Welcome back to another fitness recap! Writing has been slow lately, photography even slower, and the weather this week was mostly about clouds and sideways rain. We even had a thunderstorm one morning!
This week was crazy busy with back-to-back Christmas parties, Christmas prep at home, but I also got back on the bike and had some good times in the gym.
This post is linked with the Weekly rundown link-up, hosted by Deborah and Kim. It’s where fitness bloggers get together to share their ups and downs with fitness and training, whether it’s about strength, running, cycling or something else. It’s great for accountability as well as inspiring and supporting each other. We also include some bits from everyday life if we want to. Let’s get into it!
Monday - gym day
I'm back to heavier weights with 4 x 6 reps. I did a few weeks of this program in November when I wasn't in great form, and I was surprised to do this again so soon. But since I'm now more confident in the gym again and can do quite straightforward good lifting, I'm delighted to get some extra oomph in time for Christmas.
Today it was leg & shoulder day. I did squats, lunges, deadlifts, lateral raises (standard and bent-over), and shoulder presses. The squats and deadlifts were a bit heavier than the last time I did this kind of program, with squats at 55 and deadlifts at 45 kgs. The lunges were the same weight as in November (45 kgs), which is still quite intimidating but I felt more confident with them this time. The squats and deadlifts both worked very well.
For shoulders I used 8 kg dumbbells for all exercises. My first few lateral raises were on the shy side but I soon got into the flow, and the remaining sets and exercises worked fine. I was delighted with this session to say the least. Now let's keep up the good work, and please niggles, stay away!
Tuesday - a bike ride
Last Sunday I tried our new Zwift bike for the first time, and really liked it! Our previous indoor bike was a spin bike and I wasn't a fan, but at least it was a decent tool to get some cardio training done. This one has a much more natural feel and is of course much more integrated with Zwift features. I did 10 soft km on Sunday, and today it was time again. After my heavier squats I didn't want to go crazy, but still have a little bit more challenge. I chose a route of 7,4 km and 81 m elevation. Or so I thought!
After 7,4 km I never saw a finishline. Nothing told me I had finished the route, or had I gone blind? Normally there are good indications that you cross the finishline (although you can do more loops if you want to). I kept pedaling, thinking I had chosen the wrong route. The uphills were brutal, particularly for my post-squat legs, and after a few more km I gave up and finished anyway. Then I had done 10,37 km with 118 m elevation. I surely won't do this again the day after some heavy squats, but I'm glad to be back to some cycling.
In the evening it was time for the first of two back-to-back Christmas dinners, this time with the group of Tuesday night session musicians. We had a great time with good food, wine and dessert, followed by the usual music session.
Wednesday - gym day
Today I was back in the gym to do chest and back. With 4 x 6 reps I did inclined dumbbell chest press, flyes, barbell chest press, dumbbell rows, barbell row and pullovers. The pullovers were now increased from 17,5 to 20 kgs (one dumbbell only) which was quite doable - a big win! The biggest challenge was the dumbbell chest press. For me inclined is always tougher, and 15 kg dumbbells is quite heavy! It's just recently I've been able to do these unassisted. Today everything was good in the first two sets, then in the end of the third I started to struggle a bit, and for the last set I wasn't even able to get them up to starting position. My trainer started helping me get them in place but I wasn't in sync at all, and it was a fail. After this my confidence had fallen a bit but I was fine doing the flyes. Then I was supposed to do chest presses again, with the famous 47,5 kg barbell. It actually worked quite well, believe it or not!
In the evening I went to the second Christmas party, now with the camera club. It was nice, but I was way too tired for any true enjoyment.
Thursday - rest day and tech bummers
Finally a day with no plans! The weather was too bad for a walk, and I wanted to spare the legs for Friday's gym session. A rest day? Not so much.
I decided to move my photography blog onto the new platform. But there was some trouble, and when I tried to fix it I made a mistake and accidentally locked the root user out from the server. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, let's just say the server stops working. The rest of the day I was miserable and questioned my existence. But my lovely husband laughed and said "this is only the beginning" and described some awful mistakes he's done. Now the server is up again with some different and better configurations. It turned out he had already planned to reinstall it, and it was good to have a reason to test the backup and see how fast it was to have everything back online. Still, I really stressed out! That was that about trying to have a rest day.
To make up for the lack of photos lately, I have a recap post up on the photo blog, and here's a rose I photographed in a friend's garden in Sweden a few years ago. Let's at least pretend summer will be back soon.
Friday - gym day
It was gym day, legs and shoulders. It was a straightforward, good, solid session. During this kind of program I always worry about Bulgarian squats, haha! I've been having a hard time with them with normal weights lately.
I did Romanian deadlifts which were increased to 45 kgs, sumo squats at 50 kgs, split squats, upright rows, forward raises and lateral raises. Everything was good! I was particularly happy with the RDLs - I started realising that I'm getting close to the weights I used to lift before I got in trouble with my lower back/glute, and now I do them better and feel much more confident with them. That's some good progress.
Another soft weekend
Yesterday we had sideways rain again and winds up to 82 km/h. I worked on some photo editing and planning a better workflow for it in the future. Flipping between 4-5 different apps isn't a smart thing to do! After ditching Adobe I've been exploring a few different options, and now finally I've made a decision about what to use as my primary tool(s). Next year definitely needs to be more about actually creating photos rather than fiddling with editing apps.
Today I need to do some house cleaning and more Christmas prep. If there's time left I'll get back on the bike.
And what about the mouse saga? The stream of mice has slowed down and we haven't really seen any this week, but we've seen signs they are still there. The last few days it's been very quiet and after I found a dead mouse yesterday I thought it was over, but this morning my husband said "someone" has eaten the peanut butter he put on a trap. A cat is definitely on the radar. There's a lot of uncertainty about the kitten I hoped we could get, so we'll have to look elsewhere.
