Sidelined

I hate injuries.

Here I am on the shelf again, this time from something where I can’t even pinpoint when or how I hurt myself. 

See last week my side started to hurt.  I know for sure I was hurting Wednesday night and Thursday night, I was in enough pain on Friday to attempt to not to go to work and I made a chiropractor appointment for after work.  The problem was that I couldn’t twist, and had very painfully mobility with my right side.

Dr. Jenn looked me over and poked at me a bit, she got out a tuning fork and touched that to my ribs.  Not a fracture, which was nice to hear, I think.  Her opinion was that I sprained the muscles the connect up the ribs.  My guess is that I did that lifting and twisting with the kids at work.  I’m only guessing that because I don’t have any lift/twist exercises at the gym. And the only thing I did at the gym on Wednesday was run and bike.

So the Dr. she tells me to ice and heat alternately, I did that a bit on Friday night and I have to admit I didn’t do it much over the weekend, but I did take anti-inflammatories and (along with taking the cats to the vet) skipped Karate because of it, and didn’t go to hockey either!  I couldn’t even help shovel on Sunday.

Being injured sucks, especially when it’s sort of nebulous like this, I have no idea of the healing time and I have to move and such.  The worst part is that it hurts all the time.  At least with my Achilles last spring it only hurt to run!

Don't Just Execute, Elevate

I've heard Kevin Smith talk about this a bit on his podcast when referring to writers and artists and their work on comics going beyond simply doing their jobs but putting the love and attention to detail into their work that really sets it apart.

I got thinking about this idea yesterday at the gym while doing a training session with John.  I had made a new Tabada workout for him and he was working really hard at it the whole way through.  We got to a point when most people would have called a halt to the whole thing.  He was gassed, I could tell! But he pushed through it.  After, I was saying that it’s those types of moments that make success.  When your body wants to quit but you push anyways. 

Anybody can get a workout sheet and head on to the gym floor.  They can go and do all the workouts and get some results.  They can execute the plan.  Or you can elevate, put everything you’ve got into every part of the workout, right to the point where you have to drag yourself off the floor.  When a person applies themselves like that you get great results.

Next time you head out for a run, or to the gym to work out, don’t just execute, elevate!

Missed The Gym

I hate it when I miss going to the gym.  I had it all planned out today to go to the gym after work.  Well, I sort of had it all planned, I had to come home on my lunch to get my gear together so that I could go right to the gym and then be home at a reasonable time for dinner.

The thing is that I got wrapped up in a very interesting and very constructive conversation right at the end of my work day.  This would actually make it one of the few times that I didn’t really mind being after work late.  There was purpose behind it and I came away from it feeling better in all sorts of areas.

If it had been anytime between say, March and October, it wouldn’t have phased me at all, I would have just switched from gym day to running or biking day and got my workout in.  Since it’s still January I ended up just heading home and skipping the whole gym thing today.

I aim to hit the gym tomorrow and now I’ll simply just tag on an extra 20 minutes on the bike or something at the end of running and strength training.  I’ll still be there three times this week, even with being busy Friday night and on Sunday as well.

Sometimes I just wish I could win the lottery and not even have to worry about it.  I could just wake up, and go to the gym.  Except for that in the months of January and February it would be, wake up, go to the gym, and then try to remember which island excursion I’m about to head out on as I do a two month cruise of the Caribbean!

Friend Making Monday–Taboo Topics

If you’ve taken part in FMM then you know the rules. If you’re new, please take a moment to answer this week’s question on your own blog then add your link in the comments section here and over at: www.alltheweigh.com so we can all see your FMM questions and answers. Please invite your blog readers to add their links here too so everyone has to opportunity to be seen. The idea is to connect with other awesome bloggers so take a moment to post your own FMM post and comment on a couple of other posts. Now it’s time for this week’s topic!

Taboo Topics

1. Are you a registered voter? 

Um, yeah.  Voting is very important!

2. Do you believe in GOD? 

Yep

3. How has your readership changed since you first began blogging? 

I don’t think it has, I write about whatever I feel like I want to write about. 

4.  If you could choose between a serious relationship or $100,000, which would you choose? 

$100,000 is not enough money for me to choose it over a person.  Especially if it meant giving up what I have.

5. Have you ever changed political parties? 

I’ve voted the same way in every provincial and federal election I’ve been a part of, I have sure thought about it though that is for sure.

6.  If you were put in a position in which you had to be in a room with someone that you can’t stand, how would you handle the situation?

I’d just ignore them, or focus on my own thing.  I have to do this every three weeks at hockey, playing against people I can’t stand.

7.  Do you ever eat in secret because you don’t want anyone to see what you consume? 

Nope!  I don’t now and didn’t before.  I am who I am and I’ll eat what I eat.

8.  Do you use curse words in your daily conversations? 

I think it depends on who I’m talking to.  Generally no, once in a while yes.

9.  How much do you tip when you’ve had decent service at a restaurant? 

15% typically, if the service is about what you’d expect to get.

10.  How do you respond when someone confronts you? 

Depends on the confrontation, usually sarcastically.  I can take say a work type confrontation in stride and respond accordingly, taking the constructive criticism and applying it’s benefits.  A physical confrontation, say at hockey, I tend to push back in kind.

