Workout Recap - Week of June 10, 2018
Circumstances conspired to leave me renting a car with a manual transmission this week, despite that I've never tried driving one before. However, it really wasn't that bad to learn. I watched a bunch of tutorials on YouTube and just gave it a go. My first time, between my inexperience and a bad (though understandable) case of nervousness due to just throwing myself onto open roads like that, it was pretty much even odds on whether I'd stall or spin the shit out of the tires every time I tried to get going from a stop, and it took me a few additional stalls to internalize needing to press the clutch when coming to a stop, but I was able to make it from point A to point B successfully. Thanks to that bit of confidence and experience, things have gone much smoother since then. I'm still pretty herky-jerky about getting started from a standstill as often as not, and I've got a tendency to go straight from second gear to fifth because of missing the slot for third, but I've been able to get around in traffic, control myself on inclines and declines, and just generally managed to get around on my own. Being experienced with driving automatics and having a calm and patient demeanor to my driving surely helped, but even so, the difficulty of driving a manual is greatly overrated.
Mind you, I don't enjoy it, and I'll go back to using automatics as soon as I can. I prefer to appreciate the ride as a passenger in my own car rather than having the extra control. Nevertheless, it's worthwhile to acknowledge learning a new skill, and at least I needn't ever worry again about being stranded because of lacking access to an automatic.
This is all relevant to a fitness post because having access to the car means I didn't go on another eleven kilometer walk this weekend.
Sunday
Type: Pass/Fail
Underhand Horizontal Rows - 3 sets of 12 (pass)
Bridges - 3 sets of 12 (pass)
Bonus: 2 sets of 6 Superman push ups
After the previous day's workout, my legs were pretty sore, so I tried to take it easy on them and to take it easy in general, in order to promote faster recovery. It didn't quite work out so smoothly, though, so I needed two more days to get back on track rather than the usual one.
Wednesday
Type: As Fast As Possible
5 sets of:
5 Handstand Push Ups
10 Bridges
15 Prisoner Squats
Time = 8:45
Bonus: 10 underhand horizontal rows
This was basically a slight variation on my workout from the previous Wednesday. Since I tend to prefer developing endurance by pushing for more intense strength training rather than doing long bouts of low-to-medium difficulty movements, I was happy with the bump from regular push ups to handstand push ups.
Thursday
Type: Pass/Fail
Handstand Push Ups - 5 sets of 5 (pass)
Underhand Horizontal Rows - 5sets of 5 (pass)
Bonus: none
I had some lingering lower body soreness again, but rather than cutting back to just three workouts for the week, I opted to do something relatively easy that just focused on my upper body. The fact that I can say that about a workout which included twenty-five handstand push ups amazes me.
Saturday
Type: As Fast As Possible
7 sets of:
7 Handstand Push Ups
7 Burpees
Time = 11:15
Bonus: 1 handstand push up, 1 burpee, 7 underhand horizontal rows
I'm fairly happy with this result, considering that I'm pretty sure it's far and away the most handstand push ups that I've done in a single workout. I should mix up my exercises more, but they're just so effective and independent of equipment (needing a floor and a wall is barely a step up from just needing a floor, and even in narrow rooms where there isn't really enough space to kick up and down against the wall safely, as has been in the case in some hotels I've stayed in during all of my trips lately, a locked door is an adequate substitute) that it's hard to resist the temptation.
