What makes you happy ?

If I suddenly stop blogging, then I was wrong about the chest pain :)

Seems that zipping along on the x-trainer for an hour (cardio, target heart rate 142) at a time while listening to 140BPM music several times a week does produce results. I’m lighter now than I have been in months. All good stuff. The BPM goes to 142 next though, faster, harder (Scooter!). I pondered a while ago about weights. I worked on the machines until I was bored (didn’t take long) and today got a list of free weights exercises. Nothing stunning, and I’ll still use the machines but it’ll address a couple of issues – one being my left shoulder. When doing any exercise that involves lifting up, something in the joint ‘clicks’ and I lose strength immediately. Very odd. So on a machine I was pulling more right, less left. I’d rather not look like Mr Lopsided hence the free weights. All looking good at the gym. It’s a welcome 2 hour break each day.

The girls are watching streaming films on the laptops, J is playing a game on another and muggins here is doing the work. No change there then…
Did 1050 calories on the ‘elliptical trainer’ today – a record. Though I was listening to 132BPM music all the way through – music which I totally credit with getting me through the 10 and 20 minutes walls I hit. After 20 minutes it’s a breeze. I have some 180BPM I’m slowly building to. I’ll be a veritable blur.
Two machines I wanted to go on were the bicep / tricep curl. But there were two huge guys doing there bit – the sort with huge arms and lifting 50kg with one arm. So I stayed away. As you would.

I’m going to see if I can get a piercing tomorrow. For fun. Not sure if my anatomy is right though. I’ll have to nag Brian at abody. I just redid their website so I’m in a position to nag. And my post to UPB seems to confirm that Breed316 are still good for custom steel so I’ll give him a call when I have the beans to do so. A 7mm bar is now called for. And the Law of Sod will then kick in and the one I own already will turn up.

And the latest update of Parallels did something strange to my XP install and trying to re-register gets a failed key. And when I get past that, XP will do the same. I’ve got 2 codes from Microsoft, but will I get a third…. hopefully.

Ecto is cool, Endo I am starting to like. And my PC? I switched that off 5 days ago. It’s due for a move around a corner and across a room but I haven’t used it.

Back to work…

At the gym I’m doing 30-45 minutes on the x-trainer and 20-30 minutes on the upright bike. Cardio is the workout selected on both and with a good 130-150BPM podcast I’m happy with them. I can zone out quite easily. But the weights in between are disorganised. I’m wondering whether to pay for a couple of training sessions to get a decent plan going, or whether I can get by with digging around for some sites/advice.
I’m not after anything special, just overall balance. The only difference is cost, and I have little clue just how much knowledge the trainers have (though 1 at the gym has been there over 18 months now if longevity is a factor). I don’t want boredom and I don’t want to neglect but is paying the best way? Know any really good sites for workouts? Most I found with a quick search were splogs.

The passage of time has dulled my appetite for the rowing machine (plus my technique is shot) so I’m spending lots more time on the x-trainer. Which is okay – I can watch TV. It was Diagnosis Murder the other day. Gripping stuff. Today though the gadget I plug the phones into was broken, the new music in the zen hadn’t transferred well so I had no distractions. Bad. Until this lad came in.
A genuine chav. Off-white long shorts, England top, burberry checked baseball cap, expression like a bulldog chewing a wasp. He wanders around the machines for a bit then perches on a bike. He then proceeds to sit upright and pedal with no obvious resistance. His feet were a positive blur. He is sat still, arms folded, looking at everything going on in the gym behind him (the bikes are at the front under the TV’s with the mirrors in front of them) and if you saw him from the waist up you would have no idea he was exercising. You know the Road Runner cartoon? Where the feet are a blur but everything else is clear and crisp? It was like that. Apart from the sweating. Naturally the guy is sweating. Nothing unusual in that. He finishes his ‘ride’, his feet appear and he wanders off around the machines again. Still sweating. He left some minutes later and despite the sweating and the heat he hadn’t even touched the baseball cap. It remained firmly in place. Chav and Proud.

