09.24.07
Monday’s attempt
Bit of a disastrous evening in the gym tonight.
Rowing was fine – 786 metres, better than Saturday but not as good as last Thursday
Cycling, level 11 – dreadful. I was finding it really difficult to keep going at over 75rpm (the target) and during the fourth minute I could feel my neck starting to throb on both sides, so I stopped.
Walking – not bad – 5.5kph at 2% then 4% as instructed
Squats fine, lunges fine, clean and jerks fine
Lat pulldowns – not fine. On the second set my shoulder did its tearing thing, so I stopped that as well
Single row with tricep kickback – fine
And I couldn’t face doing the core exercises, I had demoralised myself totally. Monday is usually a goodish day but today was just not working.
My new trainers which I love also caused some grief – I was wearing them without socks (hate socks) but the heels cut in and rubbed my heels raw, this was also part of my disinclination to do the core exercises. I was just fed up.
So, on Wednesday I’ll go back to level 10 on the bike, and put 7.5kg each side on the lat pulldown machine, and see how we go.
09.22.07
Saturday workout
Podna had a terrible night last night which resulted in us losing about 90 minutes sleep so I was truly shattered today. However I resolved to go to the gym as I was unable to go yesterday as we went to the theatre so I didn’t have time to do the gym as well. And I wanted to try out the new programme. So I went to Majestic Centre and decided to do the rowing, cycling at level 10, the walking, and one set of the weights and core exercises.
Rowing was fine, I was obviously tired though as I only made 780 metres whereas the other day with Aaron I did 819m.
Cycling, level 10, was OK. Hard work, but OK. Walking ditto, although I was pleased because I did what Aaron wanted – 5.5kph, 2% then 4%
Weights:
The clean and jerks were fine. Could have done the 3 sets (I can say that
now of course)
The pull-downs were also fine but really hard work. I will be able to do 3 sets but might not have managed that today
The single row/tricep kickback were tough too.
Core exercises:
Pelvic tilts - same as always
Ab crunches - these were easier than I expected. Will have to check I’m not
doing them wrong
Hamstring curls - almost impossible, even just 1 set.
In short, I’m really looking forward to Monday. I’ll go up to level 11 on the bike
and try two sets of the exercises.
09.21.07
New workout plan
Due to one thing or another I was very late getting to my assessment with Aaron on Wednesday, so I suggested we rearrange – however we did spend a few minutes talking, so I was able to say everything I wanted to say – about my performance, about the lack in the previous programme of work for my upper body, about my goals. Aaron then took all that away and came up with a plan. I went in yesterday to go through it with him. Here it is:
Cardio – 30 minutes:
Row for 4 mins
Bike – 10 mins Bike programme 1, level 12. I tried this later and I couldn’t do it, I flaked out after five minutes
Treadmill – walk for 10 minutes, minimum 5.5kph, start at 2% incline and move to 4% after 5 minutes. This will be tough too. Those inclines don’t sound like much compared to the hills that you walk up and down on regular streets in real life, but I think the difference is, in real life you vary your speed, whereas on the treadmill you are forced to maintain it.
Row for another 4 minutes
Weights – a circuit:
Clean and Jerk with 10kg bag – 3 sets of 10, when that gets easy, do 3 sets of 12. This works every muscle group in the body, apparently.
Lat pull-downs, wide grip (yay!) 10kg/side (ie 20kg) 3 sets of 10, up to 3 sets of 12. Looking forward to this.
Single Row and Tricep kickback with 4kg dumbbells – 3 sets of 10 each side, up to 3 sets of 12 each side. Well I did ask for stuff for the upper body. This will work the whole shoulder and arm groups
Physio exercises – for the dodgy knees – squats, lunges, bridges (might put the bridges onto the end of the core exercises, I’ll need something to wind down with)
Core exercises – 2 sets, rising to 3 once they get easy (hah!)
Pelvic tilts, as before, but do them slower – 15 reps
Ab crunch on swiss ball – have the ball in the small of my back, hands on shoulders, rise and drop back – 10 reps. This one had me shaking like a leaf.
Hamstring curls – feet on the ball, back on the floor, hips off the ground, roll the ball towards me. 10 reps. Felt like I would never be able to bend my legs again
This is really tough for me but I have no doubt I will be able to do it. I might do one set of each for the first couple of times, and I might drop the cycle programme down to 10. But I expect to be doing the new programme by Friday next week. I’m really glad to have some weights training back into the mix because as I told him, I loved what that did for my blood sugar as well as giving me muscles I have never had before. And the core exercises are really difficult – the last batch weren’t much of a challenge.
I now discover Aaron has a bit of a reputation around the girls’ changing room for pushing you really hard 
and he is certainly doing that for me. I am somewhat daunted by the leap from where I was to where he expects me to be now (that cycling programme in particular), but I am looking forward to being at that place. And yesterday, even though I hadn’t done the full programme, I was holding onto the wall in the shower and stumbling about, the way I was when I first started with Sarah. In a word, I was completely knackered. I will improve from this
09.17.07
Good workout tonight
Tonight I allowed plenty of time and did the full-blown cardio workout. It takes just over an hour and frequently I have to cut bits of it because of time pressures. I’m two staff down at work so am working long hours, it’s a pain. Anyway when I say “full-blown” I mean “the exercises they gave me plus the pull-down lats and the chest presses,” and I realise I haven’t noted these latter sets here.
