at work. (Wow, that's a long sentence.) I feel my abs while doing crunches, and especially during elbow planks right afterward.

I angle my elbows out until the left one doesn't click or hurt when doing pushups. I'm less successful doing pullups and have to muscle through the last two. I only get 16 as the stress on my forearms starts to overwhelm my right elbow. The bar on the Power Straps is set so high that I'm only at a 30-degree angle for overhand and underhand Inverted Rows. The underhand position feels awkward and eventually hurts my right wrist. (I have such wonky joints.) Meanwhile, the strap handles themselves are so low that I can lay on the floor and stretch my arms straight up to grab them. That greatly increases the difficulty of the movement.

DB Supersets feel fine. I've draped both my fleece vest and my hoodie on the bench because there's nothing more annoying than a hood/hat/hair bun/braid flopping haphazardly under your head and/or shoulders while you're trying to do Rip Skulls. (Yep, still a princess!) EZ bar bicep curls and RG curls are standard and feel fine. A few stretches and then I'm done.

NYS plans to slowly re-open stores and other facilities. I'm not sure where gyms fall. My son's kung fu school's New Year's Banquet has been postponed until December and there's little chance we're going white water rafting with the Scouts this Memorial Day weekend. Oh well...

Monday workout 

Vision elliptical

Program: manual

20 min

Miles: 1.83

Calories: 168

HR 74-143

Crunches 60/60

Elbow Plank 60s

Bench Knee-Ins 50

Bicycles 60

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Pushups 30

HGPU 16

Bodyweight squats 25

Strap Inverted Row w/ bar

  overhand 13

  underhand 13 

  neutral lower 12

DB (15 lbs each) SuperSet x 3 sets

  Press x 25

  Alt Front Raises x 12

  Lateral Raises x 12

Split Squat 12 each leg

EZ Bar Rip Skulls 30 lbs x 12 x 3

EZ Bar BB Curl 30lbs x 25

EZ Bar RG Curl 30 x 25

Quick stretch

Super Quick

Well, I didn't make it back to my garage yesterday for a "just cardio" day. Instead, I got caught up in a lot of errands and chores. I sat in front of my computer a lot. And then I realized that I could just get up and do a bunch of air squats every time my butt started to get sore from being perched at the edge of the sofa. (One of my dogs insists on claiming that spot for himself and it's extremely difficult to budge him once he's settled in.) So yesterday, I did four sets of bodyweight squats and some stretches in my living room. Not proud, but better than being a complete spud.

Today I get caught up in a bunch of errands as well, and an hour before my son's online kung fu class, I finally have an opportunity to do something in the garage. I'm not keen on 35 minutes of cardio because that won't leave me any time to do anything else. So I only do 20 minutes, and even though I'm wearing the comfy trainers, my right foot still has issues. Or rather, my ankle has some issues. I keep repositioning my foot as I pedal in order to relieve tension and stress on the inside of my foot. Weird and I can't explain it. At least I got 20 minutes in.

The remaining time is used for some basic ab exercises, pushups and pullups, and ends with a set of bodyweight squats. Done. I tried placing my phone in a different spot while I did pushups because I did wonder if I was doing them correctly. (There's no way any woman wants to touch her chest to the floor.) I need my hands wider than the gray foam mat because my left elbow clicked intermittently and hurt with each click. But being short on time (the online class is scheduled through Zoom on my laptop so I have to set it up for my son when the class starts), means I don't want to waste time moving equipment and readjusting mats and boxes. Maybe next time though.

Quick Thursday workout

Vision elliptical

Program: manual

20 min

Miles: 1.78

Calories: 164

HR 78-138

Elbow Plank 60s

Crunches 60/60

Bicycles 60

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Pushups 30

HGPU 18

Bodyweight squats 25

Listening to the Voice in Your Head

It's much easier for me to admit that I suffer from anxiety than to say I'm also a depressive sort. I'm not the type to spend my day under the covers although the coronavirus stay-at-home order hasn't helped. Everyone whose routine has been severely disrupted (some folks are still working regularly, or even more than usual) has been tempted to binge-watch streaming media and fill up on comfort foods. Drinking more than usual? Pants getting a little tight? Me too! I haven't worked out for almost two weeks and I can't entirely blame the soggy weather. I just haven't felt like doing much of anything and that's probably a symptom of depression. Exercise helps. Especially vigorous exercise. I really miss my gym.

