Following Monday’s workout, I found myself a bit sore on Tuesday, with some pretty sore legs by Wednesday. Despite the soreness, I was excited to see how the second day would go. I got up early, got a banana in me for a bit of fuel (still taking it easy on breakfast as I have no desire to paint the gym floor), and headed out.
The warm-up today seemed pretty reasonable. Another 400m run, followed by three continuous sets of: 10 lunges, a bear crawl (all 4’s) across the gym, 20 leg lifts (aka scissors), and long jumps (bunny hops) back to the initial side of the gym. The 400m run felt good, and I made sure to take my time to make the warm-up truly a warm-up, as opposed to Monday’s excitement. The lunges went fine, the bear crawl started out easy, but by the time I reached the far side of the gym I remembered why those were a good warm-up exercise. The first set of 20 leg lifts felt great through about #16, and the long jump back was kind of fun. Round two, though, was a bit different. My pulse was up, I started breathing more heavily, and the 10 lunges were uneventful. The bear crawl really started to push me, the leg lifts began as a quick respite (on my back) until about #10, then they weren’t so much fun. And the long jumps back had my legs all a flutter (especially seeing as they’d started out sore). Round three and things just started to go blurry. Lunges were OK, bear crawl started to really burn, leg lifts began to burn at about #6 of 20, and the long jumps back were a challenge.
Once I’d finished the warm-up, I had a few more minutes to walk around and continue stretching (recovering) due to another class finishing up in the gym, something I greatly appreciated. Our “lesson” of the day was about dead lifts and sumo lifts. We worked on form with just 20 pounds on the bar — this bar work still feels uncomfortable, especially since my previous experience with bar bells was all upper body and/or closely-spotted exercise. I want to really focus on form to minimize any possible injury, so am happy to take these slowly. Even with the light weights, as I focused on form and moved slowly I could feel the burn in my legs and triceps from the sumo dead lifts by the time I was done.
All right, on to the “workout of the day” for me. First off, Chris asked if I knew what burpees were. I did, having done them (and had my kids do them) as a volleyball coach. Chris’s, however, were a bit different than I was used to. Upon reaching a standing position with each one, I was to jump with my hands overhead (not something I’d done before). The goal was to jump 6″ each time, but Chris said he just wanted to see daylight under my feet for today. The workout itself was pretty straightforward — as long as it takes to complete a pyramid of 10 burpees followed by 10 sit-ups, with the goal to always keep moving. If rest was required, it was to be taken standing up. That means 10 burpees, 10 sit-ups; followed by 9 burpees, 9 sit-ups; and so on, all the way down to 1. Sounded simple. I knew there had to be a catch, and I quickly learned it.
The first 8 burpees or so went fine, and I really had to push on the last in order to keep my legs moving, and was glad to move right into sit-ups, forgetting how tired/sore I was already before starting. Managed the 10 sit-ups, jumped right back up into the burpees (9 this time), and managed about 4 before things got rough. Oh crap. I’ve done 14 burpees, with 41 left… not a good sign. I struggled through the nine burpees, eventually moving to “crawling” my legs back up to stand up by the end of the set, before jumping into sit-ups again. Which were NOWHERE near as easy as nine sit-ups should have been. Pushed myself through them just in time to jump up and start on the set of 8. Chris mentioned “good job, it’s getting easier each time!” Unfortunately, I’m pretty good at math, and the factorial of 8 was still a pretty big number in my head. So I focused on trying to do a set of 4 and of 4. Unfortunately, even getting through the first set of 4 had me spent. Made it through, though, with miserable form and lots of dragging of body parts. On to the round of 7. Chris called out “you’re more than halfway there.” Again, I’m pretty good at math — but I didn’t have the breath to argue with him. Let’s just say it didn’t get prettier from there. I did manage to finish them all up, taking several standing rests along the way, but finished up absolutely spent.
I managed to stand up and stumble around the gym as I regained my faculties, knowing this is going to help me in the long run. Not much time for recovery, my daughter had a ballet recital down the road in 5 minutes. I thanked Chris, stumbled to the car, drank a pint of water, and it was off to the recital. Day two down, excited (and apprehensive) about what day three will bring!