Stress Wraps

I was late getting the dog to the groomers but that didn't matter as they were done way before we were ready to come pick him up. My son was thrilled to see boys his age entering the Child Care room at the gym just ahead of him. I had already affixed moleskin patches to my knuckles while we were in the car because I didn't want to waste precious time in the locker room. After a 10-minute warm up on the cross-trainer (instead of the elliptical) because the cross-trainers are literally 10 feet from the kickboxing machines, I sit down on the floor and proceed to tape my fingers and knuckles. Then I pull out new red cotton Everlast® wraps and try to remember how to bind my hands.

What I conclude is that 1) I need to practice this at home when I'm under no time constraints and 2) the wraps are woefully too short even for my tiny hands. I can't wrap my wrist 3 times, then my palm 3 times and still have enough wrap for each finger to be anchored with a turn around the wrist. No, this isn't going to work. What works is to only wrap my wrist and palm once before targeting each finger. My hand feels snug. I only do the fancy wrap on the tender left hand. The right hand seems fine with me just wrapping my knuckles and wrist -- no additional support needed between the fingers. I should note that I woke up this morning with sore hands, no doubt from my death-grip on the steering wheel as I drove my son home from camp, and then to and from his swim class two towns over.

My left hand's last two knuckles are still tender and whacking the machine isn't really helping. But it's not horrible. I clench my fists tightly. My nails are shorter and I've put tape over the entire pointer finger to prevent any unintentional self-inflicted slashing. The Beginner rounds go well and I feel thoroughly warmed up albeit a bit frustrated. Yep, every 4th or 5th blow lands a warning buzzer and freezes the action. A few rounds into the Intermediate program and I notice that the wrap is flapping loose on my left wrist. I need to anchor the ends at a different point next time. Luckily, I can pull the wrap a bit tighter and re-velcro it between rounds. I can't believe I need longer wraps!

My original Everlast® orange wraps: only once around wrist and palm before target fingers and it still ends short.

There are only two rounds where the machine gets the better of me because either it's not registering a lot of my kicks and sweeps, or the command sequence doesn't match what's being displayed. Those are the two rounds with odd combinations, and those are the combinations I need to work on. Unfortunately, there's no way to isolate the different combinations or know in which rounds they'll appear. Just got to keep at it!

A lot of regulars wander behind me to the CF area. Most of them do a few sets of DLs or bicep curls on the lone cable machine there. I see JF wander past with headphones. He's one of the daytime trainers who actually lifts. Yesterday I saw him do a few rounds on the Nexersys. He looked pretty good whacking away. I'm guessing from the Power and Lead Knee movements that he was doing the Intermediate level. Let's be honest here. Boxers have great arms. I want great arms. I cringe when I see women with "skinny fat" arms: those arms that seem to hang off the shoulders like dessicated chicken wings. My mother was skinny fat, a mere 90 lbs of unhealthy flab, with arms that looked like little tubes of petroleum jelly. Not a pretty sight.

I want to tell all those middle-aged women at my gym that they can do this too. But they're too afraid. Or worse, they'd rather be gossiping in a classroom setting. Safety in numbers, in flocks. I don't like crowds. I'm more like the lone wolf, or a hunting panther. I see the younger women though. They look without trying to stare. And I think, maybe they'll be motivated to try this, do this, too.

Thursday Workout

Cross Training

Warm Up

Calorie :   48 CAL
Distance: 1.24 mile
Speed :    7.38 mph
Duration : 00:10:06

KickBoxing

Lap/Rep :  14 Lap/Rep
Duration : 00:56:00

Photos posted for actual stats:

5 rounds Beginner Follow Me

9 rounds Intermediate Follow Me

Week Three Day One

My shoulder is actually still a tad sore from Friday's bout with the Nexersys station, but I don't let that slow me down. Indulging over the weekend, and the 90+ degree weather makes me sluggish today so it's important that I kick into gear with at least 30 minutes of cardio. I know I'm not making my 4 mile quota. The question is by how much? Precor #3, the smooth glider, is free because someone has inadvertently kicked the power switch off. It's simple enough to kick it back on and punch in Hill #5. I find that on Mondays I don't sweat much even with my hoodie up. It takes me so much longer to get into gear, at least 20 minutes before I feel vaguely warm. Amazing what a weekend of relative inactivity will do for you! (Spending hours crouched in the blazing sun picking organic raspberries doesn't actually count as an activity.)

