Archives for December 2008

Ouch My Knee

December 22, 2008 - Updated December 22, 2008

It might be a couple days before I am able to do any kind of workout routine. There was a snow storm in Michigan over the weekend which dropped about 9 inches of snow. I went snowboarding for the first time this year at Mt. Holly. My skill level is starting to improve and my confidence is growing. I was on the slopes for about 5 hours and had a great time.

The next morning I could feel a little stiffness in my legs and back but nothing too bad. What got me was when I went to my buddies ugly Christmas sweater party on Saturday night with my girlfriend. We were leaving the party and got stuck in a driveway. My job was to push my Ford Fusion out. As soon as I got down to start pushing on the bumper I slipped and smacked my knee on the cement. I did not feel it at the time because my friend and I had indulged in a couple adult beverages. We ended up getting the car out and my girlfriend drove us home.

The next morning I got out of bed and almost took a dive. The knee had swollen up. It hurt like hell and still has some puffiness today. So it looks like I am going to be taking it easy today and not working out at all. No need to injure it and being set back a week when taking a day off would be the smart play.

5 Miles On The Bike, 3 Miles Running, .5 Mile Swimming

December 16, 2008 - Updated December 16, 2008

I was starting to feel a whole lot better today after a nice relaxing weekend. I had not done any kind of working out since I had a huge pain in my neck last week. It still kind of hurts but at least it moves with a more normal range of motion. All that I did over the past week was run. No P90X for me. I did not want to re-injure any pinched nerves in my neck and have to skip out on another week of doing anything. Funny thing happened on Saturday. I broke the treadmill. Now its either run outside in the cold Michigan winter or get on a treadmill at the gym. Off to the gym.

So today it was time to get back on the horse. I headed off to my gym and decided to switch things up a little bit. Doing the triathlon has been in the back of my mind and I am slowly introducing a workout routine for it. I made it up in my mind to do 5 miles on a stationary bike, 3 miles on the treadmill, and .5 mile in the pool. After the bike and treadmill I would do as many pull ups and chin ups as I could do.

It had been some time since I went upstairs at Life Time Fitness. I usually go right to the pool and leave. They do have some nice equipment and it was mid-day so there was not that much traffic. They have these cool new bikes there that have screens in the middle with 10 TV channels on it. You can keep track of how fast and how far you are going while watching Sports Center or CNN. Cool!! My five miles was over before I knew it. Only took 16 minutes to do. On to the chin up bar. It was different than doing them at home. My P90X Pull Up Bar is great but my doorway is not that high so I have to drop down to get going. The gym has a bar that is 8 feet off the ground so I had to jump up to get it. I did 12 chin ups, 6 wide grip pull ups, 7 normal pull ups and then 5 more chin ups for an even 30. On to the treadmill.

The treadmills there are way better than the one I have at home. It felt like I was on that thing forever. I was going at 6.2 mph at a 3% incline. It did not feel the same as mine at home. Right around mile 2 my legs woke up and realized they were in for a workout. I cranked it up to 7 mph for the last mile and was feeling a little gassed but still great. On to the chin up bar. This time I could only do 10 chin ups, 5 wide grip pull ups, and 5 normal pull ups for a total of 20. On to the pool.

My tiredness started to kick in after I finished my first lap. I felt very light in the pool and was warmed up but not enough energy to do my normal swim of 30 laps which is almost a mile. I did get 15 laps done for almost a .5 mile.

Feeling pretty good about myself today. I was able to do 5 miles on the bike, 3 miles on the treadmill, almost .5 mile in the pool swimming while doing a combination of 50 chin ups and pull ups. I know its different being on a treadmill or stationary bike from being outdoors in the elements but I feel like its a minor accomplishment. I don’t feel sore yet and maybe I am in good enough shape to stretch out how far I go with each activity. The swimming was tricky but I just need to get everything else working fine and then work on my hardest part being swimming.

What A Pain In The Neck

December 10, 2008 - Updated July 12, 2017

Yesterday morning I woke up with the stiffest neck of all time. From the second I pulled my head off of my pillow I knew I was in for some trouble. There was no turning my neck to the left at all. Taking a quick glance at the mirror I even laughed at the way I looked. Over the past couple of days I have been spending quite a bit of time looking at a computer screen and this is probably to blame for it. Too much sitting in one place and not moving around set me up for this discomfort. For the rest of the day I couldn’t really do anything.

