I Have A Vein!! Ewwwww!

So, blogging a little late, but thought I would jot a quick note about yesterday's P90-X level of misery, I mean exercise routine. Yesterday was Day 3 for me and it was Arms and Shoulders followed by the infamous Ab Ripper impossibility I discussed on Sunday. The day didn't start off so well as my initial efforts at rolling out of bed seemed to be met with complete rebellion from my entire musculo-skeletal system. It seemed that whatever way I wanted to move, every muscle in my body was flat out refusing. This was not good as I had slept through my alarm and was close to being late for the first patient of the day at the clinic.

I eventually restored control over my limbs and forced my aching muscles into action and started my day. I have not felt this sore in, well I don't think I have ever felt this sore. Am I sure this is good for me? Clinic was interesting as I was moving more slowly than most of my patients. I think I may have been going a little quicker than my 90yr old patient, but that is debatable.

The session for today was arms - loads of biceps and triceps stuff with some shoulder work tossed in for good measure. This was another session for Gold's so I loaded up my exercise sheets and headed for the gym. In the DVD that I watched the night before they kept going on about not using too much weight as the repetitions would mount up as the session went on. I selected 15lbs for biceps and 10lbs for triceps. My triceps are not that strong and the left one is still complaining about the tearing incident from earlier in the summer.

The work began, and like a lone sentry I stood swinging from elbow flexion to elbow extension and all the time soaking my t-shirt with more and more sweat. This is why I was doing this at Gold's. Yesterday, when I did plyometrics at home and dumped my wet training gear of in the bedroom it left a rather unpleasant aroma that my wife was not too thrilled about - so there will be no more of that.

To be honest, I was really enjoying this work out. I can do arms. And then I saw it. Oh my goodness. Right there, running from my elbow, across my forearm towards my wrist. This bulging. pulsing VEIN!! I dont know about you, but for me the whole vein popping look is not that attractive. I am not in this to become some muscle bound hulk, but there it was, beating away like a junkie screaming for a fix. The thought did cross my mind that if I ever needed to give blood all I would have to do is 200 biceps curls with a 15lb weight and there would be a vein standing up that the proverbial blind man on a galloping horse could find.

The arm workout was enjoyable, what happened next was just embarrassing. It was time for the repeat of Ab Ripper and so I lay down in preparation for the first of the 11 exercises that were going to turn my beer keg of a belly into a six pack - allegedly. I got as far as the "Wuh...." of "one" and realized that my abs were still on vacation from Sunday night and this whole crunchy frog thing was just not going to happen. I needed to adapt the Ab Ripper to rip them in some alternate fashion. To add insult to injury, my lower back had joined in the pity party and was complaining about being sore or something. Inside my head it was like all the different parts of my body had convened a meeting that I wasnt invited to, but could just hear " Waah, waah, waah, waah..." though the door.

I followed the example of the apostle Paul and sat down and had a donut - well I am sure that is in the Message version somewhere, but I had the NIV so "I beat my body and make it my slave ..." (1 Cor 9:27) and went over to the abs area and punished my core with sets of 25 reps of obliques, crunches, power crunches, Captain crunches and apple crunch - well that is what I was thinking of as I was finishing up.

My work out done, it was time to retire to the solitude of the shower and once more navigate the trickiness of applying shampoo to your head when you cannot lift your arms above your shoulder height. Today was a better day, Yoga tomorrow - yeah, right. I am already skeptical of that one, but we shall see. Oh yeah, that's right - I dont have the Yoga disc, Marty does. I guess I can leave the one piece leotard in the closet for another week. This guy probably should have too. Until tomorrow.