23 July 2012

Post-workout musings

I don't know about you guys, but after a good workout, I am absolutely parched! That's probably why my favourite post-workout snack is this:

Grapes and ice cold water. Oh yes. Delicious, cold, juicy grapes... Oh how I love thee.

I had a tiresome workout today, and I'm not quite sure why. All I know is that I was absolutely spent after an hour and I still had some exercises and cardio left... I accidentally skipped my crunches (d'oh) because I completely forgot, and I only did 6 minutes worth of rowing, I think. Not an awful lot... Though I don't know for sure, since therapist Mark told me of the fishing game on the rowing machines and challenged me to break his record, so I'm more focused on playing the game than on how long one round of fishing actually is... It's so much fun, though. You are a medium-sized fish and you need to eat the tiny regular-sized fish and avoid getting eaten by the big fish because that costs you points, and you move your fishie up and down by rowing faster or slower. My record so far is 1470 points. The score to beat? 2120. I've got a lot of work to do still. He promised me a big bowl of blueberries though if I ever do, so I'm determined to beat his score. I'm a sucker for free fresh fruit...

I've been playing around with the cardio programming on the bikes and elliptical machine but it's throwing me off a bit. There's one called 'Extreme Heart Rate Interval' and holy mother of Bob is it Extreme. With a capitol E. It calculates your top heart rate (I think mine was at 163) and then builds up levels as you go to get you to that heart rate faster, and once you reach it, it makes you drop to a low rate by dropping levels again, in my case 123. But the problem was, I never got down to that lower rate! I was so frustrated, because I have a pretty high heart rate and it was pretty much impossible to get it down to that low rate! I tried again today and, following Mark's advice, also slowed down my pace and focused on my breathing to allow my heart rate to drop. And I did reach the lower level! It was a pain, though, to peddle at a speed that was waaaay slower than what I usually do. (I went from an average of 95 rpm to 80, it felt like I was standing still! (which I was, technically, since I was on a bike and a) it was a stationary bike, and b) I was sitting down.))
I've checked with previous recorded sessions on my heart rate monitor and the amount of calories burned was pretty much the same, so it did not have a negative impact, but still. It's weird to work out with doing way less than you're used to doing.

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