Thank you for all the support regarding my last post. Your comments, phone calls, and in-person conversations helped me see that it is important to pursue what I want: a destination wedding.
Now, back to our regularly scheduled program- starring my big butt.
I'm super sore today. Now that the gym is almost back to its full glory days, the variety and workouts have returned to their full glory as well. Yesterday we did 15 rounds (FIFTEEN ROUNDS) of 5 pull ups, 10 push-ups and 15 squats. The girls performed the pull-ups by jumping since we don't have giant rubber bands yet, and I made it through 2 rounds of regular push-ups before I had to drop to my knees. I really tried to focus on making my squats faster, which results in a motion not unlike humping the air in an exaggerated fashion.
I finished in just under 19 minutes, which is a nice little victory considering that back in December, we did this similar workout, except it was complete as many rounds of the above in 20 minutes. I completed 15 rounds. So...here we are in May, and I completed 15 rounds in 19 minutes...after essentially 6 weeks of toned down workouts- still progress!
I realized something else during this workout yesterday- that my body has a tendency to want to control itself and find a rhythm, especially when it knows it has 15 rounds to complete. I notice this when I run to, I just want to find a rhythm and be comfortable. I think I really need to work on pushing the boundaries, or else I'm going to find myself plateauing. Sure I'm getting a workout, but if I always just start pacing myself when it gets really hard, I won't get much better.
The tendency to pace myself has become pretty apparent by my weight loss ticker up above. I have 19 pounds that I would like to shed, and I've just been camping out. Working, but not really pushing myself to the limits. I'm treating this new workout goal as an across the board life goal. I'm not going to just push myself at the gym, I'm going to push myself at work, at home, in my diet, and in whatever else I take on. Hard work is always rewarded.
This reminds me a bit of a research paper I read a few days ago - "From catastrophe to complexity: a novel model of integrative central neural regulation of effort and fatigue
ReplyDeleteduring exercise in humans." - http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1724894/pdf/v038p00511.pdf
Here were a couple of key conclusions:
"the distinct sensation of fatigue is not directly related to a physical end point, but is rather an interpretation of the effect of the current level of activity on future exercise capacity and any threats that immediate and future events pose to the maintenance of homoeostasis.”
"As the sensation of fatigue is an emotion rather than a physical state, pacing strategies and their control during self regulated exercise—the journey and not just the end point—are probably the most important phenomena in exercise physiology.”
Keep on truckin'
...Tim
I'm actually still working towards pullups even with 3 bands!!!
ReplyDeleteHad a one on one 'on ramp' session where coach worked with me on them. It was pitiful!! I don't think I have to worry about getting into a rhythm any time soon. :-)