Online Fitness Journal - Week of 14 December 2009

[ZenLefty]

I always feel like during the holidays, my time is not my own. Last week was pretty rotten, but this week shouldn't be so bad.

I made biscotti last night. If there is a top ten list of diet busters, it's ZenLefty's homemade biscotti. Tonight I'll be dipping it in chocolate. Dark chocolate on one side and drizzled with white chocolate on the other. I'll be sure to keep this image in mind the next time I'm doing cardio and I feel like quitting because I'm too tired.

As always, feel free to use this thread to post your own workouts and I'll be happy to read them.

[ZenLefty]

1. Wednesday, 16 December 2009

One thing I dislike about the holiday season is that I feel like my time is not my own. It's bad enough that my workplace has become an orgy of potluck desserts - trays of baklava, fudge, several different kinds of brownies, cookies, cakes, cupcakes, biscotti (you're welcome!), peppermint bark, seven layer treats, and anything else you can imagine. My biscotti was not very popular, probably because it's not slathered with hot fudge and coconut cream. But I can't eat these hypersweet gooey sugary frosting-coated foods anymore. They don't even look all that appealing to me. I know they used to; I guess I've changed some.

The copious amounts of nutritionally questionable food is bad enough. But add to that all the holiday parties and all the shopping and wrapping and decorating and cooking, activities I generally enjoy in moderation (but christmas isn't about moderation), and I can see why the gym is a little emptier than usual in the month of december.

Finally made it to the gym on Wednesday after a few days off. I only had an hour to work out. Wish I had three, but I didn't, so I made the most of what time I had. Not much rest between sets, except bench press.

Treadmill
Ran 2 miles at a 5.2 clip, walked the rest, total of 35 minutes including cooldown. Burned 280 calories according to the scientific experts at Precor.
Running has always been a huge challenge for me. Last year at this time I couldn't make it 5-10 minutes without having to rest. Seriously.

Decline Bench Press (machine)
270, 12 reps
320, 8 reps
320, 7 1/2 reps
320, 7 reps
270, 9 reps
270, 8 reps
All the real benches were taken so I had to resort to the machine one. It's a good workout, and nice to mix things up a bit.

21's
80, 1 set of 21

Dips
Body weight, 3 sets of 14

Sit ups, incline with oblique twist at the top
16, 16, 12, 8

No gym tonight either. Boo. But I think I can sneak some time in on the elliptical at home and maybe hit the heavy bag a bit.

[ZenLefty]

2. Thursday, 17 December 2009

My Workout Window of Opportunity was about 40 minutes on Thursday evening.

Elliptical - 30 minutes
progressive elevation / resistance starting at 4/4 and ending at 14/15.
285 calories burned, or thereabouts

Punching bag
:10 minutes of mid range kicks and standard strikes and a few foul names thrown at it for good measure.

Pull ups, supinate grip
body weight - 14 reps

I'm still taking the stairs at work, twice a day. Some days it's hard, some days it's harder. Wasn't so bad today.

[ZenLefty]

3. Cure Friday, 18 December 2009

My workout was accompanied by listening to tracks from the Electro Cured CD on my iphone. Tasty Cure songs covered by questionably talented bands like Apoptygma Berzerk, The Dead Sexy Inc., Shroud and Joy Electric can blast anyone through a workout. The final track is an absolutely smashing remix of A Forest, and makes for my favorite remix of one of my favorite Cure songs. Robert Smith would approve, I'm sure.

Treadmill
Ran a full 30 minutes at 5.2 mph and walked a bit of a cooldown, for a total distance of 2.9 miles and some 379 calories burned. If you would have told me a year ago that I would be running a full 30 minutes, I would have looked at you like you were from Mars. It's a real challenge for me even still, but I like the feeling it gives. For some reason.

Calf Press
180 - 12 reps
215 - 10 reps
215 - 8 reps
215 - 8 reps (cheated on last one)
205 - 12 reps
205 - 9 reps
180 - 11 reps
The Disintegration album carried me through these sets, with the album version of Pictures Of You entertaining me through the heaviest of them.

Straight legged deadlift
145 - 5 sets of 10 reps

Power Shrugs
145 - 5 sets of 10 reps

I superset the deadlift and shrugs. I go light on these for a number of reasons, and focus on proper muscle contraction and form.

21's
70 - 1 set of 21

That's it for tonight. Tired again after another long week.

[ZenLefty]

4. Sunday, 20 December 2009

I benched my tits off today.

Bench Press
Warmup set - 135, 16 reps
225 - 12 reps
275 - 5 reps (to failure)
255 - 7 reps
255 - 6 reps
245 - 8 reps
225 - 10 reps

Wide Grip Bench
185 - 3 sets of 10 reps

Standing barbell press
135 - 10 reps
155 - 6 reps
135 - 10, 8, 8 reps

21's
70 - 1 set of 21

Dips - 3 sets of 12
Leg Raise - 3 sets of 16
Superset these.

Sit ups, oblique twist
10, 8, 6
Man, these were hard today. Or I just suck at sit ups.

Decline Bench - Hoist machine
230 - 10, 10, 7 reps
180 - 10, 10 reps

See you all next week!