Monday. Cold bitter Monday. I'm not a fan of Monday, in fact, I don't think I know of anyone who is. But as my coffee lady told me this morning, "You can't have Friday without Monday." So true.
I must have a tear or pull in my right glute muscle as lunges have become quite painful. The pain begins in the glute and when stressed, runs down my thigh. I can still do squats without pain, but lunges are another issue. I got to about the fifth one when I dropped to one knee, I simply couldn't support the weight. So I'll try and not push it, and hopefully it'll settle down in a couple of days. I'm glad it isn't my lower back, at least it doesn't feel like my lower back, so I'm happy about that. I'm not having much of a problem with the bum shoulder, in fact, I think I'm feeling less pain although I'm still having some. Maybe all I needed was to build up the muscle a bit?
I'm back on track diet-wise too. I really felt I needed to cut myself some slack last week and I'm feeling better mentally as result. I upped my dumbell chest presses by 5lbs like I said I would to an even 40lbs. Now when I'm working my chest, I feel like I'm pushing up some real weight. I don't think I've ever pushed up more than 45lbs though in my entire life. It isn't that I couldn't push more, it becomes more a problem of getting the weight up in the air so that I can press it. To explain, you start in a seated position on the bench with the dumbells in your hands. You have to lie back on the bench and get those dumbells above you at the same time so that your arms are outstretched above you. Then you can start doing the presses.
The problem with this is that the heavier the dumbells, the harder it is to get them up in the air in the first place while lying back. At least with a barbell press, the bar is already sitting on the stand above you. Once you lay down, you can reach up, grab it and start doing your presses. With the dumbells, you have to get them up there in the first place and fifty plus pounds in one hand is a lot of weight to lug around. So I've never gotten past 45lbs and even then, it gets tricky. This is where a spotter comes in handy. They can help you get the weight up and steady you as you lay back without you worrying about dropping a dumbell on your head. I'm probably a good month away from getting to this point and to be honest, I'm not worried too much about it since I've been there a hundred times already and worse comes to worst, I'll just start concentrating on doing barbell presses.
I've never been strong at bench pressing, I've seen guys push tons of weight but I'm not one of them. I think I actually bench press less than when I was a teenager. This lack of chest strength is probably linked to my man boobs. For years, when I've decided to lift, I've always spent more time working my chest in an effort to build it up and lose the mams. But despite my efforts, I've never seen a difference either in size or shape. And the man boobs always remained. Of course, I'm hoping to change that this time, but you'll forgive me if I have my doubts. See, I know my body and I know the efforts i've put in before and the results I have or haven't seen. What I wouldn't give to have a nice set of pecs, or at least a flat chest!
Red said that she can see some difference in my mid section, especially around my rib cage. She says that there's some definition happening and I'd like to believe her, but I think it's a little early to be seeing any real changes, especially when my weight has gone up in recent weeks and my mid section is the first place (aside from my face) where excess weight goes. But its nice of her to notice and make the effort. She's my biggest fan. In fact, I think she's my only fan.......
I also increased the intensity of my elliptical workout, albeit only by one setting, but it was a start. It is a bit easy still so I think tomorrow I'm going to set it higher. Maybe go for 9 or 10. There isn't a whole lot of difference between one setting and another, it isn't until you jump a couple that you notice it. But I'm long overdue so it'll be fine. Just wish my ass would stop hurting.......
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