That's all the exciting (?) news for this week! If you celebrate, I wish you lovely Christmas (or other holiday you might celebrate at this time of the year) and otherwise a restful week ahead.
Comments
I left a comment yesterday but it kind of looks like is disappeared??? I don't want to comment twice. Bottom line- get the cat!!! You won't regret it.
That's weird, I see it here below and I responded to it! But yes - definitely a cat!!! We were just talking about it because I saw another mouse running over the floor. Big sigh.
Well, you know what I think- get that cat! You won't even see many dead mice- the mice just smell the cat and leave on their own. You'll be happy!
Great job in the gym! You had some nice sessions in a busy week. I know, all these Christmas celebrations get exhausting. I hope you get some time to relax this week, and enjoy that new bike.
We have some good contacts about cats, so we'll see what happens! When we had Ester, we mainly saw the mice she came in with, and heard her eat her "crunchies" under the bed at night. Much better than having them run around in the house!
Oh, I would have sobbed over the website error. I HATE that kind of thing. I'm so glad it's sorted.
Great week for you! You always crush it in the gym, and you are showing so much progress! You should be so proud.
And that rose photo is stunning
Enjoy your holidays!
Oh that error on Thursday made me feel horrible! I thought it would destroy much more for my poor husband who would have to do the work of restoring it. I'm so glad it turned out to be a quick job!
I'm delighted over my progress in the gym lately! A few months back I was so miserable over that shoulder and everything else that has slowed me down this year, and never thought I'd get to these weights so fast after that.
Happy Christmas to you too!
WOW those are some amazing weights!! Your stats are so impressive. Way to go! I also have no idea how to do anything on my blog except for blogging ... no idea how to build a server, etc. That is amazing!
Thanks Melissa! I'm so happy to have come so far with the weights! Sometimes I feel that just actually writing on the blog and not caring so much about the tech or design, would be so relaxing and nice. But then there's the design- and tech-loving part of me and I can't not try to build or design things!
Oof on the server mishap!! I would have been gutted when I realized that mistake. But yes, mistakes happen! I did have a major mistake once at work and I thought I was going to throw up!! Life went on, and we corrected what we could. That's never fun! I'm glad you got everything working again :)
Oh, I did panic a little and thought it would be days and destroyed evenings of work for my husband, and felt terrible. I was happily surprised that it was so quick to fix it by restoring it from a backup. But to begin with even my husband (the tech guru) had to look up how to fix the problem. He asked an LLM which responded "aah, that's a classic!" so apparently it's not an unusual mistake!
You are brave to do so much with the computer! I guess when you break things you have to learn to fix them, so that’s one plus — especially if your husband can help out?
I’ve been prioritizing Christmas baking over Christmas cleaning — I’ve got a few days to get the house back in order!
I'm quite lost about the server stuff but I'm learning some of it from my husband, and when it comes to building these websites using Docker and Git and whatnot, I'm becoming more and more confident. I'm also learning more of the command line tools and behind-the-scenes stuff by playing around with Linux. It's a lot of fun! But I guess a bit of bravery is needed.
I never got any cleaning done yesterday! I found another interesting Linux version to try.... oops.
Good job in the gym! You're killing it! I'm glad you're enjoying your new Zwift bike! That's wild that you couldn't find the finish line on your ride. That's a great story to tell over drinks - that you got lost on a Zwift ride. :-)
I hope you find a good mouser kitten or cat. Fingers crossed that one becomes available for adoption soon.
Merry Christmas, Susanne!
Thanks and Merry Christmas to you, Debbie! The event with the bike ride was funny. I should do the same ride again to see where I went wrong!
Your progress in the gym is impressive! The pic of the rose is beautiful…and it does give hope of the return of summer (though that’s a few months down the road, LOL).
Thanks, Kim! I'm happily surprised myself about how fast I came back to being comfortable with the heavier weights again! That teaches me (again) that consistency is key.
Feeling more confident in the gym is always a win! Sounds like you are in a good place with your workouts. Eek! Mice problems would freak me out! Does your cat catch them? Hope you have a very merry Christmas!
I've certainly come back to a good place with my training during the last month! I'm very grateful about that. Sadly our cat died 2 years ago so now we're looking into getting a new cat. Not as easy as I thought but we'll see - we should have good contacts around here.
Another strong week, Susanne! RDLs at 45 kg, Bulgarian squats, and pullovers at 20 kg, that’s impressive!
The Zwift bike sounds fun, even if the route confused you and post-squat uphills were brutal. Looks like you're winning the mouse-battle, too. Fingers crossed the cat plan works out soon.
Despite all the chaos, it’s great to hear you’re making progress and still squeezing in photo fun!
Fortunately I didn't get to do any Bulgarians (only regular split squats) with the heavier weights! I'm so not ready for that but I still celebrate all the other lifts. And yes - the pullovers! I loved them!
Great job with those weights! Ooof, I feel sore just reading about those 50kg sumo squats. You have to feel so happy about your progress.
I can't imagine building my own server and website--which is why my blog is so basic!
Have a merry Christmas!
I'm so happy about how far I've come with strength, and that I'm back to these weights despite all the niggle bummers this year. Regarding building servers (my husband does all the heavy lifting there) and websites - I guess it's part of my creative interest and wanting to make things, be in control of and able to tweak design etc. But there's nothing wrong with having a basic blog, at least you keep your writing flowing! Which is what I need to get much better at. I tend to spend so much energy designing that I have none left for writing!
Happy Christmas to you and your family!
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