I had a really bad workout on Monday.  It was upper-body day and I had to be at work late and didn’t even get to the YMCA until after 6:00.  Apparently that’s when all the kids come to workout or lay around on them machines and chatting with their friends while texting on their phones.  In the next 10-15 years we’re going to have a population surge of unfocused adults with no attention spans and an addiction to small electronics.

Anyway since there were so many damn kids on my lawn exercise machines I couldn’t do my workout in the order I usually do it in.  I had to start with shoulders, then do biceps, then back, then chest, then triceps.  Normally I do chest, then shoulders, then back, then triceps, then biceps.  It really makes a difference.  I was unable to successfully complete all of my reps and was sore in really random places.  I asked my fitness expert coworker the next day and he confirmed that the workout probably sucked and felt really weird.  Next time I’m bringing an airhorn or something to chase away kids.

The rest of this week has been good however.  I finally found my level for leg presses — and it’s 2 notches from the machine’s maximum!  Finally I can leg press to my heart’s content!

I think I’m giving up on the dragon game.  It only was really interesting for the first 10 minutes of the game and got frustrating from the glitches.  Besides today I was able to bike halfway through an alpine trail through some snowy mountains.  And all the other bikers were still in their spandex biker shorts!  Apparently frostbite isn’t programmed into the system.

Tomorrow is upper body day.  Manly grunting and pushing up of things!

Friday’s lower body workout was really good.  This was my third round of lower body workouts since I got this ball rolling and I still haven’t found the right weight-range for my quads.  I must have superhuman meaty quads, but very well hidden.  My hamstrings, on the other hand (leg?), took a beating which I could definitely feel the next day on my explorational stroll.

I finally found a way to do my calf-muscle exercises well with the stripped weight room at the YMCA.  Before they started renovating the building and hid the weight room in Narnia, they had a machine for calf raises.  Seems to me like a bit of a waste of a machine for just calf raises, but hell, I used it.  Now it’s nowhere to be found and I’ve had to use other things to get the job done.  First I used the leg press machine, but the angle was all wrong and I just ended up cramping my feet.  Next I used a squat machine which worked well but I had to manually add the weights.  I’d rather not go searching for the right weights when I can just turn a dial or change the notch on a machine.  Finally I remember that some people do exercises without machines!  I did my calf raises like this but with my heels halfway off of a mat so I could stretch the muscles a little further the other direction without putting my weight back on my heels.  It worked well and got a good workout from that.

I’ve stuck to doing crunches for my ab workouts, but one day I’ll get around to using the ab machine at the gym.  But I think I should wait until I actually have some abs.

Speaking of the rest of the tracks, the first time I saw someone riding one of them I could have sworn they were in space on some kind of moon trail.  It turns out I was right.  It’s under the really difficult tracks, and it’s not one of the premium tracks so I think I’ll bike in space on Saturday!

On to the dragon game.  The idea is to pick up tokens of 4 different colors then go ram into dragons of the same color.  Unfortunately it’s no more violent than that — no dragon splatter on the screen or in the tire spokes.  It’s a fairly cool game, but it really needs some kind of multiplayer component.  If I could play with someone else right next to me then it would be awesome.  On it’s own it’s a cool way to exercise, though.

Except for the damn water.  If you fall in the water you lose points.  Lots of points.  Which increase every time you fall in the water.  Or get near the water.  Or give the water a dirty look.  Seriously, I rode around a lake and then suddenly I was back at the beginning with a big -3000 flashing across my screen.  Thanks game.  Those 1000 point silver dragons on the top of the mountain were loads of fun to get, but now it’s even better now that I have 0 points again.

The game keeps track of all your vital stats just like the regular trails which is nice.  It’s also nice that you can set the exact amount of time you want to run down dragons.  Since I’m supposed to do 20 minutes of cardio I can just set the timer for 20 minutes and go about committing vehicular dragoncide.

They have screenshots of the game here.

Tomorrow is lower body day.  Legs and abs, get ready for the burn!

Overall I was happy with my chest and back exercises.  I did the chest press machine and then followed up with pec flies.  For my back I did the lat pull machine both sitting up and inclined.  The system I use recommends switching up your exercise at the end for some reason.  Hitting your paradigm shift and striving for the core or something.

The plan is to start at a “level 5″ intensity.  I figure a level 4 is something you could do all day, but a level 5 actually takes some effort.  So I do 12 reps at level 5, 10 reps at level 6, 8 reps at level 7, and then 6 reps at level 8.  I increase the level by increasing the weight I’m lifting.  At the end of the exercise I do 12 reps at level 9 and then 12 reps at level 10 (the max).  That’s the goal at least.  A level 10 is where you absolutely can’t get another lift out and you’re done.  If I think I could have probably gotten another one out then I rate that a 9.  The idea is to do that with short breaks for each muscle area.  Since today was upper body I did chest, back, shoulders, triceps, and biceps.

I also kept track of where I started and where I ended up.  I can now look at it and say I did really well and was happy with the back exercise, but I wasn’t too happy with the shoulder exercises.  That’s probably my weakest — I was only able to get 16 reps at the end part of the workout before my arms felt like there were going to fall off, explode, then melt into the floor.

I have a little place to make comments like “start shoulders at 40 with longer rest time = more reps” and “GO GO BURN!”  That was my comment after my back exercise.  It was awesome and manly and immediately sprouted new hair on my chest.

