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Week 30 (July 25 – July 31) – Gym Blast, Skiing, 1 Year

Monday rowing, back to my usual 2K warm up, 10K row (45:56), 2.2K cool down, watched the last part of the Children of Dune mini series.

Tuesday, calisthenics pull day, mostly a rings based workout repeating the workout from 28 June.

  • Inverse Knee Rings Row – 3 x 10
  • Rings Row – 3 x 5
  • Rings Scapular Pull – 3 x 0:30
  • Band Assisted Rings Pull Up (Purple) – 3 x 6
  • Band Assisted Rings Chin Up (Purple) – 3 x 6
  • Angled Rings Row – 3 x 10
  • Static Rings Hold – 5 x 0:10
  • Various Isometric Rings Holds – 0:10 each

Tuesday Evening archery, practiced shooting at 50m and helped setup pressure buttons for a couple of the newer archers.

Wednesday rowing, another 2K warm up, 10K row (44:33.1), 2.2K cool down, watched Battlestar Galactica S01E07, this one was pushed a bit harder and I definitely felt a bit drained afterwards.

My daughter is home from University for the summer and wanted to join a gym, so I have signed her up for the same gym as myself and managed to get the same discounts that I did (1/2 price first month and no joining fee), this has renew

Wednesday evening, I have decided to try some of the classes at the gym, so I booked in for the 30 minute ‘Lower Body Blast’ followed by the 15 minutes ‘Abs Blast’, my son came along as well and did the classes with me.

We started off with a warm up on the treadmills, I did 10 minutes (1Km) at maximum incline and 6Km/h and 5 minutes (300m) at zero incline and 3Km/h before we headed off to the first class.

The 30 minute ‘Lower Body Blast’ was good fun and quite intense, I could see my son and many of the other participants really struggling with some of the exercises, my biggest issue was trying not to fall over on some of the ones that required a bit more balance.

The 15 minute ‘Abs Blast’ was more of a quads blast as I barely felt it in my abs, but really felt it in my quads, I struggled with the scissor leg movements, my legs were screaming by this point and I also struggled with the length of time for the continuous plank, but otherwise it was a great workout and both workouts certainly generated some sweat.

I followed this up with a 2K (7:46.2) row and then a 1.1K cool down on the rower, while my son watched, before we headed back home.

Thursday, calisthenics push day, repeated my push day from about 2 weeks ago.

  • Knee Push Ups – 3 x 10 (low parallettes)
  • Lying Knee Tuck – 3 x 40
  • Rings Support Hold – 3 x 0:10
  • Leg Raises 9cm – 90 degrees 3 x 30
  • Bar Support Hold – 3 x 0:60
  • Rings Bent Knee L Sit – 3 x 10
  • Rings assisted dips – 3 x 10 (feet on floor)
  • Numerous Rings Isometric holds
  • Rings Push Ups – 3 x 10 (45 degree)

Quads are definitely feeling it after yesterday’s gym workouts and then more leg work this morning, hopefully there won’t be too much quad related stuff in the ‘Bootcamp’ later.

I decided to start tracking my calories eaten, so I am now using MyFitnessPal to track all my food and nutrients, it seems to track calories burned slightly differently to the Apple Fitness app, but it still claims that I am in a caloric deficit, so all is good.

Thursday evening my legs were hurting way too much by the afternoon, so I cancelled the bootcamp session.

Friday, my quads were still aching from Wednesday and the extra load from Thursday morning, however I still have a bunch of muscles that don’t ache yet, so Nordic skiing it is. 1K warm up, 5K time trial 23:30.9 – knocked over 90 seconds off my time from the start of the month, 1.1K cool down.

Saturday, I took the dog for a 1 hour walk and then chilled for the rest of the morning. After lunch I walked to the gym for a slightly different gym class of 40 minutes broken up as ’20-20 Cardio and Stretch’, I arrived early and did the same treadmill warmup I did on Wednesday, then tested my legs on the leg press (132kg/290lbs) before heading over for the class.

Unfortunately the instructor never turned up so after having a look around for any staff member and failing to find any I decided to do some calisthenics instead as I wanted a safe environment, in case I fell,  to practice some hand stands.

  • Wall Handstand – 5 x 0:30
  • Plank – 3 x 1:00
  • Reverse Plank – 1 x 2:00
  • Reverse Plank Dips – 3 x 10
  • Scapular Pull – 3 x 0:30
  • Weight Assisted Pull Up (27kg/60lb) – 3 x 10
  • Weight Assisted Chin Up (27kg/60lb) – 3 x 10
  • Weight Assisted Dips (27kg/60lb) – 3 x 10
  • Dead Hang – 3 x 30
  • Bar Support Hold – 3 x 0:40
  • Bar Support Knee L Sit – 3 x 0:30
  • Stretching

Afterwards I did a bunch of rowing, because you know I just love rowing so much: 2K (7:44.8), 500m (1:44.5), 2,232m (10:02.4) this was supposed to be a cool down, some more stretching and then as there were people on the other rowing machines, I decided to do a little more at 2:18 pace and throw in some power 10’s at 1:45 for a total of 2,238m in 9:52.2. I then decided I had had enough as I originally set off at 13:00 for a 14:00 class and it was now 16:30, so I walked home again.

Sunday I decided to have a rest from exercise so just took the dog for a 1 hour walk in the morning.

This idea then fell apart while I was at the supermarket and my daughter asked if  I wanted to go to the gym at 14:00.

We walked to the gym and then we both started with some stretching, I decided my hamstrings were a bit too tight and so went to loosen them up on the treadmill with some intervals, 3 intervals of 2:00 @ 6Km/h alternating between zero incline and max (15%) incline, followed by 2 intervals of 2:00 at zero incline and alternating between 6Km/h and 12Km/h then finally a cool down of 2:00 @ 6Km/h, 1:00 @ 4KM/h and 1:00 at 3Km/h.

I then rejoined my daughter for stretching and I did a number of yoga poses, some calisthenics isometric holds and some general stretching.

She then went over to the treadmill, so I went to do some rowing, 2236m @ 21spm (2:37.6/500m) steady state cardio keeping my heart rate below 120bpm. She then came to join me so I suggested she try 500m, I would give her a head start and then try to catch her.

She was rowing at between 4:20 and 4:50 pace, so I decided to give her a 3:00 head start before setting off in pursuit. I finished in 1:40.0, not one of my best times, and I was feeling quite tired, unfortunately for me, she had speeded up a little and beat me to the finish by about 5 seconds with a time of 4:35.2, fair play to her.

I finished off my session with a 1122m cool down to work out the lactic acid I had built up from the 500m sprint after which we walked home again.

This also marks the end of one year of ownership of my RowErg, which arrived on 1 August 2021 and the start of my weight loss journey, during this past year I have rowed a total of 3,230,667m and lost 36lb/16kg.

During the month of July I managed a total of 87 hours of exercise, walked 181km, climbed 310 flights of stairs, cycled 11km, ran 10km, rowed 153km and skied 31km.

By the end of the month my weight was 14 Stone 6lb (202lb/92kg), 2lb loss.