Invisible Pecs?

You know how your muscles basically vanish when you stop working out? Well I thought that happened to me after several months of doing eff aye except for eating a whole bunch more than usual and sitting on my now pleasantly jiggly bottom.

However, even though the slight bulge on my chest has decreased, in a cold workout (aka one out of seemingly nowhere so far as your body is concerned) I managed to do much more than I could when my pecs are bigger. Its like, now they're concentrated, or something. Or before they were swollen. Or something.

Do muscles have to swell up first before they grow the useful bits?

o_o

Also, I am hungry now like, almost constantly. I think I might have to get some protein drinks and stuff just to tide me over.

Also having an actual butt is awesome.

Day 16: Extra bits

Ahh I have a new favourite shirt. Its a small I <3 NY tee and it fits me perfectly and shows my workout lumps. Though it has a hole on the chest where the puppy decided he would jump up and give me a hug. I am six foot one, he is like a viper or something. ANYWAY, today I tried out a whole buncha new things and I am now breaking down my routine into the following handy blocks:

Stretches-
Making sure that I stretch all the muscle groups that I am going to be working out properly, stretch for a count of twelve pushes each time, or for 20 seconds. The stretches take about 2 or 3 minutes and can be done in isolation to increase flexibility.

Deep stretching/yoga-
At the moment, I am doing the tree pose, the crescent pose, the lord of the dance pose and the sun salutation. It takes about 5 to 10 minutes and limbers everything up, though I can't do the sun salutation properly yet so I need to do more stretching sessions in my day to make things looser. If I ever manage to put my face between my knees chances are the Mayans were onto something.

Cardio warmup-
During this section I am targeting my torso, legs and sides whilst maintaining movement at a regular speed. There are names for some of the things that I do, but really it just blends into a hyper moment where I prance around and look a bit ponsy.

Core1-
Twist crunches
Pushups
Crunches
Slow Squats
Pushups
Crunches
Slow Squats
Twist crunches

20 of each, short break in between.

Weights-
Butterfly lifts
Curls,
Squats,
Flexes,
Uhm... kinda lungey things? I'm not sure. Its all a bit sparkly, but its fun so yeah. I'll try and find a video for the next post or something.

Unicorns would do it. I'm just saying.

Core 2-
Sideways leg lifts (20 on each side)
Pushups
Crunches
Squats
Pushups
Crunches
Squats
Pass-the-pillow. Again, I will try and find a video, you're meant to do it with a Swiss ball but eh. Basically you have to hold something between your ankles, and pass it to your hands without bending your knees or lifting your butt of the floor OR you shoulders. Its easy at first but by the end of the first set you want to kill someone. Totally worth it though. It gets the deep muscles in your stomach all toasty and warm.

Cardio-
Dance! Woo! Two tracks, both six minutes, the rules of the game are that you cannot stop moving from the start to finish of each track, and you also have to move every muscle group. So you kinda look like a spazz, its not something I would do in a club, but it improves your breathing and your stamina. It is also a really good warm-down.

Stretching2-
Stretch everything you worked out again and massage places which are a bit sore or feeling laggy. Make sure you don't leave any knots or sore spots. Continue this one in the shower too.

Oh and as an extra thing, today whilst playing with the dog I totally decked it. At high speed, flat on my face. Didn't feel it though. Two months ago I would have been bruised for about a month haha but I just got up and was perfectly fine. I didn't know working out made you less vulnerable, but maybe someone should have said something about that.

There's a chance I wasn't listening if they did.

-SR

Who listens to wooden tops anyway? :P

Day 15: I meant to do this yesterday-

-but I was too drunk. Ahh man it felt soo good to let go and get completely hammered. Unfortunately all that plonk is still in my system, and I can't even do a push-up right now without meandering on the way up so I have to wait till I return to sobriety. Ahh~ I talked to the boy I like all night.

And THIS and THIS and also THIS.

...

Oh right this is about exercise. Uhm. I discovered that I have a really bouncy bed. When I switched to doing situps on the floor (I had to wait until I had accumulated enough of a butt so that I wasn't scraping my spine out on the carpet), so now 20 situps is kinda difficult, but on the bed its way too easy. I wonder how much of my sexual prowess is down to this matress and its bounce.

