I know I’ve said this before, but it isn’t just the muscles that weaken from an extended (2 week) layoff. The motivation and drive fall off a cliff. Even though I have the desire to do something, the thought of digging down deep makes want to just “wait until I have more mental energy”. That is folly, it is never coming back. It will show up after I re-establish the habit of doing it. I don’t just mean doing the exercises and training either, I mean pushing farther than I think I am capable of. Uggggh. It’s early, it’s cold, it’s very cloudy which is depressing and completely uninspiring. In fact it’s not just uninspiring but it is anti-inspiring. I love me some Texas for many reasons, but the weather is not one of them. Winter here is depressing, it’s like living in London or Seattle. I am a child of light, I need the sun. Being overcast for weeks at a time with spots of momentary sunshine here and there is getting harder and harder for me to deal with.

2/19/2019 Tuesday

Yesterday I managed to force myself to do pushups to failure. I was able to grind out a set of 52, total failure on the concentric phase of #53. That was good, I wasn’t sure I could do more than 50 early on in the set. I took a video of myself doing them on my phone, and was surprised at how poor my form appears. I am conscious of using good form, but apparently my proprioception is off. That’s not a big deal though, it is an easy fix: raise my hips higher and they will be in line with my shoulders and ankles, and don’t look directly down at the floor, tilt my chin a bit more forward. Think kissing the floor rather than touching my nose to it.

8:40 – Windshield Wipers x 8; bent knees, my right side (problem area) is just frozen solid, so I just stayed in the bottom position to the left and focused on relaxing into the stretch. It feels a little better, but I could barely get back up off of the floor. The core muscles did not want to work with me.

– Split Squats x 10/side. My right glute feels significantly weaker, even though I think it is actually the stronger side. That is the side I leap off of when jumping over things. On this exercise (and all glute/leg exercises going forward) I focused on driving my foot into the floor and attempting to externally (laterally) rotate it. Like I was screwing something into the floor with my foot.

I wonder if hydration is part of my issue right now? I think I’ll make sure that isn’t the case, I’m going to chug back about 16 ounces of water right now.

9:45 – NOS + Protein powder + ACV

– Handstand Press x 7! New personal best! Total failure after 7.

– Yoga Pushups x 90; failure, good pump. This is my follow up from yesterday.

10:50 – Handstand x 7 seconds; this was an attempt to just do a handstand without using the wall. I did a few 1 and 2 second attempts in which I lost my balance, then I got longer one of about 7 seconds or so.

– Reverse Lunge, non-alternating x 25/side; focused on “screwing my feet into the floor” again, this really does move the focus to the glutes. I am sucking wind too, definitely out of shape after my recent downtime.

– Triceps Flex x 30 seconds; dug as deep as I could

3:30 – BCAA + NOS + ACV

– Handstand Press x 5

– Box Step ups x 5 per side; woohoo! Anything to keep moving dontcha know

Have a Great Day!

Lubimûr