On a Monday - this is serious

Not a Monday morning - God forbid but a Monday evening, I made it to the gym!

It was busy, I had to queue but it must have done some good as I ran for 7m at 10Km/h, which is a new high. It looks like I might just manage 12m before I go on holiday. On the cross trainer I stuck with 12m at level 13/25 and on the bike I moved up to level 6/25 and managed 9m30s before I hit the upper threshold of my heart rate. I was forced to slow down and only managed to squeeze in another 30s before the end of my 12m session.

I switched to the weights and managed 38 reps of my two upper body exercises. One is the standing row (pulling a t-bar up from mid thigh to chin height) and the other is the bicep curl (from a starting point with lower arms perpendicular to the body, pull up the t-bar up by bending the elbows but keeping them tucked into the body until it is level with the chin). When I trained seriously a few years ago I had built the resistance up to 40Kg on both exercises and with another, the tricep pull down, thrown in for good measure. Now I only manage 20 Kg and the reps are broken into 2 sets of 15 followed by an attempt on 12 but failing miserably.

The 75 advanced sit-ups were completed without any of the muscle cramps experienced on Friday night. I finished off with some back curls. The first set of 10 were straight up and down with a second set being held at the high point for a count of five. My back was a weakness last season (carrying too much weight upfront!) and although I didn't miss any games, I was often in discomfort for a day or two after the weekend. I finished by propping myself up on my elbows, lower torso flush to the floor, then raising and holding my legs from thigh down, off the floor for a count of ten. I managed that one 3 times before resting (and deciding it was time to go home!)

A quick weight check showed that I had shaved nearly another 1Kg since last Wednesday and I was a couple of hundred grammes off 110Kg!