Workout Recap - Week of March 22, 2020
My apologies for the delays in finished the Cursed Monastery of the Crocodile-Behemoth series and my silence in general for this last week. While I haven't been affected too much by the COVID-19 pandemic, I can be counted among the people who've found themselves somehow more busy than they were before being advised to stay confined at home.
To take a positive from current events, though, I'm going to touch on something the Wandering DMs mentioned last week and say that this can be a monumental turning point in society. Dan's comment there had been that the pandemic will push a lot of hobby gamers into playing online for the first time, but I'd extend that to also applying to companies/institutions transitioning from working in offices or schools to working with remote connections and streaming and to people in general findings ways to accomplish more online. I lack both the tech- and business-savvy to predict what the future may hold, but I wouldn't be surprised to see more companies/institutions invest in this sort of decentralized approach even after it's safe to socialize again in the real world.
If I'm right about that, I hope that the increase in supporting sedentary lifestyles doesn't lead to impacting people's health negatively. I'm doing what I can to keep in shape, and I encourage everyone else to take care of their bodies, too. For this week, I decided to focus on pass/fail workouts because I just didn't want to race against a clock for most of it.
Sunday
Type: Pass/Fail
One-arm Pull Up Negatives - 3 sets of 3, each side (pass)
Fingertip Diamond Push Ups - 3 sets of 6 (pass)
Bonus: none
My right ankle was feeling a little gimpy, so I decided to just focus on my upper body for this workout. I'm definitely making progress with my one-arm pull up negatives, difficult as it may be to quantify than when I'm holding the top position for less than a second. If nothing else, I'm starting to release my off-hand a fraction before getting all the way up and using a single arm to try completing the motion, and whether it's actual muscle contraction or merely riding my momentum that's doing the work, there is some upward motion before I start going back down.
Tuesday
Type: Pass/Fail
One-arm Pull Up Negatives - 2 sets of 4, each side (pass)
Fingertip Diamond Push Ups - 2 sets of 7 (pass)
Uneven Handstand Push Ups - 2 sets of 3, each side (pass)
Bonus: 10 breath isometric 3-limb bridge cycle
My ankle was feeling alright by now, but just to play things safe and give it a little longer to heal (as I imagine this isn't the best time to suffer an avoidable injury), I kept the focus on my upper body. I've got little enough to say about it directly, but I did find another set of bad novels to stack for the uneven handstand push ups, since my three Anne Rice books aren't in a convenient place to grab them at the moment.
Wednesday
Type: Pass/Fail
3-limb Bridges - 2 sets of 2, each combination (pass)
Pistol Squats, both hands behind me - 2 sets of 9, each side (pass)
L-Hang - 2 sets of 27 breath isometric hold (pass)
Bonus: 15 breath isometric towel dead hang
Well, after two workouts where I tried to avoid using my ankles, there was no mercy on them here. This is probably the hardest that I've worked my hip flexors in a while, as my legs were trembling for about half of the final L-hang. I take that as a good sign, since I want to push my limits.
Friday
Type: As Fast As Possible
3 sets of:
21/15/9 Lunges
21/15/9 Push Ups
21/15/9 Side Lunges
11/8/5 Handstand Push Ups
21/15/9 Sit Ups
Time = 10:45
Bonus: 10 pull ups
Back to racing the clock, and I'd daresay I like how it went. Does this mean I'll make timed workouts a focus for next week? Honestly, that hadn't occurred to me until I typed it out just now, but that sounds like as good a plan as any.
Saturday
Type: As Fast As Possible
7 sets of:
7 Pull Ups
7 Bridges
Time = 6:00
Bonus: 1 pull up, 1 bridge
This was a good performance to cap things off. I missed my personal record by a single time segment, which was frustrating because I set a great pace (2:15 through the first three sets, which extrapolates to 5:15 for seven sets). Still, if I did this well once, I can do it again. A few more weeks of forging my body, and I'll be taking another crack at it.
