In The Groove

Happy New Year!!!! This is the first New Year's Day I've had in many, many years (40+) where I haven't had anything to drink the night before. It sure makes New Year's Day more pleasant. It's also the first New Year's Day I can recall that I'm unhappy that my health club isn't open. I'm really in a groove of working out every other day, and while I have equipment in the basement, I'm really aware of how difficult it is to push myself as hard as I do when I'm with a trainer or in a class--where is my Saturday spinning class?!??!!

Just in time for my official weekly weight in, I lost .7 of a pound. Brandon assured me that weight loss is not a linear function--some weeks I might lose 3 pounds and others I might not lose any. Intellectually that might be true, but psychologically it's hard to work out as hard as I am, and to carefully manage what I'm eating, without having that number on the scale go down at least a little.

I had two great workouts on Thursday. The first was with Brandon. It was the first time I used the new heart monitor Liz gave me for Christmas. It has the typical chest band, but what makes it cool is that is transmits the information to my iPhone. When I bought my iPhone, the phone part was the least important part of the phone. I spend much more time doing email, going online, texting, listening to music and podcasts, etc., than talking on the phone. As more and more apps become available, the phone part has become even less important (not that I'd give it up). Anyway, it was really interesting to see what my heart rate was as I exercised. I had always thought that the warm-up exercises we did were much more about getting my muscles stretched than elevating my heart rate, but my heart rate was consistently in the 130s to a high of 145 during the warm-ups--the same range it was in while I was exercising.

After warming up, I did 60 push-ups, 60 rows, and then moved to my two favorite exercises of the morning--30 combination squats and presses and 30 combination squats and rows.

 
The combination squat and press was with the 14 pound ball you see in the picture. It's awkward and got slippery because of the sweat on my hands, which increased the difficulty. I love exercises like this that use most of my muscles in one exercise.

 The combination squat and row was even more fun. As you can see in the pictures, I was holding onto a bar. I was using the bar to help me into a deep squat and then when I stood up, was pulling 50 pounds of weight into a row. I like the picture on the left because of the hint of a bicep muscle that's showing. Yes, muscles are reappearing!!!


In the afternoon, I went to spinning at the Y with Donna. I can feel how much stronger I am at spinning classes in the way I hold myself on the bike ( using my abs to hold myself up rather than just using my arms and hands) and by my cadence. I tried to keep up with Donna's cadence, which is something I didn't even attempt a couple of weeks ago. Try is the operative word. I'm amazed at how fast she can rotate the pedals, even during cool down periods. I'd have times I could keep up with her and then it would seem like she was twice as fast as me. I forgot to bring my heart monitor--I'm curious to see what my heart rate is at spinning. About half way through the class, I started feeling pain in my left knee. It only happened when I was pedaling in a standing position, so I sat for the rest of the class. The workout is much harder shifting from sitting to standing, especially when we're going back and forth every 8 seconds, but I really don't want ot injure myself.

All in all, a fun day, and I'm looking forward to more spinning tomorow!