Monday, April 27, 2015

Not even one?

The humidity was already more than 90% by the time I got up to go to the gym at 4am this morning (did I already mention that I'm not looking forward to training in the Summer?? The humidity is going to be dreadful!) Since I haven't done any significant strength training in a while I decided to focus on that this morning. As always I did a leg workout. I plan to incorporate upper body strength training into my routine, but probably not with the weight machines. Instead I'm going to try and do push-ups.

Sadly, I can't do a proper push-up. Not even one! It's very distressing because the fitness gurus that I see on social media make it look so easy. But when I try and do it there is some type of invisible anti-gravitational force preventing me from "lowering my body in a controlled manner"...
I do more of a "stay up on wobbly arms until I collapse face first on the floor" movement


So in order to fix my "push-up immune" state I decided to look for a 30 Day Push Up Challenge for the month of May. I searched online and this was one of the first ones I saw...
Seriously?!!!
I'm going to look for something a little more realistic. Like a plan that starts with 1 push-up ;)

After my strength training this morning I found great comfort in the discomfort of muscle soreness. There is something oddly soothing about that sensation. It could be that it's associated with the satisfaction of knowing you had a good workout. The reassurance that you successfully tested your limits but didn't do anything beyond your capabilities. "Beyond" usually leads to an injury for me so this morning I stayed within my physical limitations, while still pushing those limitations as far as I safely could. The result?... a day filled with muscle soreness, aka "a comforting discomfort".
This week is the countdown to the start of my Full Marathon Training!!! My training starts on May 1st and then I will be 23 weeks away from the Chicago Marathon...23 weeks!!! Had I realized before now that May 1st was 23 weeks away from the Chicago Marathon I would have started my training 2 weeks ago; because a 25 week countdown makes more sense than a 23 week countdown to my OCD brain. But then... that creates another dilemma because that would mean my marathon training would have started in the middle of a month (on April 19th) and not at the beginning of a month. This is what you call an "OCD rock vs. hard place" situation. In the future I propose that the Chicago Marathon be moved to the 4th Sunday of October instead of the 2nd Sunday of October so that I don't have to deal with this type of nightmare again!

Halfway through typing my blog post for today my computer froze and my internet decided to run slower than I do. So I decided to do some yoga and stretching while I waited for technology to "get its act together". I also tried to do a push-up (pictured above) and took care of my blisters. But in the midst of all of that half of what I typed disappeared because apparently the "auto save" default setting decided to go on strike as well.

So I'm taking this as my cue to go to bed since I run tomorrow morning ;)

Hope you had a great Monday!

Do you like doing push-ups? What's the most you've ever done at a time?

What's your favorite strength training workout for your legs? arms?

What's your biggest technology pet peeve?

2 comments:

  1. I always enjoyed doing push ups. Even during P90X I looked forward to the push up challenge... you had to do: Standard push ups, wide front push ups, Military push ups, wide fly push ups, decline push ups(my fav.), and diamond push ups. Sadly since my shoulder surgery I have been advised not to do them or do modified versions (to prevent ripping my stitches)

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    1. Ok so I didn't even know there were so many types!!! Now I have to research all the different ones :(
      I really need to first learn how to do a standard pushup I guess. I'm sorry that you can't do all of them anymore. I guess doing the modified one is better than nothing at all though ;)

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