Ann's Immaterium

Mostly physical culture but also writing, gaming, and other dark procrastinations

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Work Outs: Sep 20 – 26, 2020

I used to keep track of my workouts, before I was online, in three-ring notebooks, most of which were lost in the mists of time, flooded basements, cross-country moves and the like, though I still do have one from my early-80’s Army days that makes for semi-entertaining reading. With the advent of the internet in my life during college I started putting them on 5.25″ (and later 3.5″) floppies. All of those records have been lost to the mists of time, hardware changes, crashes, upgrades, purposeful obsolescence and the like. Turns out digital media is far more ephemeral than my old notebooks but hey … in a hundred years who’s going to care?

About a year ago I decided to start another blog specifically to keep track of my workouts. I made a good start and after a couple of months realized that trying to have more than one blog at a time isn’t for me. I ended up duly neglecting the work out blog, though I was still doing the training.

So I thought, Why not just create a new section here and put up weekly posts of what you are doing? Why not indeed!

Sun, September 20th

We walked about 8 miles on the local hiking trails in the afternoon.

Mon, September 21st

Afternoon walk covering about 4 miles.

Tues, September 22nd

We did an early morning walk that was about 3.5 miles and then an afternoon walk that was about 4 miles for a daily total of 7.5 miles.

Wed, September 23rd

Morning walk for 2.5 miles and an afternoon walk of 4.5 miles for a total of 7 miles.

Thurs, September 24th

My husband spotted this little beastie scuttling at high speed along the inside of the railroad rail during our afternoon walk today. Fortunately for me it froze for a moment and I was able to grab a picture before our friend continued on its way.

  • Morning Walk: 3.3 miles.
  • Afternoon Training
    • DB Bench Press: 20 lbs. x 4 sets x 12 reps
    • Arnold Press: 20 lbs. x 4 sets x 12 reps
    • DB Flies: 5 lbs. x 12 reps | 6 lbs. x 3 sets x 12 reps
    • DB Lateral Raises: 6 lbs. x 4 sets x 12 reps
    • Superset: [DB Skull Crushers: 6 lbs. x sets 1-2 x 12 reps | 10 lbs. x sets 3-4 x 12 reps] + [Bend Spring Bar: two sets with hands pronated and two supinated x 8 reps]
    • Tri-Set: [Dead Bugs (2-ct): 4 sets x 12 reps] + [CoC Gripper (S) x 4 sets x 5 reps]
      • (Set 1) Crunches: 30 reps
      • (Set 2-3) Side Crunches: 30 reps
      • (Set 4) Full Squats: 20 reps
  • Evening Walk: 4.5 miles

Fri, September 25th

  • Morning Training
    • Leg Complex: [Romanian Dead Lift (broom handle): 4 sets x 12 reps] + [Full Squats: 4 sets x 12 reps] + [Walking Lunges (2-ct): Sets 1-2 x 6 reps | Side Kick Stretch (2-ct): Sets 3-4 x 12 reps]
    • Standing DB Back Rows: 10 lbs. x 4 sets x 12 reps
    • Superset: [Standing DB Bicep Curls: 10 lbs. x 4 sets x 12 reps] +
      • (Sets 1-2): Wrist Rolling: 5 lbs., rolling up and down twice while standing on 16″ platform
      • (Sets 3-4) Standing DB Hammer Curls: 10 lbs. x 12 reps]
    • Dead Bugs (2-ct): 20 reps
    • Standing DB Back Fly: 10 lbs. x 4 sets x 12 reps
    • Finished off the workout by walking the loop of my driveway holding a moderately-large stone over my head.

Sat, September 26th

Rest day. Turns out I need it!

I’ll sign off with a picture of some small, coastal redwoods along one of usual haunts at Henry Cowell State Park, Felton, California. I wonder how long ago that one tree in the foreground splintered and fell?

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16 responses to “Work Outs: Sep 20 – 26, 2020”

  1. Great stuff – and something to help inspire me to get back to doing my own training – which I’ve slacked off on quite badly between gyms being closed followed by winter followed by a stay-at-home lockdown. I did have to squint for a second at first before converting from lbs to kg though! 🙂
    My bench has spent most of the last 2 months as a short table for gaming boxes and various junk. I’ve cleared it off now, and actually done my 8x8x8/15sec rest curl set for the first time in over a month.
    Keep posting them up!

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    • Yeah, I know what you mean about having to “squint” with the conversions. I’m pretty good with Metric, but I have to squint a little as well sometimes.

      I’m glad that posting my work out videos got you to clear off your exercise bench. You can thank me in a few months when you get your Pythons back in order!

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  3. Impressive! There’s not really any great options for walking where I live (I’m actually trying to move at the moment…), though I used to regularly do a half-hour walk to work and back through suburban streets (no lizards unfortunately). For now, it’s my now usual half hour of cardio followed by some Tai Chi.

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  4. Awesome walking! I love the pictures of the lizard and the trees. I’ve started walking more myself. And my hubby bought me a set of resistance bands a few months ago that I’m just now working into my daily non-existent routine haha. Maybe if I keep seeing your workout posts I’ll stay motivated? Keep up the good work! (Also floppy disc nostalgia love!)

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    • Thanks, Jessa, best of luck with your (hopefully existent) resistance band workouts. 🙂 The walking is fun. I feel pretty fortunate having some nice places to walk/hike that aren’t far from our house. Some weeks we walk a lot, and other weeks not so much because of shifting work schedules, etc. I’m suspecting this coming week is going to be lighter on the walking….

      We have a lot of snakes and lizards scuttling about (especially lizards) where we walk. I like them and the lizards remind me of a pair of American chameleons I kept as a child — I “inherited” them from my mother’s friend’s son, who got tired of them.

      Yep, loved those floppies at the time. I remember thinking how great they were though I did keep back-ups of everything since they were pretty fragile in so many ways.

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      • Thank you! The weather is looking more like Fall where I live so the idea of working out isn’t as atrocious as it was in the summer heat. I see more snakes than lizards in my area, little garden and garter snakes. They’re adorable.

        When I was a kid my parents didn’t want cats or dogs because they thought the maintenance was too high. So they decided to get me an iguana of all things. She was the most high maintenance pet I’ve ever had.

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    • Thanks, John. Yes, some of it is probably a bit arcane — I wouldn’t know what a “CoC (S)” is either, for example, if I wasn’t the one doing the exercise. 🙂

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  6. I hear ya, I tried starting a second blog just to post about cycling, it’s seriously neglected. My week this week would look like this: 174.1 miles over 4 days and one 3.3-mile run and power walk with the wife (~1 mile) with a big rest day on Wednesday! Seriously, I need to ad some weight training.

    Nice job Ann!

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    • Hi, Dave. Hahaha, you are right! I enjoy the workouts quite a bit and it is probably just as well that I do them, as you say, since most of my hobbies involve sitting, e.g. writing, gaming, painting, reading. To be honest, I’m going to have to tighten up my eating as well because I tend to be one of those people who is generally heavy but active and with the whole situation with Covid I found I’ve put on some weight to the point where I’m not happy about it. Fortunately, if I’m more mindful about what I eat then dropping the weight won’t be a problem. I’m planning on keeping track using the free version of the site Sparkpeople.com.

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