Basically since the start of this six-week block I have felt that my routine didn’t have much in it for my upper body – back, chest and arms. At first I did the chest presses on the swiss ball and I got myself up to 6kg doing that, but I’ve stopped doing that recently. A couple of weeks ago I might have mentioned that I tried the chest press machine that Sarah had me using in the first six-week block and I found that I was right back to those early days in May when I wasn’t sure if I could manage 2 sets of 12 with just the machine at its latent weight let alone any added weights. This made me doubt the efficacy of the chest presses on the ball so occasionally I’ve gone back to the machine and done the 2 sets of 12 as before. It’s still hard work
Ages ago when Sarah started me on my second 6-week block she wanted me to do pull-down lats with the wide grip, and if you remember my right shoulder muscle felt like it was tearing on the return – the downward pull was fine, but going back up to the start position was very painful. Over the last few weeks I’ve been gradually building up this exercise, starting off with just the pull-down lat machine with no weights, then I added 5 kg, now I’m up to 13 kg. I’ve been very careful to make sure the return is slow and measured, on the occasions when I’ve let the counterbalance take the arms up too fast, I have had twinges. I can’t remember what weight Sarah had me trying at, I think it was 10kg but can’t swear to it. Yes I did make it up to 30kg on the narrow-grip exercise, but using the wide grip is much much harder.
Anyway as I say I’ve often had to shave bits off the routine, I always try and make sure I cut a different bit each time to balance everything out, so sometimes I haven’t done my walking, sometimes I haven’t done my second rowing, sometimes I’ve not done the core exercises but have done extra rowing etc. I make sure I’m working for a minimum of 40 minutes each time.
On Wednesday I have my next assessment with Aaron and I’ll talk over the back/chest/arms issue then. The good news on the blood pressure has made me feel a bit more cheerful on the no-weight-loss situation (no change there incidentally) so I’m happy for that goal to slip into to the background and concentrate on the others. I really like the effect the weight training was having on my blood glucose and am happy to do a half-hour cardio every day, even though when Sarah suggested making it 20 minutes I didn’t think I’d find the time (ie I didn’t want to do it). One excellent thing about the current programme was that if I didn’t feel like swimming I could do the cardio routine instead, this has meant that I have missed very few days this time around.
Changes to physical appearance:
Legs – thinner from the side but not from the front. Bizarre. Can feel increased definition of thigh and calf muscles though
Belly – worse than ever. Much flabbier, flobbier, quite revolting. Am I seeing it now as it has always been? I don’t think that’s it – even Podna says my abdomen looks a little “odd”
Chest – leaner. For definite
Back – stronger, firmer, even thin in places.
Neck – dunno. Thinner I think
Arms – stronger. Can carry in much more supermarket shopping without thinking about it
Waist – that four cm is still not there. However the lower abdomen still is very much there so no change in dress size
We’ll see what happens on Wednesday
09.15.07
Recent exploits
On Thursday during my swim I tried a new stroke – when you do a front crawl stroke, leave one arm straight out in front until the other arm gets back there. So you’re doing half as many strokes as normal, but the theory is, because your other arm is breaking the water ahead of you, you get more propulsion with each stroke. This seemed to work, it was hard to get the rhythm at first but once I got it, it was groovy
Last night on the cycle I did level 10 – hard work, but I made it.
09.12.07
Swim Tuesday
Managed to get to my swim tonight. It was a bit rushed, so I only did 14 lengths, but they were all front crawl. The pool was very full but we managed. When it’s full I’m less inclined to do backstroke/floating etc, so there is an upside.
UPDATED: I ought to mention that I read an article explaining how a lot of front-crawlers exhaust themselves by not resting their arms on the recovery (the bit where you move the arm through the air). Yes you are supposed to rest while doing this The idea is you drop your forearm down so that it is hanging freely (and resting) and you move your arm forward with your elbow. Once your hand hits the water again you pull and push the water with the hand and forearm to propel you forward, but once your elbow is level with or just above the water, you lift with the elbow and the shoulder.
I thought I’d try this. It was fun and hilarious. I felt a bit like a combine harvester, threshing through the water. I’m not sure I was swimming any more efficiently and I felt the strokes were much shorter. I tried counting them a few times – with my normal stroke I take 38-40 strokes to swim 33.3 metres – but I kept losing count because the other thing that happened was, I’d be so busy concentrating on my arms, bowling along like some weird da Vinci-designed veeehickle, that I’d forget to breathe altogether, stop, come up, look around, take a lungful and go back down. It must have been a funny sight.
I’ll try it again on Thursday
09.10.07
More cycling improvements
The last couple of times I’ve done my cycling block at level 9, and it’s not hard at all. Am I ready for level 10? RPM is still at 87-90 so perhaps I could try it.
Everything else is OK. As usual I’m ready for a new regime, I guess this is week six of this one so that’s only to be expected.
09.05.07
Cycling improvements
Tonight I hammered through level 8 on the cycling machine and averaged 88 rpm, so I’ll give level 9 a shot on Friday.
The lunges are just about OK. Still don’t like them.
Waist measurement
I’ve lost 4 cm off my waist since I last measured, but I haven’t dropped a dress size or a kilo.
Go figure
09.04.07
Swim tonight
Worked hard at my swim tonight – was there for 35 mins and did 20 lengths (666 metres oo-er). 15 of these were front crawl. I did ten lengths, alternating front crawl and back float (occasionally doing backstroke), then did ten lengths all front crawl.
No spa pool though :(
