My Weather-Induced Brain Fog

The weather has been crazy lately, with me lighting a blazing fire in the wood stove last night to take the chill off and temps peaking today at 71F. There was heavy fog last night and early this morning, which always has an impact on my sinuses and gives me a fuzzy headache that's more brain fog than actual pain. It's very annoying. It makes it hard to focus on simple tasks and everything seems to take longer to do. But eventually I do get through my list...

Got to the gym really late today: it was just past 1 pm! Ugh. I managed to grab elliptical #1 just as Wind Breaker entered. Lucky me. I had been wondering what other cardio machine I'd be willing to slog through if the elliptical machines weren't available. I mean, there's always the cross-trainers but I limit myself to 15 minutes on them because I'm not fond of exiting those machines with numb toes and feet. I pushed myself really hard on the elliptical. And I got a decent result, meaning past 2.8, so I was happy. My FitBit was close to showing me a low battery warning so I just took it off and left it home on the charger. I'm starting to find it annoying to wear because it catches my sleeve when I need to push them up, which is quite often cuz I have short arms.

I'm running late so I'm doing an abbreviated workout today. One course of cardio. One set of pull-ups. Luckily I manage to match reps from last week. Twenty is a good number! Off to the Aerobics Room which is surprisingly  crowded. The Senior class has long gone but there are four people in there I've never seen before. I guess the weather was too iffy to exercise outside. Everything is pretty much routine, except for the push-ups that I told myself I'd challenge when I got bored. Today's an abbreviated workout so I've skipped two other cardio courses and two other sets of pull-ups. Good to go!

My push-up stance isn't standard classic since I have issues with my elbows and have to spread my hands fairly wide apart. That tends to limit the upward motion of the push-up but at least my elbows don't click and hurt afterward. I can push past 25 rather easily and I tend to move pretty quickly (if you remember previous posts from years ago where I videoed my push-ups). I didn't need to slow down until I hit the 43rd rep and then it was a tad more difficult. I made it to 50, and it didn't feel awful. I'll probably be sore tomorrow though. My glutes and hammies were sore again for two days after Friday's Walking Lunges. And oddly, so were my lats, but just a tad. I guess those pullover movements have some value. 

I take a quick pix in the locker room to see if I still have biceps after all these years of not doing any DB or BB curls. Of course, if I was leaner it'd be easier to see, but yep, still got biceps with just doing hammer grip pull-ups every now and then... Cool. The sun came out and my brain fog was gone by the time I left the gym. Win win.

31 March 2025 1:05-2:28

Monday — All Cardio

Abbrev. Brain Fog & Boredom

Precor elliptical #1

Program 2

Time: 30 + 5 (5598)

Distance: 2.84

Cal: 316

Avg Hr: 157, 188-85

New FB:

(1:43)

HGPU 20

20 Hip Bridges (1:55)

Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch

DeadBugs 20 x 5

Piriformis stretches

Child’s Pose

Cat/Cow stretch 12

Child’s Pose

Fire Hydrants 25 x 2

Bird Dog Planks 60s x 2

Push-Ups 50!

Arm rotations 20

Air Squats 25

Neck stretch / Eye yoga

Wall Squat 120 sec