It’s been a while – over a week in fact. Work has been a pig lately and I haven’t been able to get to the gym or pool at all.

Today I gave myself a good 75 minutes to do everything. The rowing is no problem at all, except I have never yet made it to 819m the way I did when Aaron was sitting there watching. That was in the morning; I’m glad if I get over 800m in the evenings. The cycling is still hard work, I went back to level 10 tonight and just about achieved it. My neck started to throb a little bit but I got through it and was glad to do the whole 10 minutes. The walking is OK, but I’m still holding onto the heart monitor handles for most of it and I think I really should be walking with my hands free (this is more difficult) so will work on that.

I haven’t had time to do all the exercises for weeks, and somehow the squats and lunges were always cut, so this time I resolved to do them. They were fine, and although my knees are occasionally stiff now, I haven’t noticed any clicking or grinding for a week or two. The clean and jerks are good and even fun.

The pull-down lats still need a lot of concentration – I went back to 15kg which is OK except I was sitting too straight (I think) and hurt my shoulder again. But leaning back so that I’m slightly diagonal was better, and I was able to complete the three sets without any more pain. If I let myself be distracted for a second, I’ll get it wrong, so I really must concentrate on that. The bicep curls/tricep kickbacks are hard work but OK

The core exercises are a good winddown – the pelvic tilts and abdominal crunches are fine. My back really enjoys the massage you get with the abdominal crunches – I try to curl each vertebra round one at a time – so I rarely cut this one. The hamstring curls are difficult but I can reliably do a set of 10 without a break, both times. I’m ready to move the core exercises up to three sets, perhaps I should do that.

Targets:
Move up a level each week on the bike – I’m still not at level 12 which is where I was supposed to start! and it’s been a month
When walking, let go of the handles for 30-second bursts next week, 1 minute bursts in the following week
Move up to 17.5 kg next time on the pull-down lats, do that for a week, and move to 20 kg after that
Start doing 3 sets of the core exercises from next week

My next assessment is due in a couple of weeks, but I think I’ll delay it to give me a chance to catch up.