Modified Workouts

I couldn't face the gym today. After waking up and trying to walk to the bathroom, I wrapped my ankles, downed some Advil and decided to shoot for a Thursday return date at the gym. In the meantime I'm going to try and modify my workout so that most of what I do does not involve my ankles. I've been researching strength moves I can do to work various parts of my body with little to no equipment and without standing or using my ankles in any way.

So Far My list includes:
Push ups
Planks
SuperPeople
Sensei Mark Specials
Ab Choppers
Bicycle Crunches
Hamstring Ball Curl

If you've got any ideas on various workout moves I can try please let me know...I'm desperate here!

Of course I'm going to try (and I stress the try) to hit the pool to get some Cardio on Thursday. It's not that I don't have the time, or that I don't love swimming...it's well, er....it's the swimsuit issue. The idea of wearing a swimsuit in front of people I don't know makes me get slightly panicky. But since almost all forms of Cardio exercise that I can think of in some way involve my ankles, I may be forced (once again) to embrace a form of exercise that I've been avoiding.

I'm still bummed about the fact that I'm basically sidelined right now. Just when I was starting to catch the running bug, I manage to break myself.

Calorie counting is now of paramount importance. I'm terrified that if I'm not very careful I'm going to erase all the hard work I've done. Especially since I'm upset, and I'm an emotional eater.

Like tokaiangel said "Think like a surfer - 'stay stiff and ride the black wave'."
-Meg

The girl hit hard like a barracuda baby

Last night I tried an experiment. Since I only have one ace bandage I wrapped up my right ankle and not my left ankle, took some Tylenol PM and went to bed. This morning, surprisingly, my left ankle felt better than my right ankle. I have no clue. In the process of getting myself up and mobile and to the gym I determined that stairs were no longer trying to kill me, and therefore I would be fine on the treadmill. So I laced up my sneakers and hit it.

I ran for half an hour and felt ok. I even pushed myself to run a little faster. My ankles started aching a bit towards the end but I figured I was alright.

I did day two of week six of the Hundred push up challenge, or rather I tried to. My arms gave out at push up 38 out of 42 in the max set. Part of my problem I've realized is that my palms get sweaty while I'm doing my push ups and my hands start to slide outwards slowly, making for progressively difficult push ups. Anyone got any suggestions? But anyways that means I'm redoing week six next week.

I kinda ran out of time for my strength set unfortunately. All I did was a set of 20 sensei mark specials. I'm planning on doing some more sit ups and squats on my lunch break to make up for it.

Then it was time for Treadmill Round Two! Yeah, no. Running produced a decidedly unhealthy shooting pain from both ankles. So I walked. I put the incline up to 5 and kept my heart rate up above 150. It was a fast walk, but it was most definitely a walk. So I sucked at the workout today.

I really need to figure out this ankle problem though. It's slowin me down.

I had this big long introspective post about me being a tomboy that I was writing in my head while I was doing the first half of my workout, but I've forgotten most of what I wanted to say...I'll try to remember and post a bonus post later.

-Meg

Keeping myself moving forward

Yesterday, after I had posted my blog and was getting myself all set up to charge full steam into the challenges in front of me, I found out that the apartment I thought I was moving into at the beginning of September had been rented out to someone else. A few hours of anger and panic later, and we once again have a plan and a way forward. My stress level is hovering right below "I'm going to give myself an stroke" but there is a plan and this will be ok.

To say that I needed my time at the gym today would be an understatement.

I ran for over half an hour today. Well, let me be more specific. I did a 5 minute warm up, ran for 20 minutes, walked for a minute, ran for 10 minutes, walked for a minute, ran for another 5 minutes, then did a 5 minute cool down. The last two sets of running I was to the "can't think can only try to concentrate on keeping myself moving" stage. That blissful point where the exertion of your body takes away everything else in the entire world. The last time I remember feeling that was at boxing, the time before that, in the dojo.

I used to get to that point almost every class at the dojo. And then after class I would collapse into sesea and meditate with the rest of the class, my pounding heart and deep breathing the only sound in my world.

Today was like that. It was wonderful.

I did my set for the Hundred Push Up Challenge, today there are eight levels to get through instead of the usual five, but the levels had fewer push ups. I was doing fine until the last set, which is the max rep set. I BARELY made the minimum 35.

On to the strength stuff. My arms were dead from the push ups, so I concentrated on sit ups. 20 "sensei mark specials", 20 ab choppers, 20 toe touches, 20 side crunches.Then I tried doing some of these:Straight Leg Bridge With Ball, I did 15 and stopped, partially because my butt was starting to hurt, but mostly because I felt REALLY silly.

I did some stretching, then when the S.O. got there, we hopped on the elliptical machines to do the 30 minutes to end my workout. Yeah, well I *tried* to do 30 minutes. Running is so much more tiring than elliptical-ing (is that even a word?) So much more tiring that I no longer had the energy left to do a full 30 minutes on the elliptical after that marathon on the treadmill. Sensing my flagging energy I attempted to compensate by upping the resistance level to ungodly heights, figuring I would make the most of whatever time I did manage to keep myself on the machine for. I managed to stay on for 20 minutes, plus a 5 minute cool down...so only 10 minutes short of my goal. Not too bad, especially considering I was going at a level *10* resistance! (now is the part where you all oooo in admiration).

I am now chowing down on carrots, and realizing that my butt is very not happy about that resistance level...

-Meg