You're Doing It Wrong

A funny thing happened at the gym today....

While I was taking a short break, I saw a guy with his personal trainer. He was learning how to do squats while swinging a kettleball up and down. His technique wasn't so good, but I think it was his first time. So I'm half paying attention to him, and half contemplating the next exercise I'm about to do when the poor guy suddenly swings the kettleball right into his nuts.

I was nice and pretended not to notice, and went right into a plank position.

The guy's workout was suddenly over. I only giggled on the inside.

I hadn't been to the gym in almost a week because of a pulled back muscle, but today I was back and worked myself harder than ever. I suffered on the planks, but I added a few elements to the workout today:

- jumping rope
- leaping up into the air after every Hindu squat
- supine plank (thanks, chernobylred)

Starting next week, I am shuffling my workout completely around again. I'll be doing weight training pretty much every day, with a focus on arms on the days when I'm not working the rest of the body. It's time to beat those arms into shape. They just don't want to progress, so I'm going to find a way to make them get built up.

Here's what I plan on doing:

Weeks 1 and 3:
- Wide-grip cable curl
- V-bar cable curl
- Preacher bench barbell curl
- Rope cable curl

Weeks 2 and 4:
- Wide-grip cable curl
- Narrow-grip cable curl
- Preacher bench single-arm dumbbell curl
- Rope cable curl with twist

And then I'll go back to my regular routine for a couple of months again.

Because the workout will be a lot shorter than my usual one, I think I'll add a bunch of cardio. I need it. My lungs have been shitty this summer, and the cardio will help bootstrap them back into shape, I think.

I've been hearing a lot about creatine, so I decided to do a little bit of research. I quite like the work on Quack Watch, so checked out their report. It looks like the longterm effects haven't really been researched, so I will hold off on experimenting with the stuff. The double-blind experiments look promising, though.

In other news, I have yet to hear back from any of the places where I applied for work. Boo, I say. BOO!