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Today was my first workout with both the slow reps and using the 60% of max weights. I can feel it in all my muscles now which is good. I haven’t had that all over tired from working out feeling in a long time.

I also learned that using slow reps (4 counts up, 4 counts down) the workout takes a lot longer. 1.5 hours vs. 1 hour the old way. I still didn’t get strretching in at the end yet either.

Thank you, mo! That was a good read.

Today shortly before lunch I found a Coke cap that entitled me to a free 1-liter Coke product. I knew that a 10-15 minute walk away, the Grog Shop, was a place that not only carried 1-liter Coke product, but also honored the caps. So I set out on my walk at a good pace and made it there in about 12 minutes.

The current on duty operator of the Grog Shop was outside smoking. I handed him the cap so he wouldn’t have to rush his cigarrette and went in to retrieve my Coke. I thanked him and went on my way back.

As I was passing the U-Haul a man stopped me asking to buy my Coke. I told him ‘no’ and he started pleading to buy my Coke and started pulling money out of his pocket. I tried to tell him he could go to the Grog Shop to buy his own but he said he was waiting for someone. I decided he must need it really bad so I gave it to him for a buck.

At least I got some exercise 🙂

So I was reading Men’s Health (got a free issue) and in one of the science/medical blurbs it mentions how you get the real benefit for muscle when you start your weight routine lifting 60% of the maximum you can lift in one rep. So today I went to the gym to deter mine my maximums for the variousx exercisrs I do.

My looks match my results. My lower body is fairly strong and my upper body isn’t. Another way to see that is standing calf raises. I was able to lift 405 lbs. but when I got home and saw my shoulders (what bears the weight) I saw they were bruised from the weight and not looking nice at all.

Here are the rest of the numbers:

Yesterday I took off as a rest day. I stretched my calves out since they were pretty sore, and I started trying to stretch out my hamstrings. The hamstrings have to be done every day to try and gain some semblence of normal flexibility. Right now if I need flexing my back does it which is going to lead to problems later on.

Today I woke up with a slight queasiness and didn’t think that was a good way to work out. Instead I took it slow at home with some crunches and making sure it didn’t get worse. I also did the hamstring stretch.

It’s hard to do crunches when the dogs think it’s a lot of fun and try to lay on you to stop or decide it’s time to lick your whole face.

I need to start taking vitamins and minerals again. I need to work on flexibility. I need to actually do stretching after exercises so I’m nto so tight the next day.

Today I hit the exercise bike, the LifeCycle 9500, for 40 minutes. Next time I’ll try to up it to an hour, but my legs were ready after 40 minutes. It was only level 6 (out of 20) and I was just thinking that I remembered when 10 was easy.

The basic structure of my ride was like the workout below except I only went for 40 minutes and I started at 75RPM.

My bike workouts tend to go like this:

I suppose I should state my goals up front here.

I started out with 10 minutes on the exercise bike for a warm-up. I tried to keep the RPM between 90-95.

Abs:

Lower body:

Upper body:

So today was my first day exercising in a little over 1.5 years. There were a few days with ice skating involved in them but aside from that I haven’t done any real exercise since my last sprint triathlon in July 2003.

My goal today was to find my levels where I should be starting again with the various machines while getting a work-out as well. The levels are way below what they used to be which is a little discouraging but I know they will come back.

Also I am trying to do slow reps for each exercise (5-count up and a 5-count down) and I’m not sure how that impacts my starting guesses yet.