Well my ex didn't complain.

But my neighbour did.

Hahaha!

- SR

Day 10: Uhm

So yesterday sort of dissapeared in a blur of various things and I somehow ended up not working out. So that sucked. Though I didn't do nothing, I totally racked up a good 8000+ steps on my pokewalker AND found a hyper potion, so I am pretty much set for life on those boons.

Today was a festival thing, so I've been walking around town a lot, and also this:
So yah. That was pretty fun, though I didn't walk the dog today, but I did play with him outside for a bit. Same routine as yesterday, though I thought maybe I should spell it out. This is my current main block of exercise:
- Stretches and light cardio + some yoga that I can do without snapping anything.
- 20 pushups
- 20 crunches
- 20 pushups
- 20 crunches
- 20 long arm butterflies (?) I don't know how to describe it really, but I am on my back on a bench and my arms are fully extended, with weights. Then I raise them from below the bench level to meet above me, as slowly as possible.
- 20 regular butterflies... like the previous but with bent arms, kind of like the way you use the machine in the gym.
- 20+ situps (until I feel like my abs are no longer my friend)
- 20+ pressups (same as above but with pecs and arms)
- 6 - 10 minutes of Cardio as a warm down

So far I haven't pulled anything so it seems to be working, and there are definate gains, and I feel pretty spectacular.

19 days until the 1 month picture! ... Is anyone even reading this? XD - SR

Day 6: Puppy!

Puppies are not helpful when you're trying to do much of anything really, but at least now I am getting a pretty good cardio workout trying to stop him from eating poop or anything else he finds on the ground. There should be a thing to explain how to not get tangled up in leads, or maybe just a warning saying "oh hey btw if your dog can run faster than Usain Bolt, then you're gonna be tripped up by this stretchy cord thing like, a lot. Not even a little a lot, a lot a lot.

So yeah, I recovered from the bad milk incident pretty well and I haven't lost any strength due to it which is an extra bonus. I am now up to about 40 pressups and situps a day, with about 30 minutes of cardio spread out from whenever-the-puppy-stops-trying-to-join-in to whenever-I-go-to-bed-at-the-moment. I know its not like, amazing but its more than I could do a year ago. Or a month ago... or a week ago.

Maaan I'm so weak.

- SR

Day 3: Attempt two

So as it turns out doing exercise when you have the flu feels pretty good but leaves you exhausted. I felt my abs tense for the first time with my pressups today as well, which either means that I've been doing it wrong or that I am about so start doing it wrong.

I think I will put up a better picture in 30 days time, and another every other 30 days to track my progress. I've noticed that I am eating a lot more now, and that I am feeling happier in myself and a lot less stressed. I still dont get five a day, but at least now that salad ingredients are back in season, I get 1 serving at lunch time. All I need to do now is get my studies back on track!

I'm updating again at My Thingie.

Thats pretty much it for today - SR

Day 3: OXYGENNNN!

Woah. So the muscles that were hurting now are not, and a whole new different set has decided to say hello. Though they were probably hurting earlier too but my brain can only deal with so many limbs whining that they ache a lot.

So today the skips, pushups and stretches left me feeling like I was about to die from lack of air, which is really pathetic. I mean, I've had asthma since I was an infant but its never been so bad after such light exercise. That said, I am also still really weak after several things that happened last year. So I suppose its to be expected?

Anyway.

I have found that by breaking down my workout so that its in a near constant state from morning to night is actually much easier than doing it in one big go. Despite any mental images you might have just conjured, that doesn't mean that I am actually working out constantly. I do about 20 - 30 pushups at a time, spread out through the day, so I do some after I get up, some around eleven o clock, some after lunch, some in the evening and then some before bed if I am not totally wiped.

Today I did start pretty late though, I lost track of time whilst reading some stuff and ended up doing my first sets at eleven. Maybe that's why I felt so crappy. Ah well. Imma do more later, I think that I might actually be starting to like these little endorphin dohickeys.

Oh and also, for your entertainment and mine.

- Essar