Hi all… It has been a long time. I mostly do the Facebook these days. But real world fitness has been a huge thing for me for eons so that is where we are right now and it deserves a post!
A few years ago I got a real job. No longer self-employed but at the beck and call of children. And now I am a teacher with my very own room. Thrown to the wolves! Literally! Sort of. If you get hired as a teacher you better know what you are doing coz no one is gonna tell you! I got hired and dropped off and the silence was deafening. I had a trashed room and in a week maniacs were descending. Anyway, fast forward 2 years (after 2 years of being Building Sub) and I am still alive. Astonishing! I work with ye olde challenging kids. It is so dang cute. But I have had less time for fooling around. So my fitness has plummeted. I also now live in an apartment in a suburb. (Im on good terms with the ex and the kids are fine.) …Next to a freeway. Thank God I discovered a 3-mile nature path hidden in the easement… So, again, I am still alive. Yes, fitness ties into everything.
I have always short-suited workouts, but now we are getting silly. I have NO HILLS anywhere around. So on my drive home I stop at a sled hill and run up and down it. Whew. I have purchased a garage sale Bowflex HVT robot machine. It was $100 and it works like a $1k Concept 2 Ski Erg — and more! I can attach a canoe or kayak paddle to it! I have my Theraband tubes up in a tree still. And my Chuck Norris slider. …Giving my tiny backyard a proper redneck look. A meager 80-lb bar for a few squats. A trashed bench-presser with leg-extension.
I have been biking the 12 miles to work when it is warmer than freezing. I ride through 4 communities and even at 7am sometimes only zero cars pass me. It is dang nice.
But… I can only do 10 pushups and 3 chinups now. I cant even run a mile. Its bad. Yet I can run a LITTLE. And I can do 5 chinups with an elastic helper. …What a great discovery that was! If you cant do pull-ups get a Crossfit band and start doing pull-ups! Lighten the band over time if you can. (my apostrophe and m keys dont work right, either, unless I do ridiculous workarounds. No time for repair shops anymore.)
Yeah I am 62 but that is not the problem! The proble is that I used to exercise 1/2-hour to 1.5 hours a day and now its more like 3 minutes to 1/2 hour, unless I bike to work.
Nobody does CX around here anymore so that is gone. I have finally gotten dropped well and good from the local Fast Ride. I can still do the gravel and mtbike rides. But I did not canoe once last year! No seakayaking and rolling in several years! It is bad, people. I really want to do better. I wish there was a local gym with the cool machines I want. Like the multi-Hip! Even Zwift is starting to allure me. Our winters have been SUCKING so my skiing is way down.
I am trying to find a path forward. At this time all I can think of is basic calisthenics and using my machines a bit. Then add the rest on top.
Oh, and I got a Nordic Track!
I try to do the Robot and the Nordic Track while watching a video on a table somehow, but this only lets me last for like 5 minutes on these things. I can go for 10 minutes on the Robot plus a cellphone playing Curb. What I am thinking is that a reboot of the old Marines bodyweight calisthenics card-deck sorta workout is what I need. Of course I cannot refind the
workout I recall from a decade ago. But I probably am close. I found some things. I recall I found something that seemed like a couple dozen stretches. Anyone know? But now I see lists of simple exercises so I think I will try one. Then I will add the XC skiing, tele skiing, citybiking, roadbiking and mtbiking plus canoeing and rollerskiing on top of that.
WISH ME LUCK! Thats all I got for now.