This past weekend, we finally fixed the puddle in front of the garage door with several bags of crushed bluestone gravel. It took three days to get it from Home Depot because the first day we went, the store wasn't allowing customers inside unless they were there to pick up an order. Ugh.

We went home and placed an order for the only gravel listed as available online and instore: garden pea gravel. Then we waited all the next day for an email or text from the store. Which never came. So on the third day, we drove to the store with our order number. No one was waiting in line outside. The service rep, who wore her mask under her nose (rendering it fairly ineffective for her own protection), checked the system and said our order was still being filled. The website had listed 191 bags in stock. She told us we could get the gravel ourselves and then she'd close the order.

The outdoor Garden Center didn't actually have the pea gravel. Or any gravel, except for bags of crushed bluestone. There were bags of rounded river rocks but we decided those would be too big to walk on comfortably. The cashier never checked that we had the right materials or the correct number of bags. I think the pea gravel might've been a few cents more expensive but it wasn't worth the hassle of voiding the order and having to stand in another line just to check out.

Now I really have no excuse not to use the garage gym. While today is decidedly cooler than the peak 79F a few days ago, it's sunny and pleasant outside. I put on gym clothes and sneakers and trudge out to the garage. The little voice in my head whines about how much cardio sucks. And it does. I have to pause twice because something is stabbing me in the foot. Something small that wasn't there when I walked across the yard. I go from cold to warm in ten minutes, and then my fingers throb as if I've walked into a sauna from the Arctic. Not all my fingers; just the last three on my right hand. My right foot isn't happy either, feeling the pressure of each pedal motion on the bony metatarsals. The left foot is fine, so it's not the sneakers. It's me.

Today, I give in to the voice that says, "I hate cardio and I don't want to do it for 35 minutes." Instead, I do it for 20 minutes and tell myself I can do "just cardio" tomorrow. But I'm going to finish the rest of my routine. Immediately, I feel much better. Because I'm so much happier doing anything other than cardio. I even add Side Planks back in because I'm wearing the NB sneakers instead of the super-soft and comfy but ultimately non-supportive Skechers. (Probably another reason my feet hurt.)

After the routine core/ab exercises, pushups and pullups, I fish out the bar my husband bought to affix to the Power Straps. It clips to the straps in a fixed width, making it easier to do Inverted Rows. Without the bar, you're forced to use a neutral grip. With the bar, you can use an overhand or underhand grip, much as you'd use on a Smith machine, or your kitchen table. I don't have the best form but still better than nothing.

The 15 lb DBs are useful for doing SuperSets of Presses, Front Raises and Lateral Raises. I haven't figured out the adjustable square DB system that my husband bought years ago. Those make perfect footrests though when I need to stabilize myself on the bench. It's such an old bench that neither of us can figure out what exactly the angled upper portion is for since there's no way to secure it in position.

My husband bought a box (assembly required) to do his new workout routines. The box has three different heights depending on which way you turn it. However, even at its shortest height of 16" it's still too tall for me to use for Split Squats. The plastic tote I've been using measures a full inch shorter. I have some trouble with the Split Squats because the hammertoes on my right foot don't really allow me to place the top of my foot flat on the lid which leads to a bit of instability in the movement.

I drag portions of the two square DBs over to the bench. They are the perfect height to plant my feet on while I do Rip Skulls. After some curls with the EZ bar, I stretch and call it done. Now let's see if I can get myself out of the house tomorrow for just cardio...

Tuesday Workout

Vision elliptical

Program: manual

20 min

Miles: 1.76

Calories: 161

HR 74-138

Crunches 60/60

Elbow Plank 60s

Bench Knee-Ins 50

Bicycles 60

Bird Dogs 2 x 60s

Side Planks 2 x 60s

Pushups 25

HGPU 17

Bodyweight squats 25

Strap Inverted Row w/ bar overhand 12, 15

DB SuperSet x 3 sets

  Press x 25

  Alt Front Raises x 12

  Lateral Raises x 12

Split Squat 12 each leg

EZ Bar Rip Skulls 30 lbs x 12 x 3

EZ Bar BB Curl 30lbs x 25

EZ Bar RG Curl 30 x 25

Quick stretch