Wednesday morning

So I've been feeling I'll an haven't hit the gym much in the past week. I started feeling better on Tuesday, and went to the gym in the morning. Then because my brain wasn't working, I went again in the evening with my wife. It was a pretty good workout, and now I'm pretty sore. Some of the highlights from yesterday were inclined dumbbell press, preacher curls, and triceps skull crushers.

Last night, I was laying in bed, getting my youngest to sleep, when my youngest daughter walked into my room. She had been asleep for awhile, and I asked her what was up. She just looked up at me, and started pulling her pants down. I said, "Whoa! This is my bedroom, not the bathroom! Get in there." So she just walked toward my bed and started pulling her pants down. I had to jump up, and walk her into the bathroom.

Then during the night, my youngest woke up. He's been sick, and his asthma has been acting up. When he woke up, he got the iPad, and then proceeded to watch children's shows. Since he is autistic, he just likes to watch the title sequence and the closing credits. Let me tell you, PeeWee's Playhouse and Looney Tunes are not your friends at 4:30 a.m.

Since I was up, I decided to go to the gym. (I would have got up and gone anyway, but I was sore from hitting the gym twice yesterday.)

We've been doing some new exercises this week. This is cool, because it shakes it up a little bit. Today was no different.

We started off by doing 40 "Rope Butt Touch Squats". This sounds pretty funny. We have four ropes hanging from the walls. You grab on, scoot backwards, and squat until your rear-end touches the ground. You then do your squats with a small jump at the top.

We then did a "dumbbell crawl" for two lengths of our floor. We took a 15 pound weight in each hand. Then got down in a plank position. You then do a bear crawl, almost like a moving mountain climber. The hard part is the floor is Sports Court indoor flooring, that means it is slick. We couldn't slide the dumbbells. This was pretty hard, and draining.

The third exercise was 20 "Push-up side steps". This involves doing a push-up, and when you are at the top you move your right hand over to your left hand, then move your left hand apart. While doing so, you move your feet behind your body. Then do a push-up, then move back to the right. This helps with your chest strength, but adding the movement on the back helps to work the back and shoulder muscles.

We then did 30 dumbbell walking lunges. Pretty standard.

Then my favorite, said in a sarcastic voice, 20 Burpee Bag Jumps. This involves doing a burpee (push-up, jump into a squat, then jump upwards.) Instead of jumping strait up, you jump over a heavy bag to the side of you. Then just repeat. This drains your energy.

We then did 40 "Bosu 4 Points". This involves laying the Bosu down on it's platform. You position your back on the ball portion where your body balances. You then extend your arms and legs, and bring them together in a crunch. This is a great ab exercise. The first time my father-in-law did these, he complained about his stomach for days.

Then we did something I haven't done since high school, "Fly's". In fact we did three sets of ten of "Swiss ball dumbbell fly's". Jason told us that after the dumbbells are above your shoulder, continuing the fly inward doesn't work anything. His solution is to have you rotate your hands, so your pinky's are together, and squeeze inward like you are trying to touch your elbows together. I could feel the extra work from the squeeze.

We then utilized the one machine we have in the gym, something which I have not used in the eight months I've been going there. We have a leg extension machine. Jason is worried that some of the muscles in your quadriceps do not get as much work from the strait squats and things we do. He wanted to make sure that all of the quads developed. The weight was "trainer's choice". When I asked how much he wanted me to do, his answer was, "The amount that lets you do 10-15 reps at one time." I ended up using 70 pounds, which I could get 15 reps at a time from. When I stood up from this, my legs kind of buckled!

We then did 100 mountain climbers with our feet in the TRX straps. I could only get 60 at a time.

We then did a new type of row, 40 reps of "band side lunge and rows". We hooked a heavy band around a punching bag. You stand with both of the handles together. You lunge to the side, and while in the lunge do a row. It kind of looks like starting a snowmobile. You alternate sides.

We then did 30 reps of dead lifts. We have these beams we use that are around 80 pounds. As an interesting aside, the last time we did this one of the ladies in the 6 a.m. class cried.

Now for the new, funky exercise. We did a one-minute "Medicine Ball Balance". This involved having two medicine balls. You put your hands on one, and your feet on the other and do a plank. I was actually able to do this, and so were a couple of the other guys. Most people found this pretty difficult because of the balance aspect. It's hard to balance on two balls like that. We had two minutes to try this, and if we couldn't complete it at that time, we moved on.

Now we moved on to kill our shoulders. We did 30-30-30 dumbbell circles. This involved just using five pound dumbbells. You stand in a T shape, and with your palms facing down, and your arms tight, move your hands in forward circles from the shoulders. We then turned our hands so the thumb were facing up and did 30 more circles, this time backwards. We then bent at the waist and turned our pinky's up, and did 30 more forward circles. It was tough, especially the last set.

Then to finish the core, we did 20 Power Wheel extensions. Grab the handles of the Power Wheel, get on your knees, and push forward from the hips. Once you have extended as far forward as you can, you pull back using your abs. And finally we did 35 leg lifts. If your legs go past vertical you start exercising your hips. So we get our legs vertical, and then give a little hop/crunch. This gives you a great ab workout.

Needless to say, I am tired. I think I'll spend the rest of the day being sore in my cubicle.