After yesterdays minor set back – I slept in – the first day of my Getting fit at 40 campaign finally got going this morning. I’m not going to lie, it was a tough job dragging myself out of bed at 6.00am. It would have been all too easy to switch off the alarm clock again and snuggle into my girls sweet booty and fall straight back to sleep for another couple of hours.
A quick shower and I was almost feeling alive! Just what do you eat before an early morning workout? I wasn’t feeling hungry… but if I never ate anything I knew I wouldn’t have the energy to workout – the 15 minute walk to the park would have been a struggle on an empty stomach!
My early morning workout breakfast consisted of a glass of fresh orange juice, 1 medium sized banana and 1 slice of wholemeal bread smothered in strawberry jam. The body needs fuel for energy and oh boy I was going to need all the help I could get!
For the next 6 weeks I plan on sticking to the basics during my park workouts – old school body weight exercises and some jogging. When my fitness level improves my workout routine will became more advanced.
The planned exercise routine:
5 minute warm up.
Press ups 3 x 10 reps
Squats 3 x 10 reps
Chin ups – whatever I could manage
Dips 3 x 10 reps
Arm Curls 3 x 10 reps – I have bought resistance bands.
Sit ups 3 x 10 reps
Jog for as long as I could manage!
5 minute cool down.
My actual exercise routine – my first proper workout for 8 years!
5 minute warm up – various exercises that I remembered from my kick boxing days. The last thing I want to do is get myself injured!
Press Ups: I thought 3 sets of 10 reps would be a fucking breeze! First set was easy, second one was a struggle and third set I only managed 5 reps
Squats: 3 sets of 10 reps. Fairly easy, back in my gym days I was a heavy squatter!
Chin Ups: 3 sets of 4 reps. Not easy… a killer of an exercise.
Dips: Once again I thought this would be easy, but it wasn’t 3 sets; 10, 7 and 5 reps.
Arms Curls: 3 x 10 reps. Not easy… nothing is going to be easy for a long, long time. I’m seriously out of shape!
Sit Ups: A real struggle. I managed about 3 reps. My lower back is painful at the moment – bad posture, which I will have do something about. Instead I did 2 x 10 of crunches.
Jog: I managed about 200 metres. My lungs felt like they would explode and my legs were burning. I guess this wasn’t a surprise I have always detested jogging ever since I was forced to do cross country running on a Friday afternoon way back in my secondary school days! The worst day of my school life was when I qualified for the cross country running team, I think the PE teacher was a fucking sadist who knew how much it would upset me!
Cool down: I felt good known that I was almost done and still alive!
The 15 minute walk back home was a struggle. At least I never felt like throwing up, which was a good thing. However I did feel totally fucked!
My first workout was tougher… a lot tougher than I was expecting. Things can only get better and easier, it will just take time, along with a lot of effort and pain!
Tomorrow I have arranged to meet a friend for some tennis… if I can still walk!