It felt like a busy day today, getting things ready before the start of work and school tomorrow, and getting in some exercise to stick with janathon and kicking off things in the gym again.
The plan was to get back with the New Rules of Lifting (NROL), which I think I mentioned the last time I was blogging. The original book is brilliant if you haven’t ever done anything in the gym before – which is precisely where I was this time last year. I followed the starter programmes about 10 months ago, but then things drifted off and I lost the habit. It was in September when I came back to it and read the New Rules of Lifting Supercharged which I had bought in error when first learning about lifting.
NROL Supercharged is a much more complex beast. With a set of programmes where you pick and choose the exercises to do. It took a long time to get used to the idea, but I think I’m just about getting the hang of it. I went through eight sets of “Basic Training” programmes before Christmas and now I’m moving on to the Hypertrophy programmes. The idea is that
Armed with a set of Google spreadsheets to track progress and an Evernote sheet with pictures cut and pasted out of the book I ventured to the Gym around lunchtime. My plan was to get a quick 1k warm up run in (thus, getting my daily run out the way) and then move on to the programme. As it was, all the running machines were in use and so I had to do a quick warm up and then get on with the exercises. My parents were coming around at 1pm and so I had an hour.
The pick and mix method of putting together the programmes means that you can tailor things to what is available in the gym, and sadly, the gym at Edge Hill doesn’t quite have everything they assume in the book. The programme consists mostly of cables and dumb bell work, but it ticks all the boxes and I was knackered at the end of it.
I got my warm-up run done at the end of the session instead. I was knackered and got the planned 1k run done in 6 minutes. I felt like my legs couldn’t go any further when I was running, which probably means I’d had a good session.
After dinner Joel and I went out for a walk. Following from my thoughts yesterday about having started a streak, I had to try and keep going. I asked around in the house to see if anyone wanted to come out with me for a half hour walk and only Joel volunteered.
It was starting to get dark, but we strode out around County Road, through the park and then back via Burscough Street / Burscough Road. A very pleasant 40 minute stroll in which Joel and I discussed most aspects of Skylanders Trap Team, the imminent start of the school term and a good long discussion about what aspects of the New Testament are true, parables and chinese whispers. He’s keen to do it again, and also to walk back from school a few times a week. It all sounds positive, let’s see what Lily says on the matter, but I’m hoping to report back on more walks with the children later in the week.