Recently in Exercise Category

Yesterday during my leg workout I missed one huge component, my calves. It doesn't seem to be a highly critical thing at this point, as I don't think that I could handle any more pain in my legs today, but it is something I would preferred to have gotten done. The key reason I was unable to work my calves yesterday was a lack of known exercises for the muscles. I have now found a few that I like and I will try integrating them for my next leg workout on Tuesday, although I must remember to get a basic exercise block, or else I am going to hurt myself on my step-ladder (which I used for step-ups, seemed to fit).

On another note, the muscles in my upper back are sore today, right beside the shoulder blades. This has me a little concerned, since I didn't intentionally do anything to work that particular area. Since that area is sore and my triceps are not, I believe it's possible that I was doing tricep dips incorrectly, so I will need to review and make adjustments to the way I do those.

I worked my legs pretty hard today, and my abs got a fair bit of work too. I can barely walk up or down stairs at the moment because of all of the tension in the muscles in my legs. Overall I think it was a very successful workout. I'm a little concerned that I have injured by left bicep, since it is still causing pain when it becomes tense, whereas the right feels back to normal now. I'm hoping it will be all better by Monday so that I can do an intense upper body workout involving arms and back. I think I will allow the abs to rest that day. I have decided that I am going to take tomorrow as a rest day and try to use the time I would workout in as a time to plan the workouts for the week and enter them into the schedule.

On a geek note, GITI needs a CSV output for workouts, because this picture stuff just kinda sucks and Word doesn't seem to get the table.

Yesterday morning I was browsing Fitness TV On-Demand and came across some videos by Tom Morely. My trouble spot has always been my abs. My arms, legs and chest have been pretty much self-maintaining, and as far as an ass, I have none and I suspect there is genetic code to cause any attempt to build them to fail. I do not enjoy crunches at all, and sometimes they can be very painful for me. Tom Morely takes a different approach to abs using yoga. I found his technique to be rather interesting, and is something that when I look at him doing it, I don’t feel “ouch, I can’t do that” or “Umm… thats way too hard”. I actually feel interested by his poses and feel compelled to join in. My plan for today is to return to those videos and follow along with him. I think it will be fun.

Due to lack of motivation and time getting away from me yesterday (Monday), I was unable to get started on my ab workout series like I wanted. So, instead of doing the Monday workout on Monday, I did it today (Tuesday) and will continue to follow the rest of the days one day off until Saturday, when I will do Friday's workout. That will give me Sunday to rest before starting the Monday routine again on Monday. 

Unfortunately I missed my morning sprint today. It was too cold and rainy to do the sprints. Since there is much more winter still to come I need to find an adequate way to work around the unavailability of my sprinting surface. I have considered joining a gym, but that seems a bit too expensive for something like what I want to do, probably would also present too much of a distraction.

What do most successful jocks have that I don't? A practiced routine! I am a new jock, therefore I don't have a routine of any type. I need to get myself more practiced and develop my routine. My new ab DVD that arrived this morning,  and it features a 5 day routine (done as chapter names, monday - friday), so that may be a good place to start building from, adding on to my morning sprint, and doing chin-ups every time I pass through my doorway.

So far I have this...

-Morning spring - every morning (increasing in difficulty each week)
-Five day abs
-Constant chin-ups (changing hand direction each day)
 

I think I am becoming obsessed with the chin-up bar. I am drawn to its power and horizontal beauty. Even though my hands hurt from using it, I am still quite drawn to it, and love using it. I am going to get some workout gloves this weekend to help with the whole lack of grip and hurting hand thing. I am also planning to get some longer screws for it. The screws in it now are about 1.5", and I believe that 4" screws would be a lot more secure for how I've got it installed.