What Was Your Work Out Today?

Feeling better today so went to the gym and did some steady running (only 2k) some bike for warmup then did pull/press ups, lat pull downs, and some other arm/back/lat weight stuff. Then yoga to cool down. It was fun. Spent two hours there and didn’t even realise. Good to be back.

It was good. I did Jillian Michaels Body Revolution Workout 8 and her Killer Abs Workout 3. I was sweating buckets with the last one. I’ve been vlogging my Body Revolution workouts this time on Youtube under FitbyFortyFour to keep myself accountable.

Mike - are the fires improving?

I hangboarded yesterday. It was really hot during the day, which I tend not to cope too well with. I was quite sedentary until about 9 p.m. Then I went for a walk - it was nice and cool by then. I hangboarded when I got back, at about 10.30.

It wasn't a great session. I struggled with pretty much everything. On my smallest hold (12mm) I only managed about 4 second - my best is over 10

These things happen - strength gain is a non- linear process. Today is a new day, and I should have time for a climb.

Horton Park just after sunset:

@drmwc - Matt, your climbing wall is fantastic. Looks like you've been getting a ton of use out of it!

As for the wildfires, I wish it would rain. They are more smoldering in our area down the mountain now. The mountain ridge closest to us is around 7,000 ft. It is slowly burning down the mountain, inching closer to the community next to us -- Saddlebrooke, which is a lovely 55 and over community that we frequent. There are now 1000 firefighters from all over the US engaging the fire now, but most of what they can do without rain is just keep it from structures and direct it. The Santa Catalina mountain range is fairly large. It has burned up nearly 50% of it in the last month. Decimated 200/300 year old alpine forests and killed 100 year old Saguaros.

The topography here is fascinating. It's the Sonoran Desert low (called the lushest desert in the world) and then it's like Colorado on top of the mountain -- alpine trees and much cooler. We are all kind of depressed because that Colorado like mountain will be changed for our lifetimes. Very sad. It's still beautiful and nature tends to recover, but it's just another warning sign we're slowly killing our planet. Rain usually starts here in the next two to three weeks. We have a slight chance of rain early next week, so fingers crossed. The fires rage up top but slow as it descends into the desert. The good news is no structures have been burned and no lives have been lost, though 4 or so firefighters have had heat issues -- 110 F is the high today.

I do recruiting with startups, many cleantech/sustainable related. There are at least five companies that are using drones, machine learning, geology and robotics to replant forests rapidly. I'm not a huge fan of drones, but this is one great thing they are being used for, so I'm optimistic we can reverse things.

Today, just did 30 minutes on the LateralX and 30 on the AD Pro -- pretty light stuff after yesterday's hard intervals. I've just resigned myself to not rowing until the smoke clears out and that could be weeks from now.

Rest day. Yesterday I only did massaging/yoga/stretching for an hour.
The day before I did a proper bodyweight routine for the first time again, and executed ab wheels rather poorly - with the result that my muscles just below/around the tip of the sternum hurt badly. Sneezing is still very unpleasant. Trying a pull up is not a good idea. Maybe I'll be able to work out again tomorrow. A rest day is nice.

Did a harder 5 X 5 session today (five minutes cardio hard with 3 minute active recoveries X 5). First 3 on the LateralX (set at highest resistance of 10 with lateral distance at 6 out of 10 -- any more my knees hurt a bit). Then did the last two on the AD Pro (Assault Bike). Finished up with a one minute set up pushups till failure - 35/10/then 3 from my knees and just couldn't do another, overhead presses till failure (35 lbs, only got like 35 of them in a minute) and light squats (40 lbs) -- around 40 or so for one minute. Around 850 calories in a little under an hour.

The bike reps were around 250 to 260 Watts, which is decent.

Oh, and I took a rare off day yesterday. Finally put the headaches together were strongly correlating to the time I spent outside. Must be the combination of smoke or the fire retardent burning off that was causing my headaches. Wife and I went to an outdoor concert on Wed night and I had a bad headache again yesterday. They are supposed to be done backburning near my neighborhood today and claiming it will get much less smoky by the weekend. I hope so, been super bad recently. I'd like to get back on the deck and row next week.

MaltedTea wrote: »

MaltedTea wrote: »

A 16km bike ride this morning which included going up and over the scenic Jacques Cartier Bridge. *snip*

^^ That was May 24, apparently.

I decided to try this loop again for the second time. I rode fasted both times but today I shaved 2.5 min/h off my time.

No wonder I was confused about getting back home so quickly: less than an hour and that was with getting lost (umm, yes...again) and stopping for selfies.

Pretty sure I can chop this down to a 45-min out and back if I don't get lost, pedal hard the entire time and refrain from singing along with my playlist.

That is awesome @MaltedTea - and thank you for sharing the pic.

Finally felt like doing something today. The past couple of days have been bike rides that were less than 10 miles, but today I tackled a 25 mile hilly ride and it felt awesome. Not sure if I'm going to ride again tomorrow or do my elliptigo for a few miles.

Moving apartments!

Nice relaxing 30 minutes on the rower this AM and then 30 on the Assault Bike. Was nearly 80 degrees at 7 AM when I rowed outside but no smoke in the air for the first time in nearly a month (nothing left to burn at this point, the entire mountain range burned).

lol @drmwc you're super fun when you're bored!

It has been threatening to thunderstorm for 4-5 days in my area but all we've ended up getting was spit on slightly by two or three clouds. 💦

Just in case, I've done a 20 min upper body workout and a run along the waterfront with a couple of fartleks. Last fartlek was of a sprint-like variety up several flights of stairs.

If it's not thundering after work, I'll get a light ride in.

I did my yoga/stretching routine yesterday but gave up halfway because I felt too tight.

Did the same again today and actually progressed big time! My right hamstrings are still rather tight, thus I was happy to discover the dreaded, and rather painful flip of a hamstring muscles/nerve when doing pigeon pose (wonder what my neighbours think). I noticed this in the left leg about two weeks ago, and it's nearly gone now after lots of careful stretching, foam rolling and massaging. Thus on to right now. And I can do a very deep lunge now where both thighs are totally flat, thus like this but a bit deeper Actual splits are not there yet. Still too many tight spots in my legs.

Upper PHUL and 18K steps

Thanks Matt, yeah I know in my head they'll go away. Scrubbed the rower handle today also which helped. The sweat and grime build up in the hot Summer months.

Did our indoor rowing club's CTC today, which was a "waterfall" workout -- going from longer periods to shorter ones as you progress. It was 7 minute/2 minute rest, 5 minute/2 rest, 3 minutes/2 rest, 1 minute on the rower. Averaged 2:04.3 pace for the workout, 3861 meters in 16 minutes of total work. HR hit 180 on the last set (over 90% of max). Hadn't done a hard row in weeks, so just tried to keep around a 25 stroke per minute rate. Was able to hold a 32 SPM on the one minute rep.

Just pleased I did it. Performance not great but it didn't feel too awful. And legs were feeling heavy this AM as I've been doing a lot more leg work. So completing it with not the freshest of legs was good.

Hack Squats
Hamstring Curls
Back extensions
Hip Adductors
Cable Lateral Raises
Single Arm Rows
Chest Press
Ab Crunches
Ab Rollouts
2 mile TM Run

SO NICE TO BE BACK IN THE GYM!!!!

Today is a rest day because I am doing a full fast (5:2 fasting on Wednesdays and Saturday - I'm in Australia) but yesterday I vlogged two Jillian workouts in the morning (this takes about an hour) and then I did 90 minutes at the gym in the evening targeting muscles on the back of my body (hamstrings, glutes, triceps, lower back, rear deltoids, traps etc)