Going on about weights and exercise again

[avram]

Got back on the workout pony after slacking off most of last week.

• Weight: 280.5. I’d be more upset by this if I hadn’t weighed in at 282 yesterday. I’m still a little upset. Damn Passover food.
• Dumbbell bench press: 3 sets of 15 reps, with 15-lb, 18-lb, and finally 21-lb weights. I hadn’t planned to do the last for 15, but once I got past 10 I figured I’d just see if I could keep going. I may need heavier weights soon, or maybe more demanding exercises.
• Side deltoid: 2 sets of 15 reps with 12-lb and 15-lb weights, one set of 10 reps with 18-lb weights.
• One-arm row: 2 sets of 15 reps with 15-lb weight, 1 set of 10 reps with 18-lb weight. This was tougher than I remember it being.
• One-arm triceps extension: 2 sets of 15 reps with 9-lb weight, 1 set of 10 reps with 12-lb weight. Tough!
• Biceps curl: 2 sets of 15 reps with 15-lb weights, 1 set of 10 reps with 18-lb weights. In the last set I remembered to lead with my weaker arm to keep from working out asymmetrically.

I’m still pretty sure that I need a good source of cardio. I’m thinking about getting a portable mini cycle, which I can tuck away somewhere in between uses. I’m a bit dubious about the quality of the workout it’d give me, though.

Reading Jim Henley’s fitness entries in his blog has me thinking about HeavyHands. The basic idea here is that you walk at a good pace while holding small weights (1-6 pounds) in your hands and swinging your arms. The swinging is the important part. I know that even without holding weights, swinging my arms while I walked on a treadmill upped my heartrate considerably. So, on days when it’s nice enough, I could go out and look silly around the block for half an hour or so. (Ideally I’d have a treadmill so I could do this indoors, but ideally I’d also have enough money to afford a treadmill, and enough space to put one, and the power to convert ice cream into muscle tissue and win lotteries with my mind.) It looks like dumbbells cost around a buck a pound, so getting pairs of one- and two-pound vinyl or neoprene dumbbells is a pretty insignificant monetary investment, and oughta hold me for about three months.