Well I really did it to my feet by not wearing socks in my new trainers – I took the skin right off the backs of both my ankles.  This necessitated nearly a week of no gym and almost no shoe wearing.  Events consipired against the swimming too, so from Monday evening last week, to Monday this week, I have done nothing.  By Sunday I was feeling distinctly blobby and determined to go to the gym on Monday.

So on Monday evening I gave it a go. I decided to row to warm up, then do the weights and core exercises, then do the cardio – the idea being that as the walking is where I did the damage on the heels, and I wasn’t sure if the cycling contributed too, I would leave them both till last.

I did the squats, lunges, clean & jerks and row/tricep exercises with no problem. The pull-down lats caused the intense pain in my right shoulder again on the first set, even though I’d gone down to 7.5kg. Then I realised that I have a tendency to sit too far back, so I shuffled forward and this was better, even though my left arm was doing almost all the control on the return so my right arm wasn’t actually contributing very much. The second set was OK, I could still feel a little discomfort, a bit like a bruise, but it was easing. I did two sets of this batch of exercises (only 1 of lunges as instructed)

The core exercises weren’t bad – pelvic tilts, ab crunches and hamstring curls. The latter are very very difficult, the others are fine. I did one set of these plus a set of single-leg bridges to test out my knees, a tiny click once or twice but great on the whole.

I was tired after all that, of course, so I put myself on level 9 on the cycle and managed it. “Bike program 1″ is tougher than “Fitness 2″ that I was on before, but I was able to stay above 75rpm throughout and was in the 80s for most of it. Another go like that and I’ll move to level 10.

Onto the treadmill, and within ten steps I stopped. Straight onto the heels. So I called it a day at that point. I was quite pleased that I managed that much though.

Today, two days later, I went to Majestic Centre to have another go. I decided to follow the same programme (cardio last) for the same reasons. Rowing was fine. Then the weights. All of these were fine, I did all three sets (1 set of lunges). The pulldown lats were fine, I made sure I sat forward and I had no pain at all. I still have to be very careful to control the return motion but hopefully my strength will build up in this area.

Core exercises – I did the required two sets of these, they were perfectly fine.

Then the cardio. The cycles were all in use, so I thought I’d try the treadmill. Again it went straight to the heels, which are mending well but I didn’t want to open them up again. So I did the second set of rowing and then went for a 15 minute swim.

After that I decided I’d earned a spabath. Love that spabath.

After the workout on Monday I was tired but glad I’d got through as much as I did. Today I feel much much better – my back coming back into line, my legs springy and supportive. I’m looking forward next time

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.

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.

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