Janathon, Personal

Janathon Day 28. Weights and the alternative Valentines Day.

Today has been a straight day of working at home with no real surprises. Dropped the kids off at 8, worked through and went to pick them up at 3. Everything moving forward, slowly.

At lunchtime I took out half an hour to do the strength exercises as demanded by the schedule. This is my last New Rules of Lifting break-in workout “A”. Next week I’ll move on to another one, and will check with Matthias before doing anything rash – he’s my go-to lifting expert!

Weight-LiftingLast week, when I wasn’t feeling great I thought I’d up the weights a bit. I survived and so I thought I’d increase them again to see what level I was starting to struggle at. I think with the squats I found it at 43lbs (these are resistance bands, so these numbers may not mean anything). I was able to do 15 reps then another five before I couldn’t manage any more. I dropped down to 32lbs and finished off the remaining 10 reps. Last week I’d done 31lbs, so perhaps I’d pushed it a bit…

Then the lunges, 2×15 on each leg. I increased it to 35lbs from 31lbs last week. This was hard work – really hard work. I’d made a note that I was knackered at the end of the two sets last week, this week I felt properly tired.

“Dumbbell row with elbow out” I did at 23lbs (up from 20 last week). That felt ok if I’m honest and I could have probably done more.

Finally the push ups and the squats were the same as last week.

Screen Shot 2014-01-28 at 17.12.42This time I wore a heart monitor to see what was going on. I hadn’t ever done it for a weights session and it was fascinating to see.

You can clearly see the reps, my big old gaps between the weights and the push ups and crunches at the end. This is great fun, I’ve no idea if that’s good bad or indifferent, but it looks cool!

This evening we’re off to the Fat Olive in town for some special anniversary grub. Jude and I celebrate an alternative valentines on the 28th January as it’s the date that we got engaged… oh so many years ago. Oh we were just children. yadayadaya.

This is the Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band, Tubas in the Moonlight. It was the first dance song at our wedding. Happy days!