Workout Recap - Week of March 17, 2019
I've been thinking lately about why it is that I keep making these workout recap posts. It's certainly not a matter of popularity, because I can see that my other types of posts get far more visits than these do. It's certainly not a matter of accountability, either, because I'd been keeping records and holding myself accountable to myself for a few years before starting this blog. Perhaps there's some merit to having more regular posts than I would without them, but I'm not a supporter of putting out content mindlessly. If I'm just pumping out worthless crap, it should end up doing me more harm than having fewer posts that are all worth sharing. Perhaps there's some chance that they'll inspire someone to pursue a habit of self-improvement (physical or otherwise), but frankly, anyone who has some inclination towards that wouldn't be likely to find this blog as the tipping point to get them doing it.
And yet, there is something that keeps motivating me to do them. I'm no psychologist, but my best guess is that I enjoy the conversational nature of them. With the exception of my "Process of Painting" posts (which I should get back to doing, because I've got dozens of minis just waiting to be painted), everything else that I share on here involves some degree of giving advice. These let me just share a piece of myself. As someone who's both very much an introvert and not quite on the same wavelength socially as most people, I tend to find small talk annoying and don't often reach out to others unless there's an actual reason for it. Sure, I'll have some chit-chat on the side when I'm spending time with a friend, but that's still usually based around doing something specific, even if it's just going to a restaurant that I wouldn't have tried otherwise. I don't tend to talk to my friends just to say hi, probably because I feel like that's disrespectful of the value of their time. Thus, perhaps my motivation for keeping up this recap series is to have a way of satisfying some ingrained human need to be social without feeling like I'm being selfish about it.
Well, I hadn't meant to say all that when I started writing this introduction, but now that it's out there, I suppose the only sensible conclusion is to say that you, dear reader, should speak up if you find these to be a waste, for maybe that discussion will fill the same purpose for me.
Sunday
Type: Pass/Fail
One-armed Push Ups, feet together - 1 set of 10, each side (pass)
T&A Pull Ups - 1 set of 8, each side (pass)
Pistol Squats, both hands behind me - 1 set of 8, each side (pass)
Bonus: 2 sets of 3 two-way suicide jumps
Honestly, I was mostly on autopilot when I was thinking of what to do for this workout. At this point, I should've tried to do more to push myself, which is a remarkable thing to say when I step back and look at how far I've come with my fitness, yet that's no excuse for resting on my laurels.
Tuesday
Type: As Many Reps As Possible
12 minutes of 50 second intervals with 10 seconds rest of:
Pull Ups (total = 45)
Prisoner Squats (total = 97)
Push Ups (total = 79)
Straight Leg Raises (total = 74)
Bonus: 5 bridges
It's been a couple of months since I did one of these types of workouts. I didn't realize that it'd been quite that long when I'd planned it, but I did know that it'd been a while, and working them in more often would probably be good for my endurance. That said, I'm very happy with the performance that I achieved for this. The push ups total was a little disappointing, perhaps, but the rest more than made up for it in my mind.
Wednesday
Type: Pass/Fail
One-armed Push Ups, feet together - 2 sets of 8, each side (pass)
Stand-to-stand Bridges, one wall touch on the way up - 2 sets of 6 (pass)
Hanging V-raises - 2 sets of 10 (pass)
Bonus: 2 sets of 3 two-way suicide jumps, 5 burpees
It'd been a few weeks since I did multiple sets of these bridges, and I was still sore from the previous day's workout, so I reduced the target number a little bit from where it'd been before to avoid overexerting myself. I'll bump that back up again, going forward.
Friday
Type: As Fast As Possible
8 sets of:
5 Pull Ups
10 Push Ups
15 Prisoner Squats
Time = 8:00
Bonus: 10 chin ups
The old touchstone, with reasonable if not spectacular results. I'd planned on doing ten sets when I started, but I was interrupted by other matters right after the eighth, so I cut it short.
Saturday
Type: As Fast As Possible
7 sets of:
7 Pull Ups
7 Bridges
Time = 6:00
Bonus: 1 pull up, 11 bridges
Here is where I got some spectacular results for a different touchstone. There's really little else to say about it. I just went at it with focus, and I ended up with a performance that speaks for itself.
