So today is Monday. And after a weekend of travelling almost 1,000 miles in the car with my awesome future in-laws, eating tons of AMAZING food, (hello, Culver's!), and drinking some awesome independently brewed beer, (thank you, Tanner and Port Huron Brewing Co. for the smooth Honey Blonde!), I woke up this morning with a hung-over butt and loose lower belly.
Back to the living room we go!!
As a nightshift girl, I am queen of "routine". My fiance has learned that in order for me to be at my healthiest and best-functioning, I have to have a routine. A sleeping routine, an eating routine, a work-out routine...everything is scheduled, and routine definitely has a place in my day-to-day life.
But like all things, routine can get boring. And messed up. And hard as hell to maintain when you want to do fun things like travel, go to weddings, go to tractor and steam shows, get sick, plan a wedding, work....
I think you get the idea.
During this last weekend of travelling and digging some awesome new food and drink, I made a vow to myself to take advantage of the small "fitness room" that was part of our hotel. As in, I packed a bigger bag, rolled my work-out clothes and IPod into small little balls, stuffed them into my shoes, and made a promise to myself to get up early Sunday morning and hit the gym before we climbed back into the car for another 7 hour car ride back home. Maintaining my routine on the road, right?
In reality, we didn't get checked into our hotel until like, 12:30-1:00AM, (without giving too much info away, we had a pretty sweet-ass time), my alarm went off at 7AM and after five days of not sleeping, (I worked Monday through Weds, didn't sleep well Thursday night, we left Friday morning, didn't get to bed until later Friday night, and Saturday night was wedding festivities), I was acutely exhausted, and therefore wasn't BUDGING out of the king-sized bed in our hotel room. My salvation in this was that Monday through Friday morning, I had managed to hit the living room consistently.
I guess I subconsciously anticipated my lack of resolve after sleep deprivation.
Feeling a little guilty, I did come to a personal realizaton that in order to create balance within my life, I do need to be more flexible. Back in the day of being a "gym rat", I hardly EVER missed a work-out. Monday was legs, Tuesday was chest and arms, Wednesday was back and shoulders, Thursday was legs and abs again, Friday was "active rest", (gym rat cop-out for "nothing at all"), and Saturday and Sunday were modified "living room work-outs". (The gym was open only for limited hours these days). In other words, with a schedule like that, you miss a day? Well, then you run the risk of looking like a misproportioned cretin. Therefore, skipping a day was out of the question!
Since my "fitness revelation", I have been much more consistent, and I have also enjoyed a much higher quality of life. My work-outs no longer last an hour and a half, (because unless you happen to be Chuck Norris, who could really physically handle an hour and a half of Jillian Michaels?), and I no longer have to be a slave to the clock. I have eliminated drive time to and from the gym, I don't have to shovel down my dinners before work, and I have more time to read and write.
Plus, my social life has improved immensely. If I miss a work-out to go to a wedding, or head down to my friend's house for some target shooting, I don't have to fear looking like a hunchbacked Hulk, or being cranky because "I missed chest and arms today!"
Changing my regimented routine was definitely tough. After committing myself to such rigor for almost a decade, it was hard to wrap my brain around 1): not focusing on a 100# bench press, 2): giving up the idea that "fitness" does not limit itself to a strict diet of precisely cycled cardio and strength training, and 3): "Functionality" is "fitness". If you can bench press 100#, it still doesn't mean that type of strength is functional in the "real world". Especially in my line of work, where nurses are taken out of commission all the time due to injuries on the job. From that, it has always been my goal to be strong and fit in order to keep myself in the profession for as long as possible. And after focusing on high-intensity, high-repetition body-weight and dynamic movement training, my back doesn't hurt as much, my core is so much stronger, my ergonomics on the job are much more efficient, and I don't tire near as quickly as I did before.
And my flexibility has improved. Both physically, as all the upper-lower body combination movement has made me much looser and stronger, but also in general. Overall, my perspective on life, fitness and fun has taken on a much rosier and optimistic outlook. So I missed a day due to target practice? Well, then tomorrow, we'll bust out "No More Trouble Zones" and tack on a quick routine from "30-Day Shred." I no longer feel so down on myself if I miss a work-out, or have a borderline anxiety attack that my back and shoulders are, as we speak, shrinking down to the size of prepubescent girl's.
I'm telling you, this is the psychology behind the dedicated "gym rat". Sick, but true.
Before we left on our trip, I bought an issue of "Muscle and Fitness: Hers". And truth be told, for about 10 minutes, I really did second-guess my new lifestyle. I saw the beautiful, sculpted tanned musclature of these women, and after reading some of the articles, I really did have some thoughts about bagging this whole process and return tomy tried-and-true routine of Monday-Legs, Tuesday-Chest & Arms, blah, blah, blah.
But I stuck with it. I decided that this magazine shouldn't be seen as the "what could've been", but rather, "what could be". During the car ride, I pulled out the magazine, and began studying the exercises, trying to come up with ways that they can be done at home with the lighter weights I already own, or modified to be done without standard gym equipment such as weight benches, a cable pulley system, etc.
So today, after missing my work-outs for about two days in a row? I decided to ride my bike in my 80% MHR range for 50 minutes, and then did an upper body series with biceps, triceps, back, shoulders and chest. I was able to take the 21's I saw in the magazine and did drop-set 21's for biceps and triceps with 10#, 5#, and 3# dumbells, and modified the bent-over back flye to be done over a chair. 15 push-ups and some chest flye drop-sets to exhaustion and a lighter-weight shoulder series rounded the work-out out. To keep it calorie-burning, I tried to eliminate "rest periods", and just kept the sets moving. An hour and 10 minutes later? I was in the shower, trying to wash my hair with shaking shoulders. And now here I sit, back in my overalls, sitting here at the table enjoying one of my favorite pastimes: writing.
Routine can be overrated.
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