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mileage posted: Tue 2011-11-29 01:57:45 tags: fitness
(per twitter) session #40 (wow!): 3.3mi / ~50 minutes, cooldown, and some upper-body machine time.

That's a really slow 3.3mi time for me, and it's because I kept thinking I would cool off and hit the Cybex equipment... but when I had cooled off, I felt like I hadn't done justice to the cardio portion of my workout, so I stepped the pace back up and got hot and sweaty all over again. At first I thought I was just going to do 30 minutes, cooldown and hit the machines. So I did a lap at 7.0mph, cooldown, another lap at 5.4mph, then I was like "oh I should do the 2.2 miles I did last time in 30 minutes, but waah waah I won't make it in 30 minutes this time" and then I waffled in the cooldowns whether I would do 45 minutes, or 3.3 miles, or 60 minutes or what.

7.0mph is still a far cry from easy, but I'm feeling pretty chuffed that I can sustain a full lap at that speed, even on the tail end of a session.

The Cybex machines I've started on work the arms, shoulders, lats and pecs. Plus, there's an abdominal crunch resistance station in that row, so hey why not. 10 lbs is too easy; 30 lbs. (50 on the ab station) seems to be a fair challenge level. I can do 6+ reps at 50 lbs on a couple stations, but I'm all about a nice safe uniform progress, and I'd rather be able to do lots of reps at lower weight before I step up to higher weights. Slow and steady avoids pinched nerves, torn ligaments and muscle trauma. I'm not out to bulk up huge, I think the overdeveloped bodybuilder look gets freakish and grotesque, and screams "I'm overcompensating for my self-worth issues"... which is probably why Charles Atlas marketed it the way he did, to "98-lb. weaklings" (who got sand kicked in their face at the beach).

Machines sure are way more efficient than calisthenics without equipment. No wonder I got bored.