Well, I made it through another week. Â I’d like to say it was without incident, but that would be a lie.
I took up doing HIIT running (20 seconds at full bore sprint, and 10 second walk, repeat until you’ve got nothing left. Â Which doesn’t take that long.) Â On HIIT day 6 of 10, I managed to step in a hole, do a fantastic flying tumble, recover, take two steps, and face-plant. Â Dang. Â It was also my first attempt at an “ab day”.
Part of the Ab Day stuff was hanging from the chin-up bar and doing various incarnations of leg lifts. Â Something happened in my shoulder (possibly from the impact of the face plant, too), and I ended with a loss of range of motion and lots of pain for two days. Â Which meant, I actually skipped one scheduled workout day. Â Bummer, but I’d rather take a day off than risk further injuring myself (I was also a bit down about the whole “pre-cancerous tissue” thing.)
But, I picked up and continued on after skipping one day.
So, after 3 weeks, what do I think of my progress? Â Hm. Â Well, I’m putting on muscle mass. Â I’d love to put it on even faster, but it’s not exactly a process I can speed up much further – I’m going just about as fast as I can go.
My gut is becoming more “shapely”, for lack of a better term. Â You can see – even unflexed, and letting it all hang out – that the underlying tissue is getting better, and I’m regaining the outline of the abs (I’ve never had six-pack abs. Â I’ve gotten close before, though even when I got close I still didn’t have a “flat” stomach.) Â Flexed up, you can see a bit more definition, and you can see there’s been some fat loss involved – the skin ends up “textured” when I tighten my abs and flex. Â I still look ridiculous flexing, of course, but that’s never gonna go away 😉
For a while I’m going to lay off the HIIT runs, and go back to the 7-Minute morning workout on alternating weeks (I think starting tomorrow, depending on how my day goes.)
For the previous three weeks, leg days have been optional – it gave me a way to let myself be lazy for a day if necessary. Â Starting in week 4, no more optional – leg days are mandatory. Â Sundays are “ab day”, which becomes my optional day (Sundays I have First Geek Congregation to do, which takes a good chunk of the day.)
Soon, I’m going to have to figure out how to get ahold of some kettle balls (35lbs and 60lbs) for stone throw, weight over distance, and weight over bar training. Â But, I’ve got a couple more weeks before I absolutely have to have them to start training with.
So, I guess I’m happy with progress. Â It’s only been three weeks, so I shouldn’t expect miracles 😉 Â This isn’t a sprint, with instant gratification – it’s a marathon of workouts. 🙂