(The thing with his feet whirring round.. I can’t be the only person who sees others on real bikes who are going along a flat road in 1st gear. Their feet are spinning like mad things while they barely move forward. There is no economy of energy there – none. Why do they do that? Can’t they find the gears? If they drive do they never leave 1st gear? How do they cope on hills? Weird.)

I’m being forced back to the gym but yesterday something went wrong. I think it was the chest press (sit down, push weights forward, feet needed to ease weights back to the base). I stepped up a weight so I knew I’d feel it a little but as soon as I finished my right arm almost seized up. It felt very numb/odd. Last night I didn’t pay too much attention but this morning it’s giving me no option. I can raise my forearm just above 90° to the upper arm. The tricep doesn’t hurt like a worked muscle but there is an area where the tendon is joining to the elbow which is very painful indeed. Can’t tell if it’s swollen but it is restricting keyboard/mouse which is annoying. I can’t touch my head with that arm without lifting from the shoulder. I can only think I twisted my arm as I pushed out instead of keeping it straight. I otherwise did nothing different.
Looks like I’m stuck on the x-trainer / bike for a while then.

There’s a challenge thing at the gym. It’s a national one it looks like. You have to do 3 things:

• Row 500m
• Treadmill 5km
• Benchpress 40kg sixty times

First one? A doddle – why is it so low? Second? I’ll walk it very quickly but I ain’t running. I don’t do running. The third? Not_a_chance. I don’t use that piece of equipment normally but today – after seeing the challenge – I had a go. I did 20kg 20 times. So twice the weight and 6 times the reps is just way beyond me. But 500m? That’s a joke. 5000m would have been a start.

Some advice: when you are at the gym and you really do not want to be on a machine any more, do not decide to listen to “Just two more tracks” on your mp3 as a motivator/endpoint. Unless you are listening to 60′s music. I was listening to a trance remix album. Bad idea. I’m going back to “1 more minute” “250 more metres” or “screw it I’m knackered”.
Ever mirrored anyone? When they fold their arms you do too. However they stand you mimic? It’s a good technique for spooking someone but it drives me nuts. the guy on the rower next to me kept getting in sync with me – almost definitely unknowingly. It really does get to me so I change stroke pattern – and then we sync again. And I know I should look away, look in the mirrors, find someone on the machines to concentrate on but I can’t. I have to keep looking, checking. I’ve been trying to row with my eyes shut. Stable machine, I’ve never fallen off, I’m completely comfortable on it yet it I can’t do more than a few strokes before it starts to make me feel ill. Must be like the seeing of the horizon when on a boat – I need to see the machines.
If I stopped eating garbage I might lose weight too. Though that isn’t the point of going. It’s me time, thinking time, space, music time, get rid of that energy that gets stored in your muscles and which makes you restless because it has no outlet. The fact I might grow an extra muscle fibre or get a smidge healthier is a bonus I suppose. When I was last there I wieghed exactly the same as I do now. Seems I have a weight at which my body is comfortable. I’m cool with that.

My biceps hurt from the gym these last couple of days so I am eating chocolate to help soothe them. If it doesn’t work I may have to up the dose :)

(and today I forgot my gloves so rowing and keeping concentration was really difficult. That said I managed 200m/minute for 30 minutes which I was fairly pleased with.)

When I was a teenager, a puncture repair kit (from the local shop) consisted of 8 patches (2 large, 2 medium, 4 small), a tube of ‘rubber cement’, a square of sandpaper, a small wax crayon and a small cube of chalk. The box had a serrated area to create the chalk dust. If you spent a bit extra you got a couple of tyre levers. Quality little kit it was. I’ve had 2 punctures in 3 days – and the kits are crap.
4 patches only and they are very tricky to use with the thin film of cellophane on them. They also lack any stickiness themselves so they can’t stick until the cement has worked it’s magic. No sandpaper but you do get a viciously punched square of heavy foil to scrape the tyre with, no crayon (not that I ever used the one in the orginal kit but that is not the point) and no chalk. How am I to prevent tyre stickage now? So I get less kit, worse kit for a job that has not changed in forever. Maybe it’s because I’m not looking in the right place……