Tomorrow is dragon smashing time.  I’ll let you know what that’s all about.

Instead of dreading it however, I look forward to it because of the Expresso exercise bikes … FROM THE FUTURE!

Today’s trail was around some kind of ancient ruins.  The same kinds of problems still arose, but this trail had a pretty good downgrade that the program would actually let you coast down!

I actually signed up for the service because you get access to a lot more trails.  There are several that are locked out and only available to “Silver Members” which you probably pay for, but for free I got all kinds of cool locations to “bike” in.  Right at the end of the menus though was some kind of game where you bike around and run over dragons.  I’ll definitely check that out on Thursday.

Tomorrow is upper-body day so hopefully I’ll remember my notebook and I’ll have all kinds of really boring stats to share!

So next time I do weights I’m going to start bringing my notebook.  I getting sick of trying to remember where I need to start on a particular exercise — starting a hamstring exercise at the same weight as a quad exercise is a good way to hurt yourself.

Sunday was lower body day again.  I like this one because there are only 4 main exercises I need to do and it doesn’t take too long.  I can’t live at the gym all day like some of the other people there.  Remember Mr. Dinner Impossible?  I’ve been at the gym at different times over the weekend and he’s been there every single day.  Barrel-chests can’t be done on a half-ass schedule I guess.

My YMCA is doing some renovations which means that the rooms that actually matter to me — the weight room and the exercise machine room — are now hidden away through a labyrinth of hallways.  And it’s not like they’re trying to hide those machines — you can actually see sweaty people through the windows outside — there just isn’t a direct route to that area.  There’s a door you’re not allowed to use that leads directly there, and I’m sure the employees have some kind of underground tunnel system or a teleporter.  The suckers customers have to traverse the maze.

Yesterday I was determined to get some kind of exercise on a machine instead of just wandering around my tiny community.  The exercise machine room has a variety of machines and technology levels.  In the same room they have ancient exercise bikes with no digital displays, tread mills with simple digital displays, and finally exercise bikes that the writers of Back to the Future would have crapped themselves to see.  It’s like playing Civilization when your division of combat tanks runs into angry guys with spears.

So I decided to give the exercise-bike-from-the-future a try.  I’ve seen bikes with TVs attached to them which is neat, but this one had a video game attached!  You choose your trail and you can bike around a redwood forest, a race track, and supposedly up to 30 other scenic areas.  After choosing your track and adjusting the level of your pacer (mine was set at the arbitrary level 70) you’re off biking!  I wish I could say it’s just like being there, but the graphics are a little primitive.  It’s more like biking through Norrath than an actual forest trail, but it’s better than staring at a wall.

Actually the game was really fun.  You have a fair amount of control of the bike.   I never tried biking off the trail, but the details are good enough that the trip is interesting.  For example on the redwood forest trail you pass a campsite and go through a tunneled out tree.  The pedals change resistance when you go up or down hills although the downhill is kind of lame.  To keep you pedaling and working the whole time, the bike slows to a stop rather quickly even on an 8% downgrade.  So you can’t exactly speed downhill with your legs out hoping you don’t crash, flip, and break your neck, but I guess that’s not the point of an exercise machine.

Today is lower body day, so I’ll need to get going soon.  And get lunch.  And go get a haircut.  Take that lack-of-motivation!

I think I need to change up the order I do my exercises.  I couldn’t finish all the reps I wanted to for my shoulder exercises after I was done with my chest exercises.  It’s hard to look uber-manly stopping after 3 reps.

On a related note of manliness, I really don’t like the free weights.  Since I’m just starting off I can’t lift the same size weights as half of t the other guys in there.  I prefer the machines where I can hide my newbie weaklingness.

Having been at the YMCA 3 days this week I’ve begun to notice the same people there.  There are the regular extra-beefy kinda guys and a surprising number of old people.  I say good for them!  I hope that when I’m 108 years old I can pump iron with the best of them!

The two most noticeable patrons are either clones of or related to some Food Network celebrities.  Robert Irvine and The Chairman apparently workout at my Y!  I haven’t spoken to The Chairman, but from my interactions with Chef Irvine, this version must have been cloned in Germany.  I swear I could see the umlauts when he pronounced the word ‘pool.’  Besides the accent, this guy could pass for the real chef with his own family.  Same barrel-chest, bald head, mighty nase, and even the same glasses!  I swear it takes all my willpower to not propose an absurdly themed dinner party to be prepared in under 4 hours.

And once again zombies prevented this update from being written yesterday.  Nazi-zombies in fact.  A terrible blight they are.

To my surprise the only kids outside playing on this beautiful September evening were two kids in a back yard on a trampoline and another running around breathlessly peddling magazines for his school.  I politely declined citing my obligation to support my own school.  Plus I’m cheap.

To make up for the diminutive size of my neighborhood, I could have kept going up the road for 5 minutes, but instead total rockage ensued on the drums.  Total rockage for 15 minutes before my Xbox decided it didn’t like my disc anymore and refused to read it.  Back to Gamestop the disc goes!

Tomorrow is upper body which is pretty fun.  It’s more fun when I remember my mp3 player.  I should probably find it.

My routine is one day do upper body weights, next day do cardio, next day do lower body weights, and then cardio again.  Then I repeat that pattern varying the individual weight exercises.

I’m sure at some point I’ll bother to pay attention to what I’m eating, but that’s expensive and my membership at the YMCA is free.