Today when I woke up it was not as bad but it still hurt. There was no way I could not do some sort of workout today. Debating about what to do I knew it had to be something which did not use a pull up bar or dumbbells. Using either or those could result in me hurting my neck even more than it already was. It was going to be Yoga today.

It had been a month since I had last done Yoga. I do not know why I took such a long break from doing it but I was do. Hopefully by doing Yoga it would stretch out all of the muscles that were cramping up my neck. While doing Yoga all of the bones and joints in my body started popping. This is not uncommon for me but this time it was much louder. At some points it was almost painful. My balance was way off and so was my Yoga strength.

At the end of the workout I did feel much better and most of the pain in my neck had gone away. I felt that much better after doing Yoga I decided to get on the treadmill and run 3 miles. It was a good workout for me and my body needed it. Too much sitting at a desk put a serious kink in my neck. Its slowly going away and hopefully tomorrow I’ll be able to do a P90X DVD tomorrow. Maybe I need to get one of those specialized sleeping pillows or those funny look things for your neck that looks like a horseshoe.

Maybe I Can Do A Mini Triathlon

December 8, 2008 - Updated December 8, 2008

For some reason today I decided to take my normal workout to the next level. After having a nice weekend it was time for me to head to the pool and work off anything that I put into the system. I do allow myself to have a couple adult beverages and the occasional large meal at a restaurant on the weekends. During the week I eat pretty healthy. This past weekend was pretty calm. My girlfriend and I didn’t do all that much except for hang out with some family friends and went to downtown Detroit for “Noel Night.”

When I got into the pool today I felt really quick. I ate a small breakfast and had no lunch before I went. There was a guy in the lane next to me who is a very good swimmer. I kept on pace with him for the most of the time. Something was different though. Usually I start tiring out around the 15 length but not today. I made it all the way to 30 lengths (15 laps) without tiring. This is a new first for me.

Feeling rejuvenated I finished off the rest of my swim with another 15 laps. My overall swim time dropped by almost 5 minutes which is quite impressive for me. I kept thinking while I was looking at that stupid black line on the bottom of the pool why I was so much quicker and feeling good. Could it be because I took it easy this past weekend and rested or could it be that I ate ok and didn’t have any bad food sitting in my stomach. What about me not eating anything except breakfast?

After finishing my swim I drove home and took one look at my treadmill and said what the hell. I threw my bathing suit in the bathroom, put on my running shoes and turned the treadmill on. The speed was at 6.2 mph with a 3% incline. Surprisingly I still felt strong. My iPod had some new jams on it and I just kept on rolling. At mile 2 I caught a second wind and decided to crank up the mph to 7. This is moving along pretty good for me. When I hit mile 3 I knew I was starting to feel gassed and stopped.

When I added up what I did: a 3/4 mile swim and a 3 mile run it got me thinking that I could possibly do a mini triathlon. TriathaNewbie.com says a mini triathlon is usually a swim under a mile, a bike ride from 9-20 miles, and a 3-6.2 mile run. Well today I did almost 2 out of the three and I was not even going at full speed.

I have always thought about doing a triathlon but have not committed to it. Maybe I can start out small to get myself in the right direction. This might be the thing I need to keep my focused through the winter. The activities I do in the summer, softball and golf have already ended. I am not involved on any winter teams so I have more than enough time to train and focus. A couple of years ago I did the Detroit Marathon so I know I can focus on training.

You know what. Let’s do it. I am going to do some research on training for a triathlon and see what I come up with. Its not going to hurt me to change up my current workout routines. P90X is all about changing it up so this is what I need to do.

The Christmas Tree Workout

December 1, 2008 - Updated December 1, 2008

I forgot to include another form of exercise I did over the Thanksgiving weekend. If you read the post you would have seen that all I did over those 4 days which included exercise was go for a 5 mile run. All I really did was eat. Then I stopped to think about how much of an exercise it was to cut down the families Christmas tree yesterday. We go out and try to get a good size tree because the room it goes up in is a decent size room with 10 foot ceilings.

