Today is March 4…we held Grandma Hazel’s memorial service March 1.
Seems appropriate. New month, first day of the month.
It was a good service. Grandma was born in 1929. She lived an entire lifetime before I was even born. She lived a life, not unlike any other. Ups, downs, lessons learned, and a family created that will go on for many more generations.
I hope that I can instill in my children some of the love, kindness and all the other positive attributes I experienced in grandma. I try to do my best, that’s for sure.
During the memorial service the pastor gave an account, an overview really, of Grandma Hazel’s life. I learned things about her that I didn’t know before. I had an understanding, but details were revealed to me that made me appreciate her that much more.
So how’s this go along with the title of this post “New Beginnings”?
Good question.
For one, on the last day of February I started a new workout program. This I’m easing into since I have taken the past couple of months off any kind of training routine.
Last October on our trip to Ohio, my knees were swelling up, my wife’s too. We attributed this to the steep stairs of the house we stayed in. Only thing was that after our return, my left knee still seemed to become aggravated and swell up after I stood for any length of time. I tried light movements, taking it easy, tried working through the swelling while working out. I tried lots of things for weeks.
My knee never caused me pain, but it swelled and made any kind of articulation of the joint limited. And I knew if I bent my knee too much while swollen, I would cause damage.
This lasted for months.
At the beginning of December, I got notice that the renters we had in the other house were moving out. They had been there for five years. They left the house with much in the way of needed repairs, love and attention…inside and out.
So as we lined up workmen to take care of the necessary work on the inside, we (my wife, son, daughter, and me) worked every Saturday for weeks on the outside.
When we lived there for ten years, we planted many flowering plants and trees on the property. The renters did zero trimming of any of these plants. The result was massive overgrowth of everything.
After the first weekend of labor, I was nearly exhausted.
I couldn’t continue a training routine with my knee in the condition it was and do manual labor for hours on end on the weekends and keep up my immune system. It was too much.
So, with the reality of paying two mortgages until we got the other house rented out again, I stopped working out. My primary focus was on getting everything done to rent out the other house as soon as possible.
Good news is that over several week’s time, my knee no longer swells up. And we got everything done and the other house rented again very fast – thanks to an overactive real estate market that’s been going on for the past two years.
So, with no more pressing labor to be done on the weekends…and my desire to get back to lifting and training…I started a three day workout routine.
This routine I got from Alan Thrall of Untamed Strength. He posted this on his Youtube channel.
Thanks Alan.
Here’s the routine.
Squat 4 x 4-6 RPE 7-8
Close grip bench 4 x 8 RPE 8
Pull up 40-50 total reps
(Alternate could be barbell rows, assisted band pull ups ok)
Bench 5 x 4-6 RPE 7-8
Walking Lunges or reverse lunges 2-3 x 6-10
Dumbbell/barbell Presses 3-5 x 12-15 RPE 8
Superset with Lu raises same reps
Deadlift 4 x 4-6 RPE 7-8
Pushups 4 x 12-15
Farmer’s walk 3-6 x 150′
‘
It’s a bit different than any of the routines I’ve followed in the past year or so. And, since I haven’t really done any lifting in the past few months, I’m easing into it.
The thing I like is the variety. It includes farmer’s walks, Which sounds fun – and then you execute them. Challenging is a better word. But I like it!
Any more new beginnings?
Oh yeah, but they’ll have to wait until next time – I’ve got a lot to do and not much time to do it in.
Live all the time live!