Now it’s your turn, Happy Monday Folks!

Workout Of The Day

Shovelling!

I arrived home from work and a visit to the chiropractor to then spend about an hour shovelling out my driveway.  Ah Canada! The worst part as those of you in snowy climates know is the end of the driveway where the plow has pushed a nice wall of snow to block you out (or in).

Today what had happened though was the the temperature was warm(ish) in the morning making everything a bit slushy and then it dropped through the day turning that wall of slushy snow into a barrier of ice!

I had to dig it out with an actual spade! A plastic snow shovel had no power there!

It’s been such a different winter around here than the last few, I know my friends in Port Hope and Ajax are feeling the same way since some of them were without power for almost a week!

I’m ready for winter to be over.  I used to love winter as a kid, playing in the snow and digging big forts into the snowbanks and such, now it’s just annoying to be cold and shovelling all the time! I’m not quite ready to welcome summer back, but I’d be ok with a spring that last six months!

Friend Makin’ Monday–Just Some Stuff

 

1.  What has been your happiest moment in 2014 so far? 

Just being able to spend time with Amber since we were both home from work for the break.

2. Share the last compliment you received. 

I don’t even now.

3.  What is one thing that you plan to accomplish in the next week?

Be at the gym at least 3 times.

4.  What is your favourite TV show currently on air?

The Big Bang Theory.  I watch almost no current TV, Netflix is my pal and the best $7.99 a month I’ve ever spent

5.  If you could go anywhere in the world free for the next two weeks, where you go? 

New Zealand, or just on a two week cruise.  I’d love to tour around and see all the shooting locations for The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings in New Zealand, but failing that just do nothing on a cruise ship for another two weeks would be great!

6.  Describe a significant event in your life that caused you to change your values system. 

The day I was dying of exhaustion on the mat at karate and I decided to get in shape.

7.  What made you decide to live where you currently live? 

I’ve always sort of wanted to stick around the same area as I grew up, and being out in a small town is great.  I never wanted to live ‘in the city’ because that’s not how I grew up.  So living in Bridgenorth is fantastic!

8.  What is the first thing that comes to mind when you think about GOD?

Church, and while when I went regularly to church up until I moved out of home at 18 and we did have some good speakers there I still did overall find it boring.

9.  If you could have a long conversation with someone famous (and alive now) who would you choose? 

Jim Lee, I’d love to pick his brain on art and such.

10.  List three things that you’re thankful for today.

I’m thankful for my friends and family.
For my health and ability to be active.
For having a job that I love.

A Week Of Workouts

I’ve had a week, actually two weeks, off work thanks to some saved up holidays and the new year.  I’ve used these two weeks to work out like crazy and it has been amazing! 

Mostly it has been the last week and a bit since we were out in London Ontario for a few days at the end of my first week off.  The workouts have been, in the last 9 days, two games of hockey, 6 workouts and 2 training sessions with John. 

The workouts too were like an hour and a half long too, I’m totally loving it and I’m actually quite sad that it’s going to end when I go back to work tomorrow.  The basis for these workouts has been the superman workouts that Henry Cavill was doing to beef up for The Man Of Steel movie.

I’m about a month into that set of workouts and they are yet to get boring, and they are always crushing.  For instance, today, I was doing push press and burpee pull ups for a total of 64 reps each! Then wall ball and medicine ball slams 150 times each, and then a circuit that had rowing, pull ups, more burpees and situps with a medicine ball toss.  I was so gassed at the end of the session and of course I had to do a 5k run ahead of that whole workout.

The beauty of all this hard work is that in just one short month there is an actual visual difference and I think that by the end of February it will be really noticeable!

The other thing that I am really enjoying is being a trainer!  I wrote a post quite a while ago about were I thought that I would never be a trainer. I’m really diggin’ it actually, so much so that I have enquired about what it takes to actually become a certified trainer.  I am kind of holding off on that notion for now.  What I would really like would be to be able to use money from training people to fund the project of becoming certified.  So hopefully that will happen at some time this year.

I know that a lot of my readers have made new years resolutions, how are they going?

Goals For 2014

I did alright with my goals for 2013 but now it’s time to set some new goals for the new year!  This year while of course I want to have goals that push me I want to be able to meet all of this years goals.

The first goal is an easy one to set distance.

I’m setting out to run 1000km and bike 1700km this year.  2700km in total, 500 more than I went this year.  I think that is quite doable if I can stay injury free.

Push ups and crunchies (or abdominal exercises), last year I set out to do 50,000 push ups, it didn’t get done and I think that the lack of variety is what killed it for me.  I got bored of the challenge and it dropped way off.  This year my aim is a bit more variety and therefor I hope more attainable.  15,000 push ups and another 15,000 of various forms of crunchies.

Complete a duathlon I know there are some that run around here and now that I have a bike that can be competitive it could be really fun to do something like this.

I’m not really sure what other goals to set at the moment, maybe doing 1 arm bench presses with 65-70 pounds or something (currently doing 45)

I want to be in a bunch of races again, but I don’t really think that’s a goal to set, I don’t want to be in races just to be in them, I know I don’t want to travel as far this year to race unless it’s going to be an all day event.

What are your goals for 2014?