Finding a way around set-backs

"It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop." -Confucius

So once again, I find myself with a problem. My wonderful wrist is still nonfunctional, which leaves me with a big questions. How will I work out today?

Injuries happen: they are an unfortunate fact of life. Some people may see injury as a reason for quitting: working out made this happen, so that means I shouldn't exercise at all. This is a super negative way to think. Instead, injury means you have to limit or change what you are doing, not stop.

So today, and probably for the rest of the week I have to do only exercises that don't stress my wrist. Which means no upper body workouts. My legs are going to be jacked.

Day 7

 "Persistence can change failure into extraordinary achievement." -Matt Biondi

I woke up at 3:30 AM last night in the most pain I've felt in months. I still have no idea what I did yesterday, but it really aggravated my bad wrist. Unfortunately, that means I have to change around my exercise plan today, because I won't be able to bear weight.

5 mile run

3X through

30 burpees
50 squats
50 situps
50 lunges
50 russian twists
50 jumping jacks

Day 6

 "Fall 7 times, stand up 8."-Japanese Proverb

Back to work today, and I'm going to up the ante. The 10 min run will help me prep for next week which will be mostly anaerobic.

10 min run

Repeat 3X (15 sec break between exercises):

Pushups (10)
Rocca Press (4)
Dips (10)
Bicep curls (15)
Military Press (10)

Day 5: Unload

"The more you sweat in practice, the less you bleed in battle."-Unknown

Today is my recovery day. I choose this awkward day because I had to go to the DMV. And a trip to the DMV is hard enough. Good news is that I finally got a driver's license: bad news is it looks like a mug shot. I need to work on being more photogenic.

Recovery does not equal sitting on my bum all day. I went on a 4 mile walk, nice low intensity exercise that gets the blood pumping.

Day 3

"It is not the mountain we must conquer, but ourselves." -Edmund Hillary

Getting pretty sore, especially in my legs, right in the butt region. I put in some extra time stretching what hurts in between the workouts to try to help things get moving.

When I was a sophomore in college, I went to Europe for a month, and had my wisdom teeth removed. I had lost about 10 lbs of muscle by the time I showed up for off season. It was the first and last time I have ever broken down and cried during a workout. Probably one of the more embarrassing moments in my life as football players and such are squatting like 500 lbs around me, who is just standing there crying. I couldn't dress or undress myself for about 2 weeks because my arms were so sore I couldn't lift them above my head. Needless to say, after that life experience, soreness is not a big deal anymore.

Mini Boot Camp: Day 2

"Of course it's hard. It's supposed to be hard. If it were easy, everybody would do it. Hard is what makes it great."-A League of Their Own

Feeling decently sore, but good to go for day 2. Day 2 is a long one...here's the plan:

First...THE WEIGHTS:

15 second breaks between reps and sets.

100 jumpropes
30 mountain climbers
30 jumping jacks
Plie squats (3x20)

Mini-Boot Camp: Day 1

"There are no shortcuts to any place worth going."-Beverly Sills

So I'm attempting to defrost from walking to work this morning. I seriously don't understand this northern weather. Last week it was like 80 and sunny and I was ridiculously sweating it up. Now, I'm curled up in sweats and a blanket and still freezing!! But today is the beginning of boot camp, so I have to just take the US Postal Service motto to heart (thank god today is indoors though).

New Exercise: Plie Squat

Even though I can't do much more than walk still, I'm getting myself mentally prepared to get going again.

I've been researching different leg exercises. It's always been widely accepted that squats and lunges are two of the best exercises for sculpting legs, but I'm slowly running out of variations. And the last thing I want to do is get stuck doing the same BW exercises every day-then I'm just gonna plateau real quick.

So enter the Plie Squat. Check out the video to see it done. She goes through different variations that can add a little more benefit to my workout. Here's a quick look:

What I wish I was doing

"Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you have imagined."-Thoreau

Still feeling rough today, so I'm curling up in my bed with Netflix. No judging but I'm watching 90210 and it's the episode where people are getting asked to Homecoming dance. I'm quite disappointed in the creativity. When I was in high school, asking people to dances was a huge production, totally nerdy and cheesy stuff, but it was awesome. Kids these days really need to pick up the slack.

Anyways, it is a leg day, if I had the strength to actually exercise. I think the most activity I will be doing today is walking a block to the store to get soup.

