It’s John’s birthday today! Welcome to year 42 sweetie 😀
He slept in while I biked to the gym for a strength workout.
Exercise | Set/rep/weight | Muscle worked |
Straight-leg deadlifts | 3 sets of 10 at 75# | Lower body |
Close grip lat pulldown | 3 sets of 10 at 50# | Back |
Cable Squat to Row | 3 sets of 10 at 60# | Full body |
Planks | 3 sets of 90 second holds (dying on the last one) | Abs |
Barbell Chest Press | 3 sets of 8 at 