Finally...a workout.

Wednesday, June 13, 2012
I wasn’t sure what I’d be doing for the evening workout…if anything at all…until Savannah texted and asked if I’d take her to the park and put her through the Survival Workout.  Naturally, I agreed…and with the thought that I’d do as much as I could tolerate, as well.


We started with the push-ups, pull-ups and dips…all three things I did without involving my knee.  She managed 14 solid “guy” push-ups, but when she moved to the tree and grabbed the pull-up branch, things didn’t go quite so well. 


“When am I going to be able to do at least one,” she wailed as she swung from the branch, pulling and tugging but never moving vertically.


“Um…not today for sure,” I said in encouragement.


I pushed her through all the things I couldn’t do, including some high skips, sprint through the woods, picnic table hops, and overhead rock lifts.  I managed some of the lifts, but if it involved putting extra weight on the knee, I bagged it.


We reached the swingset, where I normally climb up but slide down since lowering myself seems to hurt the ligaments in my elbow.  Only this time when I slid, I hit the ground hard and decided that was stupid.  On subsequent climbs, I lowered myself – elbow pain or no.  Savannah tried climbing while using her feet and found that she was getting somewhere.


“You couldn’t go that high the last time here.  You’re getting stronger,” I said.


And she is.  She’s been doing a workout at Ohio State that mimics a lot of the things that we do outdoors in a weight room.  She’s leaner and has some definition that was absent on Spring break.  She got some inspiration and turned it into a solid program with obvious results.


We finished the workout in an hour, walking a little over two miles.   I experienced the same level of pain I had on the previous day’s hike, so adding the workout did nothing to make things worse.  Tomorrow will be an off day before heading to the surgeon and…hopefully…his blessing to begin riding on Saturday.  Maybe a quick ride to Pennsylvania and back…


Survival Workout: 60 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150.
Calories burned:  600.