Muscle Failure

I have nice, sore muscles today, because of the great workout I had with Mark yesterday. I did 3 sets of chest presses laying on a Swiss ball. I started with 25 pound dumbbells, and was complaining to Mark about the fact that Liz has only been working out at Fitness Together for about 5 months and she is benching with 35 pound weights. That complaining meant that Mark moved me up to 30 pound weights for the second set. I felt like my left pec was going to tear on the last couple of reps. Mark was "helping" me--he provides the minimal amount of help to prevent complete collapse. The third set I went back down to 25 pounds for 12 reps, and then 12 more reps immediately with 12 pounds. That clearly worked those muscles to failure.

I also did 3 sets of 1 armed rows with one hand on the weight bench, one leg forward, lifting a dumbbell with the other arm. I don't remember the weights, but they were heavy. I then did dead lifts with dumbbells, standing straight with a dumbbell in each hand, bending forward to bring the dumbbells below my knees, and standing up again.

I also did some lunges, and some balance work involving standing on a Bosu with my feet close together, and throwing a weighted basketball-sized ball to Mark who as standing to the side, keeping my eyes on the ball the whole time.

I'm forgetting what else I did, but am pretty much sore all over. The thing I love about working with Mark is that he does work my muscles to failure. I'm realizing that I'm not working as hard with Savanah, so I need to talk to her about that.

I biked to work today and Liz biked down to meet me after work. We took the long way home through Williamsburg. We realized that the bike path used to feel like an uphill ride on the way home, but it now feels flat. And the 10 mile ride home felt like a nice, short jaunt.

Tomorrow will be an eating challenge. I am eating out for all 3 meals tomorrow. It's a good thing I'm good for a long ride on Thursday.


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