Dear smelly old man

Happy smelly old man

Before I talk about the gym I would like to address a possible epidemic.  If you already stink, I mean really bad sour smelling stink, you might need to do some freshening up before you go to the gym.  I'm sure you might not mind your pungent aroma, but believe you me I do not care for it as much as you.  Also I do not care to be stuck next to it for an hour on the treadmill.  It's one thing to sweat and get all nasty during your exercise, but if you are starting off that way you are only compounding the stench.  Have a little common courtesy for the other gym dwellers, but I digress.  Besides the smelly old man convention my first day back in the gym was very productive and quite enjoyable.

I started the day off with a complete chest, shoulders, and triceps work out using primarily dumbbells (I am working out alone so I prefer dumbbells over barbells).  I was able to do 4 sets of flat bench, incline bench, decline bench, fly's, shoulder press, lateral raises, front raises, a modified clean and press while seated on a balance ball, and tricep extensions.  All in all I had a fantastic work out and I am suffering from minimal soreness in the muscle groups I targeted.  I was afraid I would over do it on my first full day back and be entirely too sore but thankfully I avoided that.  After I finished my weight routine I ventured over to walk on the treadmill, I am not ready to run or even jog on my surgically repaired ankle.  I know what you're thinking "Jordan, why not run on the elliptical machine?" and I have a perfectly good explanation, nunya.

Evil Elliptical

So far my ankle performed just fine carrying dumbbells around but this would be the real test, walking 3 miles with the incline increasing on timed intervals.  I stretched my short stubby legs out, and did the stretches prescribed for my ankle by my physical therapist and began my hour long trek (I can only handle walking around 3.1 to 3.2 mph hence the hour long walk).   I would say I handled the task so so, not good but not bad.  I had some soreness in my ankle during the walk, a little stiffness still lingering around, and I still walk with a slight limp after several minutes of walking.  The limp is a formed habit from the stiffness and the months spent in casts and the walking will help me get rid of it.  By the end of the hour I was really feeling it in my legs and I was sweating like "insert your own simile".  When all was said and done I had walked a little over 3 miles as planned and burned near 1000 calories.  All in all I survived the first foray back into the gym and I am feeling positive in repeating yesterdays performance here in a few hours...but I am not looking forward to the smelly old man.