Today is a beautiful day--sunny, cool, low humidity. In other words, a perfect day for a bike ride. It really sucks that I can't do anything for 3 weeks. I'm going to start a count down--18 days left. I just looked at the calendar to see when I can resume normal activities and it's September 6th. What really sucks about that is I'm going to Minnesota for Labor Day weekend, so I'm going to have to worry about carrying my luggage on another flight. Well, I figured out how to fly back here a day after surgery, I can figure out how to get to Minnesota and back nearly 3 weeks after surgery.
I know I need to rest and relax to recover from the surgery, but hanging out doing nothing isn't so much fun if you don't have a choice in the matter. I'm also a bit nervous about next week. On Tuesday, I'm presenting the results of a study to two different groups in the Berkshires, so I'll be out there all day. On Thursday, Lou and I will travel to NYC to make a presentation to try to win a huge contract. I guess the best thing to do is to make sure I'm really rested up for those two days. I also have to figure out what to wear--I've been wearing the loosest clothing possible to minimize having fabric rub against my incisions. None of my business clothes fit that description.
The last workout I had before I had surgery was really fun! My instructions were to do as many reps I could of an exercise in one minute, and then to do the same thing with the next exercise. I was rotating between 5 exercises. After I finished all 5, I got a break, and then started over. Repeat three times. I wasn't able to do all 5 exercises, though without a break, so I'm hoping to do this routine at home until I can.
The first exercise involved bouncing a weighted ball as hard as I could.
That doesn't sound overly challenging, but it gets your heart going and by the time the minute is up, your muscles know you've been doing something.
I went from there to jumping on and off the Bosu. That's really challenging for me because I have the vertical leap of a turtle. And jumping sent my heart rate up many more beats per minute. Here I am jumping:
Next, I moved to doing a shoulder press. I started with my knees bent and dumbbells shoulder-height, and then made an explosive movement--or tried to--using my legs to help in lifting the weights so my arms were fully extended:
Then I moved to a clean and jerk, lifting weights from the floor to shoulder level, again, trying to generate as much force as possible from my legs and hips:
Finally, I got on the rowing machine and rowed as fast as I could for a minute:
It was an extremely challenging workout. Here's how I looked when I was done:
It seems very weird to think that I had appendicitis a little over 24 hours after that picture was taken, and that I did that really tough workout (plus a bunch of cobras and a plank) on Monday and now I can't do anything.
But I know that the workouts and bike rides are making a difference in my recovery. The best thing that happened at the hospital is that a nurse asked me if I was a runner. I told her I was a bicyclist, and she said she could tell from looking at me that I was some kind of an athlete. That felt good!
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