Oversleeping Kills!

Thursday's Plycore (sports conditioning) Class starts at 5:30am and last till 6:15am. I woke up today at 5:12am. I live close enough to my gym that I might have been able to make it. I even thought about it, really: I jumped up, got dressed, and told my wife that I was leaving; but, my circulatory system had other thoughts. After my, oh Shit, I overslept energy burned off. The blood was more oozing through my veins than flowing. So, I decided that I should just take my time, wake up, and work out on my own today. I did have to struggle against the urge to just say screw it and go back to bed. However, I had been pretty motivated the night before, so the thought was fleeting. But, honestly, my initial desire to haul ass to class was actually the more dangerous to my workout goals. I enjoy classes much more than workingout alone, but rushing to class late and joining without warming up is just a bad idea! Not as bad as this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHZdr26nEuc but close. It is difficult to make the right choice because when you are motivated to get up and go to class it is counterintuitive to let that motivation go to waste. But really, on the risk to reward scale, it is just better to let it go. Do something different if you can or just change your plans and fit it in another day. If that isn't an option, then you’re better off just saying it wasn't supposed to be and making it an off day. It is a difficult choice to make, but it is the right call.

I have learned that I really need to give myself some time to wake and warm up before I take a morning workout class. Every stinkin' time that I have had a pull or strain in one of these classes, it was on a day that I was running late, so I try to get up somewhere between 4am and 4:20am. I don't want to shock my system anymore than it is already doomed to be shocked by my workout. Normally, I go to bed between 10:30 and 11pm, but last night I stayed up to watch The State of the Union, and this morning none of the three alarms stood a chance.

I got to the Y at 6am and locker 29 was just sitting there waiting for me, so there was still a good shot that this would be a good day. The lockers at the Y are first come first serve. But I always get 29 whenever it is available. Most of the staff members at the Y don't even ask which locker I want anymore--they see me coming and just reach for good old 29.

I popped my head into class, after I dropped my stuff off in the locker room, just to see what they were doing. The instructor for this class writes down the exercises, number of reps, and sets for the class on a dry erase board and you try to complete as much as you can. The class uses the entire gym, so the dry erase board helps you keep track of what you are doing. However, I wasn’t going to be able to do their workout because they had run a megaton of sprints on the b-ball courts, which as of 6am were being used for . . . B-ball of all things . . . So, I decided to do one of our prior days exercises with a few modifications:



2 laps around the track
4 flights of stairs up & down
5 assisted chin ups
20 push ups
20 prisoner squat with knee up (at the top of the squat, pull your knee up and twist at the waist bring the opposite elbow inward to meet the raised knee. Do this with both knees between each squat)
25 frog kicks http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=265NT5GiiSU (I don't hit the floor like he does, but maybe I should)
20 oblique crunches w/leg raise (each side) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_u-3MwjkJOY I have no idea what they are saying, but that is how you do it.
10 step ups (each side) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UJFqg6-ms6U
10 dips
10 dumbbell triceps extension (each arm)

I did this four times in just under 60mins. It was a pretty good workout that didn't kill me, which was just what I needed on a day where I was feeling really sluggish. Oversleeping can kill my motivation or my body if I am not careful, but today I kept my mind right and made to the gym and through a pretty good workout.