pre shabbos hike 19 and 22 July 2019

My pre shabbos hike this past Friday was once again in extremely hot weather. I'm not sure the length but by the end I was melted into a pool of water and my legs felt like jelly. I hiked until I could hike no more. The purpose of my hike was not only for the exercise but in search of Chantrels, a delicious mushroom that is highly prized by chefs and foodies alike. Hopefully in the coming months while we still have summer and light fall weather I will find my prized gourmet mushrooms during my hikes. While I didn't find these particular ones I took lots of pictures which included some pretty but non edible species as well as other scenery and a golf ball.

Today (the 22nd) while I didn't do any formal exercise my work was walking up and down three flights of stairs with trash and boxing up books in very hot weather without air conditioning with exception to the short break I took on the first floor. I did this for 6 hours today. I think I can count that as exercise though. Tomorrow will be the same but possibly longer hours.

first circuit training

Today I was still sore my sunday so I wasn't up for my usual 2 days of the exercise app as my workout so I instead made a smaller circuit training workout. This was the first time mixing it up since I started training again. The order of exercises was push-ups, sit-ups, and squats with a ten pound weight and each round went as follows

10 push-ups
10 sit-ups
16 squats

7 push-ups
12 sit-ups
18 squats

10 push-ups
10 sit-ups
13 squats

7 push-ups
10 sit-ups
13 squats

9 push-ups
12 sit-ups
18 squats

10 push-ups
12 sit-ups
19 squats

This came to a total of 53 push-ups, 67 sit-ups, and 79 squats with a 10 lb weight.

new exercise challenge milestone and long hike

Yesterday I reached a new milestone in the most amount of push-ups, sit-ups, and squats done during my exercise challenge workout. I was especially pleased with my push-ups progress as I was also able to push myself to continue until reaching failure which at that point I continued to do more push-ups with one rep sets to complete my intended goal for the day. My push-up sets went as follows 5, 7, 4, 4, 6, 7, 5, 8, 5, 5, 4, 3, 2, 2, 1, 1, 1, 1 = 71 push-ups My sit-up sets went as follows 8, 10, 8, 8, 10, 11, 8, 12, 8, 8, 12, 7, 6 = 116 sit-ups My squats sets went as follows 13, 16, 10, 10, 13, 14, 16, 16, 11, 11, 16, 17 = 163 squats Today I went on a hike and during my hiked I traversed a from point on the Wissahickon Trail to Devils Point then from there to the end of Cresheim Valley Creek. It was truly a beautiful hike to appreciate the beauty of G-d's creation. I am not sure the distance but was a solid several hours of almost constant movement. It was a wonderful time and I hope to do this more often. I plan on traveling by train the next time on my own so I can start figuring out the direction of the trails on my own.

day 6: progress not perfection

Today was my sixth exercise day in my long journey back to strength. Today my exercises consisted of the couch to 5k as well as the sit-up and squat challenges. Something I noticed during my running were legs legs getting tired before my lungs did. Probably b/c in order to meet the minimum of 3 runs per week I had to put two days next to each other and having one day rest in between runs may help. On the other hand it does show progress in terms of my cardiovascular health. My sit-up sets today: 5, 6, 3, 5, 6, 7, 6, 7, 6, 6, 8, 9 = 74 sit-ups my squat sets today: 6, 8, 5, 5, 10, 11, 7, 11, 7, 7, 11, 12 = 100 squats

Work out day 5: A small push-up milestone

I am still working on a gym membership and will likely start one after I have car in the next week or two. Until then I am doing my challenge workouts and couch to 5k. I will continue those when I have a gym membership as well but until then these will be my main focus. Yesterday's exercise was push-ups and couch to 5k with a small milestone in my push-up challenge routine to celebrate. Yesterday I did 50 push-ups! My push-up sets: 3 4 3 2 4 5 4 5 4 4 5 6 4 As far as the exercise challenges I have decided to make them slightly more challenging by doing two days at a time and at the end of each "day's workout" to add one more set with one additional rep than the highest rep that "day" although yesterday ended with a 4 so I could reach 50.