Round 6: Day 57: Chest and Back

It's been awhile since I visited this blog, but never fear: I'm still motivated to work out. The balance of Recovery Week slipped by without incident (there just didn't seem to be much to report on), but it consisted of stretching, yoga, a little core work, some light cardio, and more stretching. There usually isn't too much to say during Recovery Week, so I took a mini-vacation from blogging my daily strains and decided to give my digits a few days off to recover as well.

Now, it's back to the grind, with a vengeance. This is the start of Phase 3, where the intensity gets dialled up to an 11 (which is 1 past 10), and major changes are supposed to ensue. Unfortunately, due to scheduling issues, I couldn't get my first workout in on Day 1 of the week, as I had to travel out of town for the day, so I'm going to try to make it up sometime during the week. Today, I did start Day 1 (preferring to start that way, rather than skipping it and commencing with Day 2) and launched into Chest and Back. I was supposed to have done this workout a couple of weeks ago, but substituted 30-15 at the time, again, due to being out of town. Now that I think of it, the summertime is the hardest time for me to adhere to a workout schedule because I tend to travel more on weekends and take more time away from home, which can make it tough to stick to a routine. The important thing is to make sure that you get some activity in, to make sure that your body is moving. Going off-routine sometimes can help you break through a plateau: it is, after all, the very definition of muscle confusion. As long as you're challenging your body, it all seems good to me.

I still love Chest and Back, no matter how many pushups I can do. I've really improved in my pushup abilities, probably because of the 30-15 workout, and I really look forward to crushing Chest and Back as a result. Today, however, I fell a bit short in Decline Pushups, managing only 25 each time, where I've been used to doing 30. The last 5 in each set were really tough, and ended with a minor collapse on the floor. I was surprised, because they're a distant cousin of the Pike Press, which I'm pretty good at, and, until today, had been competent in this move. Not to say that 25 is incompetent; I just had expectations of myself. Well, it makes for a challenge for next time.

Now, I'll have to find a way to get in an extra workout this week to make up for delaying Day 1. That should be interesting.