As of this afternoon, it’s been the first full workout week of the new year for me.
Let’s see how I fared:
I was happy to hit my first three gym days on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday.
Where I originally had set the bar at 3 sets for all exercises, I bumped it up to four. The first set is a super light warm-up, followed by the heaviest set and then progressing downward in weight and upward in reps.
This was a light week, so that meant a whole lot of reps. I was feeling it pretty acutely by the end of the third workout on Tuesday.
On Wednesday, I had to take a surprise trip over to campus for a work-related meeting. Surprises are difficult for me to navigate. I work 4x10s so I’m up early and starting work by 6 am. Trying to fit everything in to a single day on this schedule is really a house of cards. To get my work done, I had to start a little early, which meant I had to forego yoga that morning.
I had the pleasure of a sushi lunch with my co-workers and a nice visit to campus. By Wednesday evening, however, after a couple of hours of being cramped up driving, with some soreness presenting itself in my left shoulder, I had absolutely no desire to hit the gym. So I skipped what should have been my Core day.
My lethargy continued into Thursday as the delayed onset muscle soreness really kicked in. Logically, what should have happened, is I should have gotten up at 4:00 am, had breakfast, and immediately started in on my yoga to get everything stretched out.
I didn’t tho. I rolled over and tried to catch an extra hour of sleep, which meant straight up to my office to work when I finally got out of bed, no shower.
Yeah, gross.
I was pretty achy and my left shoulder had grown really stiff. This is the same shoulder that had me down for four months a couple of years ago due to a rotator cuff injury…which made me kind of nervous. So I skipped again, on what should have been my Circuit Training day. I had a hard time sleeping last night. I woke with regular numbness in my hands alongside belligerent arthritis flare ups to accompany it all.
Fortunately tho, today, Friday, is my first day off for the weekend. It’s also the last day of my workout cycle for the week. I slept in a little this morning, had a leisurely breakfast, and then hit the gym to make up for that lost CT day. I spent 20 minutes on the bike as a cool down and then returned home for an hour of yoga to stretch everything out. I integrated part of my missed Core workout in the yoga routine.
My diet hasn’t been terrible. I slacked off on my calorie logging Wednesday and Thursday night, and I went over a bit, but not enough to cause any kind of major guilt. I got back on track today.
So, the week could have been better, but that just means there’s room to grow. Adding the extra sets to all of my workouts actually created the equivalent of an extra workout, so there’s that. I’ll take it, be happy about it, and strive to do better next week…which is going to be a challenge as I have two days that I need to be at campus.
But we’ll cross that bridge when it comes.