Week 12 Day 2

I started off the day in such a great way! I was motivated, working hard, accomplishing a ton of little things left and right. I felt amazing!

As usual, the kids got a little out of hand, but it was nothing too serious. I even took them outside for both recesses regardless of the fact that it was -20 C and -19 C respectively. It was nice and refreshing the first time, but by the second recess, I wish we had stayed inside.

At the end of school, we had an IT meeting which took awhile. I also learned I had to very quickly clean my room and basically throw my stuff into the hallway because they were using my room for another meeting I didn’t know about. With the results of being late and frazzled, I went out to my car to finally get it ready to come home. I let it warm up for quite awhile, and scraped and brushed it off so it didn’t quite look so much like an abandoned car in the arctic. Although my engine light is on, my car made it home and drove incredibly well. I love my car.

Tonight at the gym, I really wasn’t feeling my workout. I just wasn’t in the right mental state for a couple reasons, one being that I was home from work late again, and I also was still physically worn out from that crazy leg workout the day before. Not to mention tonight’s workout and every workout this week is now 4 sets instead of 3. My body just wasn’t feeling it today. But I did manage to finish the chest/triceps/abs workout including 12 minutes of HIIT afterwards.

I’m tired and worn out, but I’m about to go to sleep and hoping for the deepest sleep so my body can recover better for tomorrow’s back workout.

Week 7 Day 6

It was so hard for me to get up this morning. I normally get up with my husband since he still has to work Fridays. But this morning, I couldn’t. This whole week has be energy-less and tiring.

In fact, I barely made it to my chiropractor and acupuncture appointments this morning. I was ten minutes late (versus the minimum of 5 minutes early I usually am). Thankfully, my chiropractor was also running late so it worked out just fine. But as I was sitting in the waiting room, my acupuncturist came out and mentioned how tired I looked. And then as I responded to her, I noticed my voice even sounded tired. I think it’s a sign…

I felt good after my appointments, but of course was ready to go back home and sleep. Unfortunately today’s workout looked a bit long so I went and did half of my chest workout at the gym so that I could go back and finish the other half with my husband later. However, I found this to be a mistake.

I didn’t know that my husband would be coming home exhausted as well. So upon taking a nap, then followed by going out for supper, the workout didn’t get finished this day. But I did go to sleep early and that was a bonus.

Week 1 Day 3

According to today’s schedule, it was supposed to be a rest day. Our coach has given us the ok to do cardio or something like yoga on a rest day if we are restless. I’m used to working out 6 days a week, so I definitely went ahead and did some cardio. Because I knew that I wouldn’t be tired out from anything else, I decided to push myself with something I dislike: the stairclimber.

I managed to complete a hard 12 minutes of HIIT. I may not have liked it during the moment, but I felt so good about it after I was done. And as my husband finished working out, I was able to spend an ample amount of time stretching and working on my flexibility, something that is very important to me.

Today I had less stress than yesterday, and my meals were more timely. The only time I sensed too long of a stretch between eating was after work. I have a ton of grading to do (life of a teacher…) and so I decided to stay a little longer to get some done. I didn’t bring any extra meals with me and so I was tempted to eat those popsicles in my freezer in my room. But I managed to avoid it and waited until I got home.

The ironic part of this is that when I got home I made my fish (haddock), rice and slice of cheese. I also added a little mustard on this. My husband came home shortly after and was in a miserable state, feeling awful. He was very hungry, and unfortunately we were running out of his groceries (he has his own macros/plan) so fast food was the way we went. We ended up at Pizza Hut. And on our table was: cheese breadsticks, boneless wings, pizza, and cinnaparts. Oh that smell.

I wanted that food. It looked good. It smelled good. But in my head, I knew that wasn’t what I wanted. That food would not make me feel good. That food would not help me reach my goals. That food would definitely not help me in this competition, and so I sat, watching my husband eat that food. And guess what! I did it. I didn’t have a single bite, no matter how tempted I was!

The worst part is, the rest of that meal is sitting in our fridge. How incredibly easy and habitual is it to go to the fridge, pop open the tasty leftovers, and heat them up. Too easy. So the battle is not over yet, but I’ve already determined that I will not let food control me. I will not indulge. I have a plan. I have a goal. And that is where my focus is going to be.

