I have had exactly two workouts with Attila in the last two weeks, primarily because I've been working an insane schedule. Like, one day off a week insane. I was supposed to see her last Saturday, but instead managed to sleep through two alarms, two phone calls, and multiple knocks on the door, only to awaken an hour or so after the session was to have ended.
Yay, me.
The good news is that I took off all the weight I put on after the knee debacle. The bad news is that some of it has come back, as a result of stress eating.
This past weekend a friend of mine showed up at my door, beaten half to hell. She had gone to see an ex-boyfriend who'd beat her up before, they'd gotten into a fight, and she'd come to me. That's all the detail I want to go into at the moment: suffice to say that the whole experience has left me feeling alternately nauseated and in need of a hug and a cup of tea, and failing a hug and a cup of tea, large amounts of Thai food have to suffice.
I have no clue what I weigh at the moment, and I'm not going to weigh or measure until Saturday, my normally-schedule weigh-in day. If I got close to a scale right now, I'd only get depressed.
In other news, Attila managed a couple of truly awful inventions this week and two weeks ago. The first is something that makes me yell "Big Strong Russian Woman!" in a bad Central European accent whenever she suggests I do it; the other is a varation on the crunch.
To perform the BSRW, you take a couple of heavy-ish barbells. I used ten pounds for three sets of twenty/twenty-five/thirty reps, but you're welcome to start with eight. Or five. Or three.
Stand with your legs slightly more than shoulder-width apart. Holding the barbells parallel, perpendicular to the floor, swing down from the waist and swing those suckers through your legs at just lower than knee height. Come back up and, keeping your elbows soft, raise said barbells to shoulder height.
This works your lower back, shoulders (duh), and your core. It's a surprising core workout, in fact--all that swinging your arms up really makes your abs work to stabilize your body.
The Evil Variation On The Crunch is actually quite simple: lie on your back on a step, yoga mat, the floor, whatever, legs extended and arms at your sides. Holding two eight (or ten or five or three) pound weights, crunch up while pulling your knees in and extending those arms out past your knees. Then, as you straighten your knees and lie back down, pull the weights in to your chest as though you were going to do a bench press. Again, we did 20/25/30, and I screamed after the twelfth or thirteenth one every single time.
You would think, with the myriad variations of crunches and V-ups that I'm put through on a regular basis, that a plain old situp would not be a challenge.
You would be sadly, sadly wrong, my friend. I tried to do thirty situps workout-before-last, and lo and behold, I had to make it two sets of fifteen. Obviously my abs are not as strong as I'd thought they were; more than that, they're not strong throughout their range of motion.
So that's one new goal. I have three, actually: be able to do situps, increase my exercise frequency without Attila around (that would take the form of 30 minutes of walking, minimum, three times a week), and be able to do fifty military-style pushups. I don't have a timeline yet, but I'll get one.
More later this week, after my next two torture sessions. Sorry to leave both my readers in the lurch, but Jeebus Grits what a couple of weeks it's been.
Has every employer on earth gone crazy? I know lots of people who are neglecting themselves for the sake of a job, and I hate seeing it happen. Employers should know they would get much better work out of you if they treated you better.
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry to read about the friend, and you have my sympathy. I have been there, and I can understand the need for hugs or Thai food.
I hope you get some time off soon, and good luck on the exercise goals!
I'm really sorry about your friend, Jo. I hope she gets the real help she needs. (Not that you aren't helpful! More that she could use a village...)
ReplyDeleteAttila's BSRW sounds similar to, but different from, my old gym's standby "woodchopper." Take a heavy dumbbell (I think this must be what you use barbell to mean) - over 35 lbs. for thee and me - in both hands. Hinge at the hips and swing that puppy as noted above, then back up all the way overhead. Slowly, of course. Repeat ad nauseum.
Also, that evil crunch variation is in my current trainer's regular repertoire, using a medicine ball instead of dumbbells. He usually gives me the 15 pounder. Bleargh.
As to the "my core ain't what I thought it was" issue...that's probably true for just about everybody. I'm a little bit of a core snob: it's the strongest weapon in my arsenal, and I'd rather do core exercises than pretty much anything else. Nonetheless, I remember a duet training session with one of my first trainers where she had us trade off on two exercises: 1) medicine ball crunches (similar to variation above) with hips on balance ball and 2) freaky-ass Smith machine ab thingys on a balance ball (I don't think I have sufficient language to describe this move). My partner kicked ass at the latter and died at the former. I could do the former all freaking day, but literally fell off the balance ball attempting the latter. I had to do the wimpy version, and oh! the hit to my pride.
To this day my lower abs are still not at the level of my uppers. I should probably work on that more, but of course I don't. Props on your situp motivation.