Today marks my first day with trying to be a good li'l nugget and taking a cup of the protein powder every day like I discovered I'm supposed to be doing. So far, this is the third day in a row.
All of that aside, I still wasn't making it in tonight if I didn't get in a nap beforehand. And even there, I was struggling to breathe enough to stave off dizziness. Still. I made it.
Bike(Cardio): 30 minutes. Started at level 11, added a difficulty level every 10 minutes. Ended at level 13 with an average of 82 RPM. Burning over 100 calories every 6 minutes, according to the machine. The first 9.5 minutes were easy; I had somebody on the machine next to me to draw inspiration from/compete with/'latch onto'. And sure enough, the moment they got off the machine and moved across the gym, that was when my RPM dropped from the high 90's and low 100's into the mid 80's, where it only got lower as the difficulty raised.
It's deeper than a sudden loss of motivation. But that is definitively the largest chunk of it.
Bench Press (115 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks.
Pec Fly(120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks.
Abdominal Fuse (120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks.
Leg Extension(120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks.
Seated Leg Curl(120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks. Easier and easier. I am now doing 30 reps without break, albeit slowly...and yet, slowly is better than not at all. Speed and ease will come with practice.
Leg Press (120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks. My octane came and went for this one. The first 8 reps were agonizingly slow...and then a random thought triggered a major spark, all the way through rep 21...and then up to rep 26 was slow again...only to go to a decent pace for the final 4 reps.
Chest Press(120 lbs): 30 reps. This one frustrates me continually with how difficult I find it. Still, I am only 60 lbs away from maxing it out. And from there it's just a matter of adding reps.
Shoulder Press(120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks. I had to continually check to make sure I was on the right weight...it just didn't feel right. I flew through 26 reps with the ease I'd managed on 20 lbs lower with dropset days.
Lateral Pull-Down (120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks. Again...I came right through 21 of the reps solidly, and with machine-like pace. And then just as suddenly as I noticed this, all of it went bye-bye.
Lower Back Fuse(120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks.
Seated Row(120 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks. Another one of the trouble exercises. I still got through it.
Bicep Curl(30 lbs): 30 reps, no breaks.
Tricep Extension(35 lbs): 15 reps with the left arm emphasized, 15 with the right, no breaks.
Weighted sit-ups: One 45 lb and a 25 lb plate on my upper chest, 30 reps, no breaks. This one was agony...but I did it.
Weighted back raises (Draping myself from the waist down across a bench, raising from the waist up until back is straight with a 45 lb and a 25 lb plate clasped on my chest) 30 reps, no breaks. I ultimately decided to take my headphones off for this one. The cord keeps drooping down onto my shoulder/over and getting tangled up with my arms and the weights. Irritating as hell.
Incline Elliptical(Cardio): 30 minutes, level 12 difficulty. Managed a consistent average of 121 RPM at 164-179 heartrate. There was a 5 minute period where my heart-rate jumped up to 192-191...but I didn't feel any different.
Power Press: 70 lbs. 11 reps, no breaks. Tolerate a lot more indeeed...
Rear Deltoid Fuse: 70 lbs, 30 reps, no breaks. I got there. Though the tempo between reps was agonizing. So, just to make sure I'm getting the most bang for my buck, I did one set of 30 with my grip on the sideways handles, and one set of 30 with my hands on the overhand grip handles.
Reverse-grip Bicep Curls: 50 lbs, 30 reps, no breaks. The ease I managed this with considering my misplacement of it from my original plan is re-assuring.
3-finger Fingertip pushups: 5 reps, no breaks.
Tonight's musics come from the Dark Souls II OST, the "Scholar of The First Sin" DLC.
One thing I equally love and hate about the Dark Souls series is how it reminds me of my own humanity, which I often worry that I've lost/am losing over the years. The stories of the characters in the first and second games especially are deeply heartbreaking to me.
The character Aldia, who gets to retain his consciousness and a form of life, having watched everything he and his brother built turned to ruin, said brother reduced to a violent, functional vegetable, and knowing his own responsibility in all of it every step of the way, wandering over the years, is no exception. Many boss fights in this series are obvious "Mercy Kills", but you still feel terrible for actually doing it if you stop to think about everything that led up to their current condition.
The only re-assurance is the hope of the ending you get from defeating his character, and the potential "New Path" to be forged in the storyline. Perhaps one that, in that game's universe, will end that particular line of tragedy. And, as also revealed in that ending, Aldia is not as dead as he appears, at the end of his boss fight.
I had discovered this soundtrack this morning, and set it on loop in my mental iPod through the course of my work day. The effects on my psyche were...predictable. I was very sad, for most of the day. But, that too has its benefits. I am much slower, and more attentive to the weaker ones around me, even the ones I am technically enemies with, when I feel like my heart's breaking.
And, when that course of depression always hits its peak low, where the heart starts to murmur and try to stop working on me, there is always that same, reliable, explosion of survivalist rage.
Which works out very nicely for me, considering today was a gym day, no?