Welcome to another busy week with various activities, and even if I’ve been in my usual fitness routine, I sort of haven’t. I think some quiet weeks with proper sleep are very well needed here.
But I’m not complaining. Generally everything is good, we’ve had some fabulous weather, enjoyed some fun events, and my mysterious back/hip/whatever pain disappeared as fast as it came. The week in the gym has been very mixed, but ended with a good confidence boost.
In these posts I join a weekly link-up to share my weekly fitness routine and the ups and downs during the week with barbells, walking shoes or else. This is good for accountability, for my own documentation, the fitness/running blogger community is lovely, and I hope these posts might inspire someone to start lifting weights and generally getting more active. I usually also add in some bits from everyday life as well as some photos. Let’s get into it!
Here’s a summary of my fitness activity this week:
Monday – gym
Tuesday – walking, 5,63 km
Wednesday – gym
Thursday – walking, 4,88 km
Friday – gym
Saturday – walking, 9,58 km
Sunday – rest
Monday – gym
This session was a sort of follow-up from Friday with its softer exercise modifications. I felt back to normal and was happy to do some standard exercises, even with lower weights.
3 sets x 12 reps
- Back squats, barbell 50 kgs
- Lunges, barbell 25 kg
- Inclined flyes, 8 kg dumbbells
- T press-ups
- Straight arm pullovers, 9 kg dumbbells
- Barbell row, 30 kgs
- Upright row, barbell 22,5 kgs
- Shoulder press, 6 kg dumbbells
The squats and lunges all felt good with no complaints from my body. The T press-up is such a pleasant exercise! I struggled quite a bit with the rest of the session. We’re enjoying a nice heatwave at the moment – which to me only is a positive, but it also means hydration is more important, and I really need to up my game with this, no matter the weather.
Tuesday – walking
We have an old stone cottage-like house which stay quite cool inside. I prepared to go out for a walk, put on my usual gym shorts, tank top and a long-sleeve extra layer just in case, since it was still only 10 am. Then I got outside and… whoa! It was like walking into an oven. Anyone of you who are in the US or are used to Mediterranean-like climates will laugh at me now because we still only had around maybe 22C (77F). But warm weather in Ireland feels very warm! I didn’t realise this until we were in Sweden a few weeks ago. 17C feels cold in Sweden, while it’s tank top and shorts weather in Ireland.
I removed the long sleeved layer and went for my walk.
I think we had up to about 27C this day… absolutely lovely an unusual for our area.
Wednesday – gym
After the unusually warm day, sleep wasn’t great. And today we had rearranged my gym appointment for 9 am instead of the early evening. Despite the poor sleep I felt quite confident! But soon realised that yet again I lacked enough energy. Or was it just mental?
3 sets x 12 reps
- Deadlifts, barbell 35 kgs
- Step-ups, 6 kg dumbbells
- Dumbbell row, 17,5 kgs
- Parachutes
- Chest press, 12,5 kg dumbbells
- Renegade row & shoulder taps
- Forward raise, 6 kg dumbbells
- Bent-over lateral raise, 6 kg dumbbells
Today my left arm pain flared up again. Dumbbell row on the left side worked quite poorly, and the Renegade row didn’t work. After 1/2 wobbly set, we switched to shoulder taps instead. This is actually a very good core exercise.
The rest was quite straightforward but again I felt I had too little energy.
On a happy note, I loved doing weighted step-ups again! I have a complicated history with these. It’s of the things I think other people just do, but to me they’ve always been hard and close to scary. A few months ago I decided to ditch the fear and give them a try, because the rational part of me knew I was more than strong enough to do them. They are still hard but now I enjoy the challenge.
Thursday – walking
This was another lovely day with very warm weather! I went for a walk. My lower legs were upset so instead of taking the small cow road I turned the other direction for flatter route where I don’t walk frequently. It was beautiful and so warm!
When I walked back and looked up the hill, I saw a huge tank lorry coming down! I was glad my peroneals had warned me not to go up there!
Friday – gym
Again my sleep had been quite poor and I didn’t feel great. I woke up with some odd back pain – not like the one I’ve had but more like an unpleasant tightness. I didn’t know what to think of this. I did all the piriformis/lower back exercises I could think of, and sort of felt better afterwards but it was still too achy for my liking. I wanted to scream in frustration. But I also felt that it was mostly a general soreness and I suspected a normal training session wouldn’t be a problem.
I was also tired from the poor sleep, and did NOT want another poor performance gym session. I decided to try a few different things to maybe get my body to be ready for the gym, including a different choice of carbs for lunch (more complex carbs instead of white rice), boost hydration, and I also added electrolytes in one of my water bottles.
