Today, I decided to start things off with the fingertip pushups. I had been foiled before, and in sheer frustration I was determined to get my six. A part of me said go for the gold, go for 7, but...nah. Just in case.
Elliptic Machine(Cardio): 50 minutes at level 6/30 difficulty. This was where I first noticed that something was...wrong. I continually dipped into the 82s, 84s, and didn't even catch it as quickly as I normally do. Conversely, there were several great periods where I made myself do 95 RPM, 101 RPM, and 108 RPM, for 1-2 minute bursts. A couple of those per 10 minute time slot. But it was a lot harder for me than it should've been.
I ended having burned 571 calories. :D
Bench Press (60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. Relatively as easy as 36 reps were last week.
Pec Fly(60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. I continually felt like I was about to have to add in the neck muscles, and maybe even lean into each rep, from roughly 14 onward. Luckily, I never actually did...but still. It was there.
Abdominal Fuse (60 lbs): 60 reps, no breaks. E-Z-P-Z. The only thing that continually threw me, was while clenching my core muscles when scrunching, it kept pushing the wind out of my chest as well, so I was constantly out of breath. But this weight doesn't even challenge my core anymore, so that amounted to nothing and nothing.
Leg Extension(60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. My knees kept popping during this one. Mostly the right. I was worried about it, but after the third pop on the right knee and the louder pop with the left knee, it stopped, and the legs even felt completely fine. By the end of the set, I was dragging.
Seated Leg Curl(60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. Again, by the end of the set, the fatigue had set into my deep leg. It was almost painful to finish the last rep.
Leg Press (60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. From roughly rep 12 onward, each one was slow. So I had time to lose myself in memory, the distant ticking of my mental counter being my main anchor to what was going on around me.
Chest Press(60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. Again, way too difficult for things to be normal. I scanned a few different factors in my habits while I was doing this one...
Shoulder Press(60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. While walking to this machine, it occurred to me that it had been at least 15 hours since I last ate. Mental note made: Never try this shit, with those circumstances in play, again.
Lateral Pull-Down (60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks.
Lower Back Fuse(60 lbs): 60 reps, no breaks.
Seated Row(60 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks.
Bicep Curl(20 lbs): 37 reps, no breaks. I got to 30 reps before my arms failed me the first time. A first; Normally they fail me sooner, and I have to shake them for a sec. The final 7 were easy enough.
Tricep Extension(25 lbs): 37 reps. 19 emphasizing the left arm, 18 emphasizing the right arm, no breaks. The usual fits of fatigue that impact how high I can raise my arm about halfway through were absent, today. Odd....
Fingertip Pushups: 6 reps. I flew right through this, and aside from one raw quiver in the chest at the completion of the sixth, I genuinely did feel like I could've done the 7th.
Bike(Cardio): 50 minutes, beginning at level 6, kicking things up by 1 difficulty every 5 minutes, ending at 15. One of the tenants did me a huge favor, whether he realizes it or not. He came along when I was dropping into the low 50's and mid 40's for my RPM, on level 14, with 10 minutes to go.
Fun Fact: Dis Penguin is hyper-attentive, even when it really is too damn taxing on the brain those senses feed to. Overheated, undernourished, and obviously fading, I was paying as much attention to him as I was the new song I discovered a day before coming to the gym. Setting a mental ticker on par with each pump of his legs, which was exponentially quicker than my own, according to what I could see in the peripherals. And, subconsciously, I began attuning to it. Making it a lower functionary command as opposed to a draining, higher functioning, overloading mechanism. In maybe a minute, I was back up to 105 RPM, where I used mental visuals to go with the music I was using to trigger another adrenaline rush.
As soon as the chill began to fade from my torso and my respiratory system started recovering, I used the surge of energy to spike all the way into the 120's, which I maintained for about 2 minutes before inevitably crashing back down to the 100's, and then being dragged right back down to the 50's and 40's. This took a further 3 minutes to complete.
And a minute later, I was pulling the trigger once more.
I ended having burned 476 calories, with my strength rapidly returning to base not long after I had stood up.
For tonight's musics, I guess I can share this diddy I found a day ago. It's from the Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance soundtrack, which, to hear diehard Metal Gear Fans, is the only redeeming quality about the game. Main Character is a cyborg ninja with subtle (and parts that are not-so-subtle) weeabo in his character execution. The song itself is decent, but it isn't as good if you omit the context of where this song is used.
It's inspirational, but it's not suplexing-a-robot-the-size-of-a-skyscraper-while-a-guy-yells-"RULES OF NATUUUURE!"-in-the-background-inspirational.
That line is the title of the song, and it also triggered memories of a coworker at my first job ever, who wound up becoming my boss, during the one day we got to share free-form exercising on some trails together. Every time he'd run up a fallen gigantic tree for pull-ups from an otherwise impossible to reach branch, or every time we'd get out of the steep creeks we'd jumped into by finding handholds on the thin root endings poking through the dirt, or every time we stopped for pushups, crunches, and burpees in the middle of the trail, it was preceded by his declaration "TEST OF MANHOOD!"
Subconsciously, I caught myself replacing "RULES! OF, NA-TUUUUURE!!" with "TEST! OF, MAN-HOOOOOD!!" Particularly appropos, given the context of today's regimen.
Enjoy. :D