Stress Not Where I Expect

I skipped the gym yesterday to do yard work but didn't get very far snipping the overgrown grass near my second stand of milkweed plants. Covered in a bug jacket with long pants, boots and gloves, the biting insects made a beeline for my face and I got 3 nasty bites immediately. My forearms were so sore from the manual hedge clippers that I had trouble holding a mug of water later at dinner. Which means I'm not doing pull-ups today. Not sure if I'll be able to do them tomorrow either since I spent 90 minutes today wrestling with the Oriental bittersweet vines in my hedges after I got home from the gym. 

Wrestling, yanking, and finally doing a lot of snipping with parrot beak loppers (pruning shears). The damn vines are climbing the power lines to reach my roof! I spend a lot of time under masses of vegetation, severing vines near the ground amidst a tangle of woody stems and a jungle of various leaves. Not everything's a bittersweet plant.

A vicious killer of trees!

I get to the gym later than I'd like and the parking lot is crowded. There's a lot of teens at the gym! I see a few regulars as well, but since I'm not interested in interacting, none of this matters as long as I can stick to my routine. After cardio, I go to the Aerobics Room which feels warmer than I'd like. There's only one other person there and she's doing a series of floor exercises and light dumbbells.

I've decided to do my normal routine and then add Wall Squats at the end just to see how I feel about it. Hey, anything to lower my blood pressure, right? My brother is on meds for high BP but he's under a lot of job pressure since he works in cyber security for a big telecom. (And that company tends to lay off staff on a regular basis to cut costs, especially with lawsuits pending about ancient, buried lead-covered power lines leaching into aquifers and water supplies.) His meds have dropped the 160-190/90 down to 120/80. I'm hoping to avoid meds but it's not good that my last annual showed BP at 142/74 when it should be under 130 for the diastolic (top) number. Maybe that daily cup of tomato product has lost it's punch? Of course, I drink a cup of low sodium vegetable juice almost every day. It's just a bit more flavorful than plain tomato juice.

The wall squat itself isn't hard. I do it after I'm done with everything else. My quads feel a little stress, but what keeps me from completing a full two-minutes are my toes. I have flat feet and the sneakers have a slight heel, which means my toes seem to be bearing the brunt of all my weight and are squashed against the front of my shoes! Oddly, the toes of the left foot feel more crushed than the right, but the right has its own problems (bunion, hammer toes, tender pinky toe). I wonder if doing this exercise barefoot (shudder, I hate being barefoot) or just in stocking feet would make it easier (on my toes). Because it's not hard on the rest of me, just my toes, which isn't the body part that should be affected. I'll try again tomorrow but wearing the NB 840s instead of the Fresh Foams. I'll do stocking feet only as a last resort!

3 Aug 2023 11:40-1:00
Crowded w/ Teens Thursday

Precor elliptical #1
Program 2
Time: 30 + 5 (5494)
Distance: 2.81
Cal: 311
Avg Hr: 139, 182-79

20 Hip Bridges
Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
20 Hip Bridges
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Sciatica Cat stretch 12
Fire Hydrants 30 x 2
Child’s Pose / Cobra Pose
Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Upper body stretch
Eye yoga

Wall Squats 60s (squished toes!)