3 sets x 12 reps
- Bulgarian split squats, barbell 30 kgs
- Reverse lunges, 8 kg dumbbells
- Good mornings, barbell 30 kgs
- Straight arm pullovers, one 17,5 kg dumbbell
- Chest press, barbell 35 kgs
- Flyes, 8 kg dumbbells
- Shoulder press, barbell 15 kgs
- Lateral raise, 8 kg dumbbells
I don’t know what really made the difference but during this session I felt really good! My energy levels didn’t fail me and neither did my arm. The Bulgarians went really well, and at this point I think I dare to say that I have finally made good progress with them, because they are consistently going well every time with my new mindset/strategy (start on the weaker leg, start squatting asap before the brain knows what I’m doing). I’m stable enough and can focus more on form and a proper squat rather than ONLY keeping balance.
Everything felt good today, even the barbell shoulder press. I was very close to managing three full sets of 12, but failed on the 9th rep on the last set. I was still very happy with that. The lateral raises are a struggle and a bit ugly, but today I did better than I have most times lately. That was a good ending of the week that I really needed.
Saturday – walking
On Saturday morning, that odd back pain was gone. This day was a scorcher! We had 25C in the morning and probably a lot more in some places. It was a lovely day for a long walk! However, there were issues…
A few days ago we talked about how much fear there is about warm weather in Ireland and how we think the Irish government/media exaggerates risks of what we just see as nice, normal summer weather (20+ degrees, 68F and over) and how they promote all sorts of overly protective things. Sure, we always need to use sunscreen and make sure we stay hydrated properly and stay in the shade if we’re vulnerable, but some warnings are just too much for only like 20-25 degrees. My husband said he had read they warned about driving because the tarmac might get soft, and we laughed hard about that.
However, THAT SEEMS TO BE A THING.
I went for a lovely long walk of 9,5 km, down to the sea, then continuing on that same road along the sea to then turn back towards the main road and crossing it to get to my small cow road. And in a few spots when I stopped to take photos, when I was about to continue, the tarmac stuck to my shoes. I had to look for small stones to scrape it off, and in one place a small piece of the rubber sole came off. In certain areas I saw small shiny bubbles in the tarmac here and there.
How the actual **** do they make tarmac in Ireland to not have it withstand even 25 degrees (sure, the road gets hotter, but still)?? It’s not like we live in Death Valley?
The actual walk was fantastic! After arriving to the sea it’s a rather hilly route and another time I walked there, my peroneals screamed in agony and I had to stop to rest quite a lot. I worried a bit about that now since I had some problems with the ankles earlier in the week. I walked slowly up the first hill but felt good, so I was able to keep a good pace the rest of the way.
You know how I love photographing cows? There was a good reason I stopped and got tarmac stuck under my shoes. There were babies!
When I came to the abandoned cottage on the cow road, I saw the tank lorry parked up the hill, and decided to turn back and walk the same way back as I came, because I wasn’t up to sharing the small gravel road with that thing. And it’s a beautiful route so I didn’t mind.
In the evening we had our last gig for this year in the small town pub, and after a slow start it became a lovely night! Some of you asked to hear our music and this time I almost had a video to share because a lovely lady filmed us with her phone, but sadly the sound was way too bad. Another time!
Sunday – mostly rest
Some light garden work has been done, the rain has started and this will be a soft day of rest.
Reflections
My main reflection after this week is… after I started taking extra electrolytes I’ve seen a huge difference in wellbeing and performance. I felt great in the gym on Friday (drinking an electrolyte mix), I felt great during my long walk yesterday (drinking an electrolyte mix) despite very hot weather. I wonder if this has been the missing piece many times when I’ve lacked energy? As someone who isn’t an endurance athlete (unless hill walking counts), I’ve never even thought of the option of taking extra electrolytes. Now I’ll never look back, particularly during warm weather periods.
I got fed up this week with sluggishness and poor performance, and decided to make some changes. There are a lot of variables that affect recovery, how we feel, how we perform and so on… and while I’ve been out and about a lot lately, playing gigs, had late nights, travel, warmer weather and a lot of other things that would easily affect energy and performance, some of my everyday basics may need some attention. I’ll generally up my game with hydration, focus more on better sleep, and will modify my nutrition a bit to make it more of a full-on (but still protein-based) Mediterranean diet and I’ll be a lot stricter with avoiding unnecessary sugar. This may sound hard a few weeks before a holiday trip, but for me it isn’t really. I’m already so restricted with food (because of coeliac disease first and foremost) that making other changes doesn’t cause any more problems.
How was your week? How is the weather where you are? I hope you’ve had some good training highlights! Have you ever seen tarmac melt on the road?
Thanks to Kim and Deborah for hosting the Weekly rundown link-up!
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