Post-Christmas training, taking no prisoners

Every time I sneeze, it sounds like this:

Achoo "Ow."

In other words, the ab workout I did at the end of last night's session was a success.

Training last night with J was another arms night, which was nice. My left leg has been sore - more on that later - and I wasn't looking forward to dealing with a legs night after two days off from the gym and a morning of being hung over.

We hit the arms hard, increasing weight on my bicep curls and visiting some new machines for chest and shoulder presses. The weight was heavy enough that J stepped in to help on some of my lifts, when I was getting dangerously close to smacking myself in the head with my 20-lb dumbbells.

He's such a nice boy.

"So," he asked after the first 40 minutes or so, "have we done more with incline push ups or triceps dips?"

"We haven't done triceps dips yet."

"Really?" And he got this smile.

"... Can I take that back? Just forget I said it."

I don't trust that smile.

So. We did triceps dips. What are triceps dips? They're jerks, is what they are. Horrible, horrible things created by people who hate people.

They're also amazing exercises that can be done anywhere you find a sturdy chair and a few minutes of peace. They look like this:



At least, they look like that when done by a skinny, fit woman with tremendous muscle control. When done by me, they quiver a lot more. And my chins jiggle. But that's part of the fitness curve. Every rep that looks ugly today will look good later. There's no easy way.

After the shoulders, chest, back, and arms had been abused sufficiently, we wrapped up with abs. We did short timed circuits, consisting of 30-seconds of sit ups with legs extended flat, 30-seconds of leg raises, 30-seconds of heel touches, and one minute of rest. Then do it again. And again.

I think I shall call this particular circuit "I hate my abs."

All things considered, it was a great night. It felt fantastic to be back in the gym and the session beat back some of the negativity that always starts to boil when I'm away for too long. Attitude: adjusted.

In other news, I'm laid up from running (again), this time due to the iliopsoas of my left leg. The front of my hip started aching last week while I was running, with accompanying tightness in the left side of my lower back. I didn't realize at the time that those two things correspond, but surprise!

Hoping to make a trip to the chiropractor soon to have my lower back addressed, and I'm hoping that the leg will follow. Meanwhile, I'm reading up on additional running stretches, using other cardio machines that don't stretch my hip as far as running does. We'll see how a few days off from running feel.