All Circuits Connected

Well I did it. Six days in a row I did a planned weights workout, starting at only 3# and working up with the dumbbells I have to 10#. Some days didn't seem hard, and some seemed overwhelming. I split each body-part up into two pieces: shoulders the 1st and 4th day, torso the 2nd and 5th day, arms the 3rd and 6th days. Lower body was supposed to go with arms but since they are all knee-bending exercises I can't do, for now I am just working on a sort of 1/3-kneebend "hold" isometric-style exercise as often as I can remember to do it. I learned what I needed to: what kind of weight is right for me, what I can do and can't, etc.

Next week I'm revising the approach. I'm doing all of one body part on a given day and then not working that body part again for a week. So I'll be working out 3 days instead of 6. The tiptoe/abdomen/kneebend "holds" and the exercise bike should be daily I hope.

I made up an exercise today. It was just messing around but it was so hard -- instantly made me notice the effort, similar to compound exercise 'impact', that I decided to add it. I've no clue what to call it. I call it the butterfly because my arms bent with elbows out feel like wings sorta. You take a single barbell, place it vertically right in front of your heart, with both arms holding it palms facing outward, one hand above the other, arm-elbows level. Actually you hold it just like you do a Flag if you're marching in a parade or something. I tried it lying down, in my bench's recline, and sitting vertically on the edge of a flat bench. You push the bell out forward, or, you raise it straight up -- two diff exercises. Depending on the body position it seems to hit diff muscles. It really got me with 10# so I'll be doing that from now on. Eventually I'll figure out exactly what muscle that hits. I actually suspect it might hit more than one. Either that or I was just tired out from all the previous stuff.

Somewhere there is probably an encyclopedia of weight lifting forms that has that. I'd like to know the real names of both forms (pushing out and up), I just don't know how to find them.

Today I finally used the 'Bean' in the way the ad sold me on it: lie on your back on it, legs bent at knee and feet on floor off the end (mine a bit spaced out), and then just 'rock' slowly forward toward your feet (like sitting up) and back (pushing up with your toes). If you hold your stomach in tightly during this, you can feel the muscles as you go through the rocking motion, that start from the groin-area obliques (part of the stomach muscles) and grow all the way up to the abdomen and a tiny bit of back. It can be done to fit whatever the person can do... it does work those muscles, but only as hard as you can hold it, push it, push the duration, etc. That was the example that caused me to dish out three $25 payments for that blow-up sucker! (Course my version holds up to 800# and has handles and is extra-wide -- the regular size is not that much.)

Then today, I was frustrated. I was not dripping sweat, I was not in pain, and I really felt like I must not have done anything at all, and I'd have done something else but it would have screwed up my recovery times no matter what other exercise I chose, so I decided to kick back. It was hard though. I really want to 'feel the burn' and the sweat and so on, haha!

My cage (a Weider pro 400, which is not that good of one, but I'm a girl-beginner so I'm unlikely to out-use it) sits unassembled in the corner. My housekeeper told me she couldn't do it because she didn't have a manual, but then said because she couldn't find the hardware. I found the hardware. Tomorrow I hope I can figure out how to put the thing together. It took both of us last time, years ago. I bought it for the sole purpose of having something to hang onto on both sides while doing kneebends, which I won't do quite yet, but it has a chin-up bar on the front, and I'd like to partly-hang from that, plus it's messing up how cool my room looks with that mess in the corner! I'd like to get a barbell so I can do a few recline moves with it and I'd like to have the safety of the cage in that case. Not like I'm doing massive weight but still. I think it would FEEL cool. Priorities! ;-)

Hot damn. I think I like this working out stuff. I still consider cardio a curse, but I LOVE THE WEIGHTS!


Music for the day: STYX Greatest Hits. Renegade and blue-collar man rock!