The Chairman's Fitness Challenge Blog

I had great cardio sessions on Saturday and Sunday, both spin classes with instructors who seemed to have something to prove.  I managed to keep up, and feel that my leg speed is definitely increasing (one of my objectives) even with a pretty healthy level of resistance.  I had one of those awkward moments yesterday, I'm out of the saddle and "climbing" with heavy resistance, and cranking it up every time the instructor exhorted us to give him more.  Then he had us sit down and hold resistance - without the leverage of standing, my legs ground to a complete halt and I could not for the life of me get the pedals moving again!  Needless to say, I lightened the load as discretely as possible.  It was amazing how hard I was pushing with the adrenalin pumping up to that point though...  I'd put each cardio session at about a 9 out of 10 in terms of hitting my objectives.

My RT's were a little weaker - I did an upper body on Saturday and a lower body on Sunday.  Both days, I was a bit rushed trying to get them in.  I did heavier loading but fewer sets of each exercise, managing to hit all the major body groups but with less than the three sets I usually do.  Felt like reasonably good workouts, but probably only 6 or 7 out of ten on the overall scale of achieving everything possible out of them.  Might try to hit upper body again on Monday.

I stopped stretching before my workouts a long time ago - my warm-up typically consists of a few minutes of light cardio.  Stretching is done kind of mid-work-out - I might stretch my back between sets of a seated row, or stretch out my shoulders after a set of presses.

I'm going through a serious motivational trough.  I pulled a couple of late nights this week working on a report, and between being squeezed for time, feeling tired, and trying to stay ahead of some family obligations, the gym has been a foreign place to me this week.  Waking up in the dark, driving home in the dark, and having to walk through freezing rain hasn't helped.  I can't seem to get fired up about the fitness thing right now.  I haven't even posted this week sine I've got nothing to really report.