Join Me In Regaining my fitness 🏃 🏃

So this is a follow on post from my initial pre-Christmas post about new year's resolutions and my post from last week about how things are going on resolution number two, which was all about regaining my fitness. What I want to do now is continue to update you on how things are going and encourage some of you to join me in my fitness journey or begin your own journey and tell me about it. If you decide to post about it, share a link in the comments below and I'll be sure to stop by and read all about it and offer my support.

I am lucky in so far as I am generally fairly fit, or so I thought. I had this impression that I had some sort of natural aptitude for fitness and it was something that I could and did take a little for granted. You see the thing was, I was playing football once a week for a long time. Last year though, I started picking up some annoying little injuries that were ruling me out for a month at a time, but more frustrating than missing the football, I was also missing my golf competitions at the weekend. The football was just 5 a side kick abouts, which were great and were competitive, but they were not a competition as such. When my team won, there was no trophy or medals. On the other hand the golf competitions were proper competitions where there were trophies and medals on offer, as well as cash prizes and golf equipment prizes. This is what really brings out my competitive edge. So, I ended up sidelining the football, which was on at a bad time as well, making it difficult to integrate with my family life, so it made sense.

NATURAL APTITUDE?

Fast forward six months, and it turns out that the assumed natural aptitude was down to me running around with my football mates for 60 minutes every week, and when this declined, so too did my general fitness. Yes, I was golfing once a week, but that was just a 7km to 8km walk, which lets face it isn't a great cardio workout, at least not for me. When is the last time you say a golfer sweat? And poor auld Sergio at the 15th hole at Augusta in 2017 doesn't count! That was a different type of sweat!

So this past two to three weeks has been an eye opener, and my first foray back into running, where I decided it would be a good idea to get back on the fitness horse with a 3km mountain run, was not my brightest idea. I thought I was going to collapse during the initial steep ascent! Looking back on it though, maybe it was a good start, as my subsequent longer runs have been much easier than that first slog.

WHATS THE POINT OF THESE POSTS?

Accountability

By telling you guys about my exploits so far, it makes me want to ensure that I manage to work out at least 5 or 6 days next week. It also helps me to keep track of what I have done and over time if I want to tweak things or introduce new exercises, I can easily look back on these posts to see what I have done over the weeks and months.

Influence

As per my title, I am also hoping to influence some of you. You could join me in doing some of these easy to do home exercises and short runs. The only thing required is determination and some good time management. On the equipment front, you can do everything I do with just a pair of runners and some dumbbells. Don't have dumbbells? There are plenty of household items that you could use instead to start of with or just skip those exercises and do the runs, jumping jacks, sit ups and push ups instead. As the Tesco man says "Every Little Helps" and it does and the hardest thing is just making a start. So why not go to bed early tonight and set that alarm 30 minutes early and start off your day with a nice release of endorphins and a healthy workout.

Sharing

That's what we all do here on Scorum. We share and hope for some interaction in the comments section underneath our post. I look forward to sharing my latest posts and see how they get on as they take off into cyber space. The 1s and 0s eventually make their way to far off lands and appear on tablets, phones and laptops as my post. Then, assuming my post was of good quality, the feedback arrives back in the form of upvotes and comments.

We all like to share, well at least our words and comments. Possessions and food is whole different story and varies hugely from person to person! But when it comes to sharing words, as we speak, type, tweet, sing and shout, we all like to be heard and to be listened to. Scorum is a great outlet for that in relation to my sporting and fitness interest and I hope to share and engage with this great and growing community for many many years.

WORKOUTS WEEK 2

Here is an outline of the workouts for week 2, where I again mixed push ups, sit ups, dumbbell lifts and outdoor runs.

If you do follow my exercise program, you can adjust it up or down to suit yourself. I do my exercises generally in sets of 2 or 3. So for example I'll start with 40 or 50 dumbbell curls and side lifts, then do 20 or 25 push ups, followed by 50 or 75 sit ups and then 100 jumping jacks. I then take a drink of water or brush my teeth or something, again managing my time as well as possible. Then I do the 2nd reps. This time the dumbbell and push up numbers usually drop a little.

I also often top up the push ups and jumping jacks during my lunch break at work if time and energy allows, so that is where you see days where I manage 100 push ups. They are not all done first thing. Often I'll do about 50 or 60 in the morning and do the rest during my lunch break at work.

Day 7

50 x push ups
110 x Dumbbell curls (9Kg)
110 x Dumbbell side lifts (9Kg)
180 x sit ups

Day 8

50 x push ups
100 x Dumbbell curls (9Kg)
100 x Dumbbell side lifts (9Kg)
150 x sit ups
200 x Jumping Jacks
2 minutes x shadow boxing

Day 9

65 x push ups
75 x Dumbbell curls (9Kg)
75 x Dumbbell side lifts (9Kg)
100 x sit ups
100 x jumping jacks

Day 10

50 x push ups
175 x sit ups
300 x jumping jacks

Day 11

145 x push ups
110 x Dumbbell curls (9Kg)
110 x Dumbbell side lifts (9Kg)
275 x sit ups
500 x jumping jacks
3 km run

Day 12

60 x push ups
150 x sit ups
300 x jumping jacks
8 km walk (round of golf)

So, I'm two and half weeks into this now, and slowly the habit is starting to form. Each morning when I wake up now, the first thing that pops into my head is whether I have enough time to go for a run or do a home workout? I do my workouts at home as soon as I get up if possible, so I find myself getting up earlier than normal and I now have more energy than before, and I am also very efficient with my use of my time. My friend Mr Tel Evision is not impressed with the new regime, as he is not getting as much of a look in, except for my much needed infusion of sports viewing each week.

Hopefully a few of you join me in my new found fitness regime. I'm looking forward to hearing about it in the comments below.