February 1, 2010 – Like I’ve Got Jello in My Shirt Pocket
Today is the first true weight training workout I've done in a long time. A very long time. Last week I did hit the pecs and triceps, for which I have been made to suffer. This week, after a brief warmup on the track I hit the Smith machine. Mr Smith, whoever he was, was either a brilliant engineer or a dark-hearted sadomasochist. The versatility of the Smith machine - particularly combined with a recumbent bench - cannot be matched by anything else in the gym. In one machine in 20 minutes I did pects, delts, biceps, triceps and pretty much anything above the gut. I even worked that little muscle in my lip that lets me sneer like Elvis when I'm overdoing it. Hey... Jordan sticks his tonge out, I sneer. Get over it.
The reason for the questionable choice of title is... I have a series of metrics by which I judge whether a workout was "good" or "bad". When my workout is cardio with high intensity interval training, my metric is "I'm soaked in sweat." When I'm doing weight training, it's how long after my workout is finished do I continue to sweat. This is one measure of how fast I'm able to recover. As your performance level increases, your recovery time decreases. So when you've pushed yourself beyond your normal envelope, you will take longer to recover from a workout. Tonight, I quit my workout about 70 minutes ago, but I didn't stop sweating until about 20 minutes ago. My pects and biceps continue to quiver because my body has not yet been able to resupply them with glycogen.
Tomorrow, I will add ibuprofen to my diet.