I am currently finishing my bowl of frozen mango, frozen blueberries, and greek yogurt and then I shall be off to bed. Have a great night everyone.

The Famous “Bounceback”

I wrote a post a long time ago about being sick, and coming back to the gym. How my body surprised me, and the determination of not giving up. Well, today’s post is kind of on that track, but with a different twist. One that even shocked me.

I wrote yesterday of how I badly hurt my quad the night before. I took extra special care of it yesterday, trying not to overuse it, and just watching it closely. Once I finally got outside for morning recess with my students (after a VERY stressful morning), I simply sat on the ground in the shade and relaxed (don’t worry, I could see all the students from where I was sitting, teacher’s duty never ends…).

I got up and noticed it felt mostly better, though not quite all the way. So I decided to do a “sample” squat. It went ok, but I wasn’t sure what adding weight to it would do so I just continued to be careful throughout the day.

As I was on my way home, I began pondering what I should do to workout. I couldn’t really do chest or back or arms and shoulders because they were already done and I needed to do shoulders and arms again the next day. So the only option was not to go to the gym, or take a chance and do legs. Can you guess what I did? Took a chance. After all, it was one of my most stressful days at work. Almost everything had gone wrong.

When I got to the gym, I started thinking about what I was going to do. As is super important, I knew I had to warm-up that leg. NEVER take a chance on stressing muscle groups without some type of warm-up. It’s safer in the long run. For my warm-up, I got on the treadmill for 10 minutes. Normally I’d suggest a 5 minute warm-up, but because I was recovering from an injury, I did double to be sure. I kept it at a walking pace, and only added a small incline after the first 5 minutes. This seemed to go pretty well.

Next, I headed to the women’s workout room. I’m not afraid of working out in front of men, in fact that doesn’t bother me at all. What does bother me is that sometimes the gym is SO PACKED and the women’s room never seems to be that bad, and that was the case last night. Especially with my leg being the way it was, I wasn’t sure how “fast” I’d be according to the men’s standards. The women’s section is a calmer place.

Once I got in there, I decided to jump in a try the squats. I used a very lightweight, 40 lb barbell. I used sumo stance. These didn’t really hurt but instead gave me a feeling to know I needed to still be careful. I actually succeeded in my 3 sets of 20 which surprised me, but I knew I shouldn’t persist past that. No need to aggravate the injury. I then tried some sumo deadlifts with the same weight, but my leg wasn’t having any of that. So I headed for the leg press.

The leg press I used was the type that pushes your seat back. Normally, I would just do normal squats and deadlifts, but I figured the extra support might be a little better for a day like today. What happened next blew me away. The press had been left at a weight of 135. I decided not even to attempt that and dropped it to 55 lb. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 75 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 95 lbs (what I normally do on free weight squats), I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 115 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 135 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 155 lbs. I did 30 reps. I raised the weight to 175 lbs. I did 30 reps. And it was at this point I stopped. Not from pain, not from exhaustion even. But from the simple fact I knew my leg may not feel it now, but it would later. I honestly couldn’t believe it: that I mentally was able to keep going, and that my leg not only held up, but went so heavy! I began thinking that maybe my legs have been under-recovered.

Next, I went for 2-30 second planks. These went by so easily.

After that, I went for the abductor and adductor machines. Adductor was so, so, so good. I haven’t done exercises for my adductors in so long, and it just felt so good. But again, I was doing 30 reps a set and continued increasing the weight until I was raw sore. Phenomenal. The abductor, well, significantly weaker than my adductors, but that’s ok. They still hurt me today, but I pushed them as hard as I could.

That pretty much concluded my workout, aside from the fact I forgot to mention that I did a set of 30-35 reps of calf raises in between each set of squats, but I’m just blown away and still am. That was such a GREAT workout, and only a day after injury? I never do that heavy of weight normally (except sumo squats was lower), and NEVER have gotten up to the amount of reps I used yesterday. I am in awe of what a body is capable of, of what a dedicated mind can do, of the punishment our bodies is able to handle and keep going. We ARE God’s greatest creation, and He must have put so much work into us. How much we doubt ourselves daily, how little our brains allow us to do, and yet here’s our body, just waiting for its orders so it can show us how much more it can conquer.

Love your body. Push your limits. See what amazing things you can do!