BFL – Day 8
I made it past my 1st week of BFL without too much drama!
Last week Thursday and Friday my legs were in shock, yes I think “shock” is probably the best word to describe them, because every time I descended any stairs, or had to sit up or down, it felt like 50,000 volts of juice was being sent through them. Kyle wasn’t joking when he said that I would think of him with every step I take. I even parked closer to the gym on Friday so as to try and avoid the single flight of stairs I have to take to get there. Didn’t help because even walking downhill was agony.
When I finally got into the gym I warmed up on the treadmill for about 8 minutes, walking at a fairly brisk pace (for me). It helped to loosen me up before we began the shoulder and back exercises. I think Kyle took it easy on me though, because apart from a slight bit of tenderness in the left shoulder that only appeared on Sunday morning, I was nowhere near as sore as I had been on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday! We finished off the 45 minute session with some rowing. I did 15 minutes, which is a record for me on that machine. I never thought I would say this after my first experience on the rowing machine, but I actually enjoy it the most out of all the training machines they have for cardio. Those elliptical trainer things just don’t do it for me. I find them awkward to operate and the circles you make seem like very unnatural movement.
I decided to follow my friend Graham’s advice and switch my free day from Sunday to Saturday and I am glad I did. We went out with some family to a dodgy little curry place called “The Thirsty Horse” which is located around the back of the Hotel Brittania on Umgeni Road. I didn’t have a bunny chow, as did most of the other family who we met up with there, but I did have 3 Castle Lite beers and they were great! I suppose I could have had the bunny chow, but you know, I just felt that it was going to set me back too far on the BFL course. I worked my ass off in the gym that whole week and the thought of putting back a whole lot of calories in the form of white bread and oily curry just didn’t appeal to me. I did eat a wors roll later on that evening, but on Sunday I successfully overcame another curry temptation in the form of my Father-in-law’s famous mince curry for dinner on Sunday night. I took my own veggies and had half of one of those Woolies chicken pasta salads. I don’t think the salad quite makes the grade on BFL, but its total fat content was less than 13%, which is OK in my book.
I am using an app for my iPhone called Runkeeper which allows you to track any cardio workouts you do, both in the gym and on the road. Using that app it’s not hard to see that I am improving my fitness levels all the time, but I don’t really need the app to tell me that because I can feel it in the amount of work I have to do now just to break a sweat. Prior to joining the gym if I walked up a flight of stairs I was sweating. Now I have to go hard for at least 8 minutes on the bike before I feel the sweat begin to ooze out of me.
However, in the midst of all this happy news is something more than just a little concerning for me. I cannot train my upper body properly because of this shoulder injury. In today’s session I managed a few sets of bench press, but as soon as I tried to do incline bench press, my right shoulder simply wasn’t co-operating. Since my fall off the ladder in December I have been battling with shoulder rotation. It feels like there is something clicking inside there as I try to rotate it. Any other exercise is mostly fine, except for bench press. So I have made an appointment to see a local GP who specialises in sports injuries and let’s see what he has to say. Hopefully we can get it healed faster with some treatment.
On the nutrition side I am finding it a bit tougher than last week, mainly because of a lack of variety I think, so I also intend looking up some good recipes this week. I guess there’s only so much chicken one can eat!
