Friday, April 22, 2011

Not really liking the weights

I had signed up for ActivTrax at my YMCA a while ago, with the intent of getting some upper body work in.  Since I'm kinda good on the lower body part.  I still chuckle when they ask me about my cardio workouts.  Anyway, I signed up for it, and it is kinda cool.  It is like SmartCoach for weights.  Not sure where all it is available, but the system is Free (my favorite price for stuff like this) and it gives you a list of exercises, what weights to use, and how many reps to do.  Kinda easy to follow.  On the web-site there are even instructions with a little looping video, so if you aren't sure what exactly a 90 degree side oblique crunch is or how to do it, you can see.


So, I started going up there a couple of weeks ago, my plan is to run three days (or four) and go to the gym three days and take one full day off.  Probably Mondays, because, who wouldn't like to start the week by taking the day off?  It has been tough getting into the habit of getting up there to do the work-outs.  I never minded getting up at 4:30 in the morning to go out for a run knowing that I had to be at work at 7:00.  But now in my "life of leisure" I am helping to get my kids out the door for school and the time constraints are the same.  But, oddly I find it harder to get enthusiastic about getting up to the gym to get in a work-out and get showered and then home before 6:30 so that I can get the older hellions up, dressed, fed and kicked out the door.

So far this week I am doing good.  I've been to the gym to work out twice, so I'm on track there.  I skipped this morning's run due to my right knee feeling less than perfect.  It was supposed to be a tempo run, and I was going to warm-up by running to the high school and then do 3x1600's with 800's in between, then warm down running home.  Yeah, didn't happen this morning.  I wanted really badly to run, so much so, that I even looked at a treadmill briefly.  Then I came to my senses and walked away. (whew that was not even close)

Picking this up on Friday morning......
So I did the speed drills this morning, or at least MOST of it.  I gotthe first two 1600's in and the third one my alarm was going off telling me that I needed to get home to get girls ready for school.  So the last interval was only 800 at just sub-puke speed.  I will be interested to see what Nike+ has to say I did.

Back to the weights.  It is getting easier to do the work-outs, but I was really embarrassed when I couldn't do 30 push ups.  I mean really?  I was in the Army, we did push ups just to get to eat breakfast, and I can't do 30?!?!  OK, so what if that was 25 years ago and 30 pounds?  So guess who is doing push ups before bed every night now?  Every work out is focused on one thing, like Back, or Chest/Shoulders, so you are working different groups each day you go.  But one thing they always have on the list is 4 different abs workouts.  Crunches, reverse crunches, on a ball, feet on the ball, whatever, but always 4.  And at the end of the workout your stomach is a bit sore.

We shall see how this all works out, but I don't know if I will ever be cat-like in my enjoyment of the weight room.

3 comments:

  1. I am impressed. It is so hard for me to be at all diligent or disciplined with weights or abs... or anything right now!

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  2. I have to say -- weights suck. Sounds as if you will succeed at this.

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  3. Has it been three? I have two more coming :P I need to get the last of this trip out and on the blog... and then I need to do the post about our souvenirs! And then...

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