Going to be more sore tonight

In continuing with the pain of movement from yesterday, I went up to Velocity Sports at lunch today for another workout. If I keep this up, those extra 20 pounds my knees are complaining about should be history in about 124 days, give or take 2 days Gee, and only 21 days to make a habit. Joy.

Kris didn't go today, something about "work" and "projects" and "sleep." In reality, I think he wanted to mutter "world" and "warcraft," but stopped when he saw the look in my eye. Who needs daylight to work? That's what evenings and nights are for.

The workout was as always, a long warmup followed by a workout. This particular instructor is a big fan of the 3 rounds of 5 exercise stations, each station for 60 seconds, 45 seconds and 30 seconds for the first, second and third rounds respectively. Today's stations were:

Squat jump with weighted ball
Pushups with one arm cross stand
75% running on the track
V ups
Supine row

The squat jumps were with a medicine ball: I used the eight pounder, having learned my lesson last week with the ten pounder. From a squat position, with the ball resting on the floor, held between both hands, stand quickly, moving from a half squat position into a jump, lifting the ball overhead in the jump. Land SOFTLY, and return to a squat position.

Pushups with one arm cross stand started with a normal pushup, but from the top of the pushup position, rotate the torso 90°, lifting one arm up to the ceiling, and looking up at that hand. Basically, in to a cross position. Hold for a count of two, then return to the pushup position, then lower back to the floor. Repeat, rotating the other direction.

Supine row was done with a barbell on the rack about a yard off the ground. Lying underneath the bar, reach up and grab the bar. Then, keeping the body straight, in a sort of reverse pushup, pull the chest up to the bar. I managed maybe three in the first round, before the instructor suggested I bend my legs, in order to maintain good upper body form. Made it much easier.

With the progression of the three rounds, I did progressively better, as I figured out what I was supposed to be doing, and how to do it. I managed in the second and third rounds to keep the two guys in my pod from passing me in the 75% runs by actually running at my 75% effort level, instead of just running with no focus. I think one of the guys was a bit annoyed that he couldn't pass me. Felt good to annoy him.

I also managed to increase my supine rows from 8 to 10 by the third set, which isn't bad, as I had half the time to complete that number in the last set, when compared to the first set.

So, I did okay in the workout. The warmups were more interesting to me. They're usually a workout in and of themselves. This particular instructor's workouts always seem hurried, like he has so much he wants to get in that he rushes everyone. I felt the same way last week, too. He doesn't wait for the slower people, to the detriment of their warmups. Like my warmup.

However, today, he pulled out the ladder, so I lined up first in line when he moved to it. No way was I going to be behind someone who slowed me up on these things. I hadn't forgotten how much I really like warming up with ladders, and by golly was I going to be first!

And, by golly, was I happy I was. Most of the class (read: all but one other person besides me) were inexperienced on the ladders, expressing beliefs that the instructor was making up the ladder drills to do. He wasn't. I recognized all of them, but one. I also surprised the heck out of him, when I followed him through the ladder, as quick as he had been, with fluid motion that clearly indicated I had done ladder work before. I even accelerated a few steps after the end of the ladder, broke down my run, and turned back to run back to the starting line.

Only to wait for the other 9 people in class to go through the line.

Probably good that I had to wait. I would have tired myself out too quickly without the rest.

What I found interesting about this particular part of the warmup was the lack of experience on the ladders that several seemingly athletic people in the group had. I would have expected them to have ladder experience. Or at least more coordination at learning new skills than they had.

What I also found interesting was the lack of speed one of the other women had. I expected to have difficulty keeping up with one of the athletic women in the class, during the 100% acceleration part of the warmup.

I didn't.

Maybe she doesn't have that first five steps quickness. Maybe she's injured.

Maybe, just maybe, I psyched myself out unnecessarily. AGAIN.

I don't know. I just do know that my 100%, inspired by a desire to keep up with her, was faster than her 100% for those two warmups.

And yeah, I'm being stupid. They were WARMUPS. Yeah, yeah.

After the workout, which was done by 10 until the hour, the instructor offered "mud ball," which is a game of passing a swiss ball (those are the 36" inflated exercise balls) among team members, without travelling or handoffs. Six catches makes the other team do six pullups.

Given my experience last week, I declined to play, opting to stretch out my right hamstring, which has been giving me problems when I don't stretch it out regularly. I was very glad, two minutes into the game, that I chose not to play.

The first incident had one classmate lunging too far to block a pass, and flying with the ball in front of him onto a wall mounted rack, puncturing the ball, and bouncing him back. Not five minutes later, two other classmates were jostling for the ball, and went over, landing on the wall, bouncing off, landing on the swiss ball and sliding off, all while missing the sharp corners of a jump box by maybe 2". Maybe.

During the game, I saw with some satisfaction, more of the frustration I had last week, of some people playing under certain expectation of play (a restart after a contested play, no travelling, more than 6" passes that look like handoffs, things that annoyed me last week). I commented to another classmate sitting out that the rules are so ill-defined, no one should be surprised at any contest. She said, yeah, we kinda make them up as we go along.

"Mud ball? Bah. We should call this Calvinball."