My Own Personal Trainer

This morning I just couldn't get up and out of bed. I think it was residual sleepiness from Saturday. Really makes me wonder how sleepy I'll be after the Olympic triathlon. Of course, by not doing my workout this morning, that meant that when I left work it was pouring. I came home to change clothes and realized that I just did not want to go to the gym and run on the treadmill. All I really wanted to do was go outside, but not in the pouring rain. I was IMing with Drew and told him my predicament and he suggested that I should do something in my apartment. He even offered to give me a workout. He said that he wouldn't be easy on me. So, I turned the air conditioning up, laid out my yoga mat and waited for instructions.

Set #1 (repeated three times):
25 jumping jacks, 5 real push-ups, 10 push-ups on my knees, 30 second wall sit

I laughed out loud during the very first jumping jacks. Mostly because I couldn't believe that I was doing this and I was also thinking of Drew imagining me doing jumping jacks while he was sitting in his office. I found the wall sit to be a lot easier than in the past (and I didn't even cheat!). I'm guessing that my legs are stronger now from biking.

Set #2 (repeated three times):
20 crunches, 30 second plank (on forearms), 20 squats

The crunches were really hard for me. I have been having a lot of pain in my right shoulder blade recently. This all started right after I fell off my bike, so I do wonder if it's related. It was finally feeling a tiny bit better this morning, so I only did 2 sets of the crunches because they were so painful in my shoulder. I figured that it was probably okay as I really don't want to aggravate it even more.

Set #3 (repeated three times):
Leg raises for 30 seconds (legs about 8" off the ground), 20 knee highs, 20 butt kickers, 10 things where you jump up and then go flat on the ground

Drew said that if I was really tough, I could drum my fists on my abs like he did when he was in football during the leg raises. I actually was wondering when Drew even played football (in middle school is my guess) and I'm thinking that holding your legs up in the air and pounding on your abs was a lot easier then. At least I didn't find that part to be very easy. And I was only tough enough to pound on my abs one time. And as far as these things where you are standing up, go down into plank, do a push-up, jump your feet forward, then jump all the way off the ground ... really, really sweaty. I pretty much hated those by the end. And I was dripping with sweat. I think this was about the time that I had to go turn the air conditioning down even further.

Set #4 (repeated three times):
10 stand ups (sat on edge of coffee table, hands out at side, and use only thigh muscles to stand up), 15 jump lunges (lunge and jump while scissoring legs to reverse the lunge), 10 tricep dips (held onto edge of coffee table, legs extended and lowered down)

I was not particularly good at the jump lunges. I was a little bit wobbly, so I had to slow down and try to them better. My arms were also burning at this point during the tricep dips. Do I not work my arms when training for a triathlon? How did they get so tired so easily?

Set #5 (repeated three times):
30 jumping jacks, squat in front of the couch and punch the back 20 times each arm, 5 real push-ups, 10 knee push-ups, 2 real push-ups.

The squats were a little bit funny. I was worried at first when I read the exercise that I wouldn't be able to reach the back of my couch to punch it, but it worked just fine. Drew had to remind me, of course, to keep my thumbs out of my fist while punching. I only recently learned that if you keep your thumbs in, you can break them if you're throwing a real punch. I felt really silly punching the back of my couch, but it didn't seem to mind. The push-ups were killer. I thought the last two real push-ups were cruel and unusual punishment. I actually whined to Drew during this set about the push-ups. I had had enough!

Set #6:
30 second wall sit, 30 second leg raise, 30 second calf raises (balanced on one leg), 30 second plank, 30 second standing on one leg, other leg behind with arms out at sides

This time the wall sit wasn't so easy. I was definitely counting down the seconds until I could get up. The calf raises were pretty hard. I was surprisingly better at balancing on my left leg than my right leg. I'm still not really sure I understand why that was.

Set #7:
40 ankle lunges (leg at 45 degree angle instead of out in front), 20 jumping jacks, 20 couch punches (each fist), 20 tricep dips

I sort-of lost count when doing the jumping jacks and ended up doing 31 because I forgot that I only had to do 20. I will say that the jumping jacks were the most fun (and the easiest exercise). I'm not really sure I understand the benefit of jumping jacks, but I also think I'd like to do them more often. After the lunges, the last think I wanted to do was squat in front of my couch. And of course, my arms were oh-so-happy about the tricep dips.

All in all, the workout was an hour long. Much longer than I would have imagined. It was also a lot sweatier than I would have thought it could be. I was pretty impressed that Drew came up with all those exercises. I'm also really glad that I have this written down because the next time that I'm just not interested in going out in the rain, this is going to be my fall-back workout. I will say that after doing this workout, I wouldn't recommend going to the pet store and carrying home 28 pounds of kitty litter and 8.5 pounds of cat food. That's probably an unofficial Set #8.

Drew wanted me to rate him on the following (using a 4 star scale):
Intensity: ***
Interestingness: ****
Sweatiness: ***
You-Hate-Me-Ness: Varied between * and **** depending on the exercise
You'd-Do-It-Again Ness: ****

The only comment (that wasn't really his fault) is that there was a minute or two of down time between sets while I waited for him to type. Towards the end he got better at just being able to send me the next set right away. I think that was slightly more effective for keeping my heart-rate up. All in all, I thought this was a great workout. I don't think I'll be able to lift my arms tomorrow, but who would need to do that?