It was my turn this year to help with cutting it down. Me, mom, dad, and my girlfriend took a ride out into Oakland County to Addison Oaks Tree Farm. It was our first time going there. The place we had been going to for the last 20 years was sold this past year so this was our first experience here. The people who own this place have a great business plan. They own a bunch of land and put a tree farm on it along with their home. Looks like its a family run business.

Anyways, mom found the tree she wanted so it was up to me to cut it down. Here is what she picked.

That’s me on the ground and my dad “supervising” as he likes to say. He does a lot of standing around when there is grunt work to be done. I grabbed the bow saw and got to work. After 10 minutes of cutting I looked like this.

My shoulders and arms were on fire. It took about 20 minutes to get that tree to go. The tree farm we use to go to would let you drive your truck all the way back to where the tree was where you could then load it up. Not here. We did not take this into consideration when choosing a tree. Dad and I took a look where we needed to go to.

You can see the house in the top right corner of the picture. It took dad and I about 10 minutes to drag that tree. It was quite the workout especially after a couple days of fatting out and not being all that active. My legs and back are a little sore today but not too much. I know that cutting down a Christmas tree isn’t really considered a workout but it sure felt like one when we got home. Plus, I needed to tell myself I did something besides just sitting on my butt watching football and eating.

Thanksgiving Dinner Always Makes Me Fat Out

December 1, 2008 - Updated June 23, 2017

Thanksgiving festivities have finally drawn to an end. Every year the routine is pretty much the same. I get huge. I’m not going to lie, but I like to eat. Very seldom do I ever turn away food and its even harder to do when all of the food that is cooked turns up on a plate. Thanksgiving day alone is a day full of eating. My family and I go to the Detroit Lions football game. I have been trying very hard to convince my dad to not buy season tickets anymore but he refuses because our seats are “too good to let go” (2nd row from the field). The morning starts off with a small tailgate with friends and family at 10am eating and having a few drinks. I wish we could just stay there and not watch the game because we all knew they were going to lose… and they did.

After the game its over to my aunt’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. She cooks up quite a feast. Turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, corn, ham, deviled eggs, rolls, and a bunch of other amazing recipes. This might have been the first year in quite some time where I only had one plate. I was probably still full from the morning tailgate and needed some space left over for banana cream pie. There was a point later in the night where I almost passed out from being too full. Thanksgiving ended with a day filled with a lot of fun with family and friends.

So what do you do with all of the leftovers? You eat those too. We had enough leftovers for the next two days to feed the family Thanksgiving dinner again. Not willing to turn down another offering of one of my favorite dinners I dove in on that dinner on Friday. I could feel the pounds being put on. We didn’t do anything friday night from being to worn out from visiting and fatting out too much.

When I woke up on saturday I felt like I just ate a whole turkey. Since I had not done any kind of P90X workout routine at all in a couple days the calories I knew all of the calories were not getting burned off. Later that night me and my girlfriend were scheduled to go out to dinner with 4 other couples we hang out with. I kept telling myself that I needed to do some sort of workout because if I did nothing I was going to eat a ton more and feel huge on Sunday. My motivation kept telling me to do something but my body was not reacting. What finally clicked was when I was watching TV and flipping through the channels I watched a commercial for Big Medicine on the Discovery Channel. It was a blip about a guy who ways over 500 pounds and can’t stop eating. Five minutes later I was out the door running. I ran 5 miles and felt a whole lot better when I got back to the house. The fresh air helped out a lot. I had been in a house for pretty much 3 days straight. We went out to dinner and had some food and a couple drinks. All in all a good night with some great friends.

Sunday came along and I was still full. I didn’teat that much that day because most of the Thanksgiving dinner left overs had been eaten and there was nothing left in the house. To finish off the weekend of fatting out it was determined to be a good idea to order a pizza. I only ate 4 slices this time and not my normal 6. Nothing I ate over the past 4 days was on the P90X Nutrition Plan for sure.

So what to do now? I only worked out once in 4 days and I feel like a blimp. I always do this to myself and sometimes I need to endulge a little bit. Its not like I was eating junk food the whole weekend just more of good food. It looks like its going to be a couple weeks of doing P90X Doubles. This is where I will be doing some form of cardio workout in the morning and a P90X DVD at night.