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