The Manchurian is using the Smith and I ask him how many sets he has left. "Oh, uh, two or three," he says hesitantly. I guess he doesn't actually know how many he's going to do, so I walk away to the Cage Stretch because it's not worth waiting for, and besides, I don't want to pressure him. When I return, the bench and bar are all set up perfectly for me. He's doing something with dumbbells but I'm in my own world and fairly oblivious to everyone else. The gym is oddly empty for a Monday morning, and doesn't start to fill up until noonish. I see The Mayor looking disheveled and frantic as ever as he spots a much younger guy. Maybe, like myself, they all have other things to do and places to be. Although the gym is nicely air-conditioned, no one wants to spend all day here!

My right shoulder feels odd on the heavier lifts, especially the front deltoid. I still lift my routine but toss in an extra set of reps at the end to give my chest and arms a pump. Today I don't feel the benching in my chest at all. Delts are probably going to suck. I'm a bit dismayed that they're still recuperating from Friday. Recuperation shouldn't take so long!

Week Three Day One: Chest and Delts
35 min cardio hill #5 = 3.92 miles bleah!
Cage Stretch with BW heel dips and side kicks. Because of an ancient IT injury in my right quad, I'm careful not to push the side stretch too far: I've felt my kneecap slip painfully, on the verge of dislocation doing this stretch.
Smith Bench Press: 12 @ bar / 12 @ 95 / 10 @ 115 / 8 @ 135 / 3 x 6 @ 155 / 12 @ 135 / 21+5 @ 115 / 25 @ 95 lbs
I toss the last set of reps in because I'm so annoyed at having to pause with the previous set.
Bent Over DB Raises: 6 x 15 @ 25 lbs
Standing Lateral DB Raises: 6 x 12 @ 25 lbs
I certainly like the way my arms look when I'm doing these! 
Flat Bench Twisting Sit Ups: 150
Ab Crunch Station: 100
Torso Twist Station: 2 x 25 @ 50 lbs
I don't even consider doing Decline Presses today because suddenly the gym is crowded and I'm not in the mood to wait for the one decline bench. 
Mat Stretch: I'm worried that my legs will be really stiff and that the splits will be painful because I'm not really warm anymore, but everything is relatively good. I don't even attempt a full horizontal split where I roll forward because it's Monday and I want to ease into that particular move.

I see V while I'm doing abs and I make sure to walk a wide circle around him as unobtrusively as possible. The gym scale reads a reasonable 111.6 lbs. It's what I weighed last Monday. Psychologically, as long as I'm below 112 lbs, I don't really feel bad for weighing more at the beginning of the week. But I'd feel bad if it was Friday. Ah, the mind games we play with ourselves!

While I'm dressing, one of the trainers comes in with a 3-pack of boxing wraps. It's actually 6 wraps because each of the three colors (red, white, black) is a pair. "They're $25 for the package," she says. I tell her that's way too much money, especially since I don't even know if I want to use them, much less 3 pairs of them and she agrees with me. I tell her I'll probably stick to putting band-aids on under adhesive tape before I don my gloves. She suggests ACE bandages. Then she tells me she used to teach a kickboxing class here, and that an instructor she knew used to have the class wrap their hands even though they weren't actually hitting anything. That's odd. She said people just liked to feel as if they were boxing, even if they didn't actually make contact. That's funny. And a bit sad.

This year must be a good year for the deer because they haven't eaten the wild day lilies like they did last year. The heat is wilting my snow peas but the zucchinis have large beautiful leaves and I'm hoping they provide some shade for the peas. Cilantro, basil and thyme are also in the garden, as well as a pot of bok choy. We'll see if baby grasshoppers wipe them out as in previous years. I was looking forward to the cicada invasion, especially after all the hoopla, but we've heard nothing and now it's passed. But this is the first year I've put black oil sunflower seeds out for the summer, and I'm pleased to see all the finches, purple and gold, and others I haven't identified yet, along with what I thought were winter birds: downy woodpeckers, nuthatches, chickadees, cardinals and tufted titmice (or is it titmouses?)... robins, jays, sparrows, mourning doves, grackles and starlings round out the rest.