Repeat 3x (15 sec rest between sets)

Working Out Indoors Has It's Benefits

"Pain is simply weakness leaving the body." -Unknown

This is the mantra of like every sports team-and they wonder why we get injured so much! 

So glad my workout is indoors today, considering it looks freezing and wet outside. Meanwhile I'm nice and warm in my apartment.

I'm thinking about joining a yoga class. I need a little more challenge to press my yoga skills, if I want to be learning new poses and such. I'm going to look into it, because I would prefer if I didn't have to go elsewhere to exercise.

15 second breaks between reps and sets.

Arm and Cardio Workout

"At one point in your life you either have the thing you want or the reasons why you don't." -Andy Roddick 

Week 2 of this workout. I thought about shortening the breaks but I think any shorter and my arms wouldn't recover properly. Working out is definitely doing its job though-I'm not that sore from my full day of digging.


Repeat 3X (15 sec break between exercises):

Pushups (10)
Rocca Press (4)
Dips (10)
Bicep curls (15)

Gardening is Great Exercise

"Victory is in having done your best. If you've done your best, you've won."-Bill Bowerman

How do I know this post title is true? Because I just spent my Sunday planting new beds for my parents. My back is especially sore from all the digging. But it looks amazing-I wish I had a picture to post so I can brag some more.

I made this garden bed. It's looking pretty good. Sorry, I'm bragging a little bit:)

Now that I'm finally home, I'm getting around to adding all my gloriously important thoughts that have been wasting away on my hard drive this weekend. I like to pretend my workout life is riveting stuff.

T.G.I.F

"A champion is someone who gets up when he can't." -Jack Dempsey

Good news people-I am now employed and will not become homeless/starve to death!!! That is an amazing thing in this economy when so many are struggling.

If only we all could swim in money [Image]

Today is the amazing day of CrossFit! Get pumped because there's a timer involved. And whenever there's a timer you know its going to be a good one.

Maximum rounds in 20 minutes:
Burpees (5)
Pushups (10)
Situps (15)
Squats (20)

If it takes 2 seconds/exercise, you should be able to do about 11 rounds. And some of those exercises shouldn't take 2 seconds to do. So at minimum that's 55 burpees, 110 pushups, 165 situps, and 220 squats. No big deal.

Then we have the cardio portion. Note, I find when I do heavy ab workout immediately followed by cardio I get very bad ab muscle cramps. So I would give myself a good break on this one.

Cardio (20 sec break between sprints):
1 mile run
20 yard sprint + 60 jumprope
20 yard sprint + 10 burpees
20 yard sprint + 20 mountain climbers
20 yard sprint + 20 side to side line jumps
20 yard sprint + 20 jumping jacks
20 yard sprint
1 mile run

Leg Wrecking Day

“Without self-discipline, success is impossible, period.”-Lou Holtz

I'm going to be upfront here. This day is gonna be hard. The kind of hard where while I'm doing the workout my brain is like this "#@$@3 this exercise, @#$ #!@#$ #%$^#$%^ @#$%@#$%" (insert many many swear words), and afterwards my brain does this "Yeah that's right, I'm a badass. Check out what I just did." I'm a cocky individual: it's a family trait.

Repeat 3x (15 sec rest between sets)

Overhead squats (10)
Hamstring kicks (15)

Tuesday Workout

"If you are going through hell, keep going." -Winston Churchill

Love this quote for 2 reasons. 1) It's common sense about something no one makes sense about 2) Winston Churchill is awesome. Sorry I'm a history nerd.

No fun title for today. It's hard to be creative when literally every day is simple "workout" or "exercise" or something of the sort. But excellent news-somebody got a callback for a job!

It's a yoga day. I decided to work on perfecting one pose in the spirit of improvement: happy baby pose. Quality name. Considering I can't even hold my feet in this pose I figure it's a good place to start.

7 Ways to Increase Your Intensity

The 2 week marker was a big deal for weights when I played in college. We got new exercises, and I would be like "Thank God! I don't have to do step-ups anymore!!!!" (I hate step-ups). Besides being a great confidence booster, changing the workout every two weeks is crucial to avoid The Plateau. The Plateau is an evil place where you are working hard but go nowhere.

This is what happens with plateaus. Frustration, followed by quitting. [Image]

Increasing intensity is the key to avoiding this dreadful place. Usually this means increasing weight and variety of workouts. However, since my "gym" consists of a yoga mat, 5 lbs dumbbells, and the streets of DC, I have to get a bit creative.