Today was great. I had decided a week in advance to start kicking my own ass to the umpteenth on Fridays. I had failed to take in mind my gym's new hours...but I was just able to cram everything in in time to gtfo before they closed. Still...I felt bad for even stressing the bar like that on their part. I'll keep it in mind next time.
Elliptic Machine(Cardio): 45 minutes at level 5/30 difficulty. Wound up burning 411 calories by the end. Maintained RPM in the high 80's and even in the mid 90's until 25 minutes in, where I began to fluctuate between the mid 80's and low 80's for the rest of the time.
Bench Press (60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks.
Pec Fly(60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks.
Abdominal Fuse (60 lbs): 40 reps, no breaks. At least, I think I did. I kept zoning out during the process and thinking about literally anything from childhood memories, to highlights of my work day, to how many reps I had done, to how much I've been wanting to play Baldur's Gate II again. I had this nagging doubt that when I was mentally counting 37...38...39...that it was actually 27...28...29...so I did an extra 10 just in case. Worst case scenario, I did 50. It would explain the pinpricks I was feeling in the core by the end of the set, which only benefits me anyway.
Leg Extension(60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks.
Seated Leg Curl(60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks. I improved a bit with my tendency to just SLAM that weight up or accidentally let it drop back down. Still winced when I did it.
Leg Press (60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks. I lost some of my octane by the 24th rep...but it came back to me in time to finish the set.
Chest Press(60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks. I got halfway through the set when my chest first started to fail me. So I held the completed rep up and took a few deep breaths...then I got 9 more before it started to fail me again. I repeated. Then I made myself power through 5 more, held that up...then finished the set.
Shoulder Press(60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks.
Lower Back Fuse(60 lbs): 40 reps, no breaks.
Seated Row(60 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks.
Bicep Curl(20 lbs): 33 reps, no breaks.
Tricep Extension(25 lbs): 33 reps. 17 emphasizing the left arm, 16 emphasizing the right arm, no breaks.
Fingertip Pushups: 3 reps. I felt like I was punking out the person who was on a mat doing other stuff when I came over, got on the floor beside them, put on my "MAXIMUM OVERSTRAIN" face....and then just did 3 goofy fingertip pushups and walked off. Ah well. If there's any humour in that person, it'll get a giggle sooner or later.
It surprised me how easy I found this exercise, considering I wasn't doing it at an incline from an exercise ball or some sort. But consistency will serve me the best in the long haul; I only added one fingertip pushup today.
Bike(Cardio): 45 minutes. I did much better this time. I started at level 5, and kept kicking things up every 5 minutes. Eventually, I was at level 12 and still staying in the triple digits on the RPM. There were a few periods where I was struggling to maintain that triple digit though. So...from 40:00 onward, I ticked it down by a difficulty level. While that was shameful on my part, I considered it the closest thing to a cooldown that I'll allow myself on this.
Up until difficulty level 11 at 30:00, I was maintaining a strong RPM in the 120's. The Owner had told me that 110 was a "Good, strong pace", but I leave room for the possibility that gentle encouragement was the emphasis there at the cost of realism. So I set a higher standard, and I was almost desperately trying to maintain something higher. I mean, I didn't really kick myself into any 140+ RPM frenzies, so I can't say there was any true urgency to my efforts. From 11 onward, my RPM kept dropping. First to the 116-118 range with level 11, then down as far as 105 with level 12.
Still. I met my goal and burned 398 calories for a grand total of 809. I'm almost burning half of my recommended daily intake. x)
And for all appearances, it appears to be working. I show consistent improvements to muscle definition, but my weight continues to drop. The implications please me.
Also, I finally got confirmation that the Leg Press equates to a Squat that doesn't challenge your core or back muscles. I still feel like I'm copping out by quitting squats...but until my spine can handle the Squat, I just need to give that a rest. I also screwed up the dumbbell Low Rows; my first sharp fits of pain above my tailbone in a couple weeks came after that day where I did those. I'm waiting for a week or two to give my back time to go back to sleep, and then we'll try with some tweaks on the form.
During one of my slower periods on the cardio, I took this remix from Nightcore for a spin. I've seen a couple of things from them, but I still don't think I understand the title's function. As in; I don't grasp if they're a band, who they are, how many are part of the team's contributions, etc. I understand that they do a lot of covers for songs that other artists have done. In this case, Kid Ink's "Ride Out" for the Fast and Furious series.
That being said, We're at a solid 2:0 for Like:Dislike ratio for what I've heard from them. I can't find any shares of the content that aren't riddled with cheesy anime crap, but I'm not looking at that while I'm in the room anyway. This one was nice, smooth, and lax enough to allow me to re-center after I zoned in on it so that I could speed up the 'recovery' process, even while exerting myself. Which manifested to onlookers as..."Oh. Look. Dat crazy penguin's kicking the Elliptical's ass again." with my 97-110 RPM spaz-fits that lasted for 1-2 minutes each before dying back down to 90, and then 85-88.
Anyway. /endrant
Enjoy. >:D
