029F2: Gym Restart Challenge

Gym Weekend

Metro Manila Community Quarantine - Day 484

Apart from playing a few interesting board games with Tobie last night, the other big experiment for this weekend was going to the gym. I had finally gone back to Anytime Fitness just last Sunday, but this was the full weekend push and I was both excited for it and worried about it. The big goal was to cycle in weight training on the weekends and continue to do mostly bodyweight stuff during the week. But that also means two consecutive days of weight training whereas before this I'd typically slow down on Sundays and just do yoga.

I continue to rely on the Nike Training Club app for providing me with workout routines and this adapts to what equipment I have available. I've had most options toggled off for most of the quarantine and now I get to bring in everything from dumbbells, kettlebells, and medicine balls as ended. And for this weekend I did two different routines that I had never done before, so that added to the overall level of challenge. 

But I also didn't go too crazy based on how my first Sunday back went. I felt pretty tired even on the Monday after, so that told me that I couldn't go higher in terms of my weights. So my weight choices for this weekend factored that in plus a careful assessment of the actual exercises included in the workout sets and I think I made the right decisions for both days? We'll really know by tomorrow, I suppose. If I feel like crap while working through my Monday shift, I'll only have myself to blame.

I just hope that this helps to shake things up in my fitness efforts since I've been at a weight plateau for a while. I've been heavier these past two days versus the rest of the week though, so I won't hold my breath just yet. But at the very least it's a change in what I've been doing mostly the same exercises for more than a year now and I need a change. 

I'm just glad that I'm fully vaccinated, otherwise, I never would have felt safe about even considering going back to the gym. And my mask issues from the previous week were resolved with the help of a friend who introduced me to the brilliance of these KF94 masks whose design ensures that I don't clog up my nose with sweat-soaked face mask material. Breathing is kind of important when you're working out after all.

Oh, and our Saturday night was pretty good. We played a quirky mix of games that had recently joined our collection. First up was New Bedford, which is literally a game about historic whaling that was still a little trouble but remained fun and strategic. Then it was a lighter session of Wacky Races (as based on the classic cartoon series). We had played someone else's copy before and Tobie managed to get us a copy of it as well because the miniatures are LOVE. And our last game for the night was our collector's edition of Trickerion, which is a tricky game about magicians competing to put on the best show. We spent a lot of time trying to remember the rules, but on the whole, the game remains to be a delight and oddly elegant in its own way. We'll definitely play more in the future

Comments