I hate titles

Seriously, I never have anything good for a title. It's not like my posts have specific themes or any subject to focus on. Everything is just me rambling! Haha!

Ok, so, lots of stuff. First, my productivity has increased a million-fold due to 2 seemingly minor changes. The first being I got my DVR! And it's freakin' awesome! Not only does it allow me to enjoy my favorite shows while not planning my life around them, not only does it save me time when I actually do watch them by skipping through the vast hell of commercials, NOT ONLY does it find when my shows come on *for me* so that I don't even have to remember when they're on, but it also has my shows waiting for me when I get home from work or from the gym, it reminds me hey don't forget, you wanted to watch this, so I took the liberty of recording it for you. Thank you, DVR *pets*. I've actually been able to watch MORE of my favorite shows (shows I have no idea when they air, but I always watch if/when I stumble upon them) in LESS time. I feel fully in control of my television viewing. Just last night I was out with friends, and I came home to find my shows recorded for me, allowing me to enjoy the best of both worlds. Also I then watched a 1-hour drama, and 2 30-minute shows in just about 1.5 hours. How's that for productive television viewing!

The second producitivity-enhancing change I've made is that I finally moved all of the blogs I read into Google Reader. One year ago I didn't even read a single blog, and here I am now, with so many to read that I actually need help reading them, haha! But yeah now I hit one "refresh" button and find all the tantalizing new posts instead of repeatedly checking each feed several times per day. Productivity! Of course in the couple days that I've set it up, I've subscribed to another handful of blogs, mostly cuz it's so easy to read them now...oh well!

So with all this productive laziness (really, that's what TV viewing and blog reading is), I thought I'd be in the gym more. The DVR arrived Friday night (didn't set it up until Saturday morning), and I did the Google Reader thing on Friday night. I didn't go to the gym all weekend! To be fair, I wanted to go on Sunday, but by the time Josh conceded going (he insisted wanting to go, that's why I didn't go without him), the gym was going to be closed in 1 hour. So we didn't go. Stupid useless 24 hour fitness not having 24 hours on weekends. Now Saturday...I want to say that I wanted to go Saturday, in fact prior to Saturday, I proclaimed that I wanted to go on Saturday. But I think when Saturday actually rolled around, being lazy looked really good.

I did go on Monday though! And without a worry about missing any of my shows. In fact when I got home I discovered it had recorded FOUR shows for me! Now let me tell you, I didn't even think Monday was a TV night. Apparently it is! And I got a workout in and didn't miss any of my shows.

As for the workout...I felt at the time that it was bleh. It was about 9:30pm when I got there, and the place was freaking packed. There were as many people there as there are right after work, usually! I like to start with weights (and by "I like to", I mean "I did that last time and it worked out nicely so I'll do that again"), specifically with legs so that they have time to recover while I do arms before I finish up with some cardio. Even more specifically, I like to do all the leg machines before I head into the weight room to finish them off with squats before I do arms. Yeah, yeah, machines are crap, free weights for teh win. Well too bad! I like the leg machines :P Arm machines are another story. So literally, EVERY SINGLE leg machine was taken. It was ridiculous. So I'm like ok, let's see if the core machines (abs and lower back) are free. Nope! Neither one! So I had no choice but to start with squats.

So, my form on squats is awful. Not really awful in that I'm doing it "wrong" per se, but I haven't got the flexibility required to do it fully correctly. I switched from the Smith machine to the Power Rack, per StrongLifts.com advice. Wow is it hard to balance that bar. I didn't topple over or anything, but just a very different experience. I started with no weight on the bar, to work on getting down lower. I can only go lower if I go on my toes, which is wrong, so I simply don't go all the way down. I felt weird sticking my butt out into the weight room with like 4 guys literally standing behind me. Oh well. I did the 2nd and 3rd sets with 20 lbs and it was really hard. I read somewhere that for a woman in her 20s who is "fit", she should be able to squat 75 lbs. I'm like good lord! So yeah, I have a long ways to go apparently. Better get more flexible!

I felt like my squats were awful. My heart rate was up, like last time, but I wasn't feeling any sort of burn at all. Like, AT all. I was horribly disappointed. Since I was already in the weight room, I went to do arms next. Do you know what? DO YOU? EVERY single weight bench was taken up by guys who were standing around drinking their Gatorade that they weren't even working hard enough to burn off and texting. What the hell do you come to the gym for if you're just gonna stand around texting?!

So, I was planning on trying bench presses this time (with a barbell) instead of dumbbell bench presses, so that was ok...for now. I took one of the bench press seats, removed all the weights (laaame), and tried it out. It was HARD. I was lucky to get out my 10 or 12 reps (can't remember how many I did). My 2nd set I could only get about 7 out. My 3rd set I reached actual, complete, total, utter failure on the 6th rep and was trapped under the bar. Josh being the great spotter that he is, just stands there going "what should I do?" Maybe you should lift the bar off of me! Haha! So I gave up after that. You'd think that would give me a pretty good arm workout, I mean that bar was HEAVY. I read that its 20kg or about 40 lbs. The last dumbbell bench press I had done was 15 lbs each, so 30, so the empty barbell was a big step up. But it didn't feel like I was doing anything, looking at it.

Next I wanted to do seated overhead dumbbell presses...but oh no, the texting whores were still at it. Completely useless. So I decide ok, I wanted to take on the standing overhead press (using a barbell), but alas both the 20 lb and 30 lb barbells were taken. The only other arm exercise I planned on doing were barbell curls...but again, the barbells were taken. So now I had done 1 leg, 1 arms, and was extremely frustrated.

I headed back to the regular room to check on the machines. Aha, free. So I did some leg presses (the same weight as last time, 195 lbs, which was difficult but manageable), some leg curls, etc, etc. On the lower back machine, last time I had worked all the way up to 75 lbs. This time I started at 75 and found it laughable. On to 80, easy as pie. Move it to 85 lbs, still pretty easy. Up to 90, ok finally it's the right one! So wow, my back got a whole lot stronger than I thought it would! My back felt great all last week, so I know it's really helping (surprisingly, since my problem is internal and not muscle-related). I look forward to seeing what it can handle next time, making sure not to throw more at it than I can safely handle.

Finished up my machines, back to weight room, finally the texting guys had left and the benches were free. But aha! So were the barbells! So I didn't even use a bench after all. I did 20 lb curls (difficult), and then started on 20 lb overhead presses. After 1 set I thought it was too light, so I got the 30 lb barbell. After 1 set of that, which I barely made it through, I felt like I was gonna puke, which is a sign of both being dehydrated and pushing yourself too far. So I cut my losses and stopped the weights right there. I'd rather do that much and not puke than push myself to finish the sets. I got some water (ok, a lot of water), and felt much better. Hopped on the elliptical for 40 mins, and that was that!

Two days later, I'm extremely sore, and now I can't go to the gym tonight. Well I might be able to...but bleeeeh. But still, apparently I got a better workout than I thought I did at the time. Still need to work on that hip flexibility so I can do better squats, though!