Took a week off

It's another double week update.  I'm having some issues with my wrists/forearms, and see how last week was pretty busy, I wound up making last week a "rest" week.  Here's the breakdown:

Week 1
Sunday: Workout A, abwork
Monday: None
Tuesday: Workout B
Wednesday: None
Thursday: Workout C
Friday: None
Saturday: Run - 1.41 miles outdoors (9:14 pace at 25 degree weather)

Week 2
Sunday: None
Monday: Planks
Tuesday: Walking lunges, shovel, Workout A, triceps pulldowns
Wednesday: None
Thursday: Pushups, planks
Friday: Run outdoors - 1.41 miles (9:07 pace)
Saturday: None

I laid off my full body workout to give my muscles some time to recover, but my main reason was to see if it'll help my wrist a bit.  I noticed that my symptoms are beginning to resemble golfer's elbow.  I know, I don't even golf!  But golfer's elbow is like tennis elbow but on the other side.  The issue mostly stems from grip.  I started researching tendinitis when I noticed my wrist pain sometimes emanates from a tendon near the inside of my elbow.  At one point, the area even felt inflammed.  Another time, I felt similar aches on my left forearm/wrist, which I hadn't sprained.  So, I'm beginning to think that my sprain healed, but now I'm dealing with overtraining/grip/tendon issues. 

I'm not even sure if it is golfer's elbow, but I'm approaching it by "treating" the suspected cause, which I think is a combination of my full-time desk job and gripping heavy dumbbells during my leg workouts.  Besides this recent "off" week, I'm reminding myself to focus on more forearm stretches.  I'm also occasionally massaging the suspected inflammed tendon.  To address the grip issue during leg workouts, I'm either going to have to get lifting straps or switch gyms, since my current gym do not have the proper free weights for legs.  My short-term solution is using the leg press machine in place of squats.  I'm still using relatively medium weights for lunges, so dumbbells can still work there.

I'm heading back to the gym this week, so we'll see how it goes.


Last weigh-in:
175.0 lb

Missing runs...

Here's another double update.  Work's been a bit busy, but here's the breakdown:

Week 1
Sunday: Workout A
Monday: None
Tuesday: Workout C
Wednesday: Planks
Thursday: Neutral-grip pullups, pushups
Friday: None
Saturday: None

Weigh-in:
173.5 lb

Week 2:
Sunday: Workout A
Monday: None
Tuesday: Workout B
Wednesday: None
Thursday: Workout C
Friday: None
Saturday: Run - 1.5 miles @ 2.0% incline (9:05 pace, with intervals at end)

It's been a rough two weeks for running.  Either I didn't have the time or I just didn't have the motivation to go out and run.  There was also the whole losing strength issue that I had, so I was pretty focused on making sure I got enough calories and rest to ensure my muscles would rebuild.  When I did finally go running, I wound up with some heavily-cologned guy "walking" next to me.  The cologne was so strong, I nearly had an asthmatic attack.  Even though he left before I finished, I had a slight wheeze by then.  This coupled with an already hard run (first time since two weeks), destroyed my hopes for that workout.  I was very annoyed when I left the gym that day.  Almost enough to write a post about do's and don'ts of working out at a gym.

Not sure if I mentioned it before, but I've been pretty bummed about this winter.  Usually, I'm pretty psyched about skiing and stuff, but I'm more excited about the warmer weather so I can run (outdoors), bike, and hike again.  The good thing is that it's nearly mid-February.  So, I'm going to start tackling my runs so I can get back into the swing of things by spring.


Last weigh-in:
174.5 lb