Dec 26 to 30

 

photobomb by Perry the Platypus

An odd week - working in the late afternoon every day, but finishing off workouts before has been an odd sensation. 

Still, picked up what is called an Assault bike/fan bike/ ayre dyne/ air bike yesterday. I need to alter it a little - I found the manual online and need to make it so that someone taller than 5 feet can use it. Still, it'll be a cool item to have. I used it yesterday instead of battle ropes and it did the job.

Closed my rings every day - swimming and HIIT workouts are in the afternoon or evening. Yoga/bodyweight workouts as soon as I wake up. 

One of these days I woke up at 10am, instead of the usual 6am. Was the weirdest feeling - and it was as though I lost half the day! Back at waking up early and getting things done. 

I'm enjoying this process of regaining my fitness - there are many roads to Rome, as they say. I just want the road to be shorter ... which I know isn't the way to think about this. I'll be on the grind here for a while.

I move things around and refreshed the garage gym this week, too. More mat space, less stereo. I've still got the iMac showing off movies and DVDs in there. 

With that said, I'm looking forward to 2023. I'm sure hoping things continue to go forward in my life. 

Dec 19 to 25

This was a rather odd week. I was always tired, as this was the end of the toughest part of the year for me. Just getting to Christmas Break without a major fight for my health was a nice break from the usual routine about this time of year. Lots of water and an easy-effort diet. 

Monday to Thursday was nice and boring - circles finished off without any difficulty. Friday was being stuck in the house and napping a lot. I mean a lot. Saturday was more of the same. Water and a little early morning yoga then napping. It was restful.

Sunday was Christmas and I got up stupid early as I am wont to do these days and got my yoga stretching in before getting coffee. My children are getting older and so waking up before dawn isn't a thing for them anymore. We had everything done by 9am though. Which was a respectful hour. We slunk away to our respective spots and then chilled for the day. I did get a rather nice HIIT session done before we went to the turkey dinner, too. 

A very cool Sumola

I did get my sandbag back in the mix here, too. I was watching a few guys from India use piece of wood as exercise equipment and thought that I could use the sandbag for that. It was awkward as I'd never done the movements before, but I see myself keeping this type of training up.  Kinda cool, too.

Need to get my PVC Indian clubs out for this summer. 

Anyway, the side hustle starts up again this week and I'm also looking forward to getting some swims and HIIT sessions. Maybe even a yoga class. Who knows, right?

HIIT workouts were:

5-minute warm-up on elliptical machine

2 minutes kb - 2 handed swings, one handed cleans and presses

90-second swings with sandbag - its' about 16-18 kilos at the moment.

90 seconds of battle ropes

then back to the elliptical for at least two minutes. Then another round of this. Got to 40 minutes today and it was pretty sweaty inside a very cold garage.

Dec 7 to 18

Apologies, Dominus. I've been watching season one of Spartacus on the iMac in my garage gym this week. It's nice seeing this again for the first time in a while. Also helps with getting and keeping the elliptical machine moving.

I think I missed closing my Apple Watch rings one day out of these ten or so days. Not for trying - I keep stretching in the mornings and getting myself set up for the day with at least 25 minutes of activity before I get up and start the day.

Those twenty-five minutes are critical to so many things these days. So much more mobility, and so many more days of pain-free movement. Critical. 

After that, swimming and HIIT/cardio sessions in the afternoon or evenings are the things to close my rings.

I'm stretching both out - swimming to at least 750-800 m in a half hour or so when I go. The HITT or cardio sessions were at twenty or so minutes but I keep getting them to 35 minutes or longer. 

The actual workouts are merely adding on laps or rounds of the previous workouts listed here. I'll do that until the end of the month and then change it up a bit. The stretching I'm always adding to - I got several things to add every week. I'll just keep watching Yoga for men on Youtube and keep learning. In the new year, much into the new year so as to miss the crowds, I'll get a class in at least once a week. I'm still very much so stupid I would embarrass myself if I went now, I think. 

Nov 28 to Dec 6

I dunno what is happening - I can't get pics off of my phone. Had a nice one of the pool from Monday night ready to go and can't seem to get it over to this machine.

Whatever.

This was a week of going for it. I went over and above what it was I needed to do in order to close the rings - I had three HIIT sessions and two swimming sessions. I got them at least five minutes longer each. 

That was going in the right direction. 80 minutes of exercise a day is going to have an effect on you.

I'm still more than a few kilos over what I think I should be to be healthy, but I'm making some progress. 

I also hit an early morning stretching session every day as well. Mobility is up and I'm walking pain free. I did want to get a run in tonight, but schedules got messed up tonight and so I went and did a HIIT session in my garage gym. All good. 

I will mention that I had Full Metal Jacket playing on the iMac in my garage gym as I was training this evening. Getting anything done with R Lee Emery yelling at Private Pyle is guaranteed to be done five minutes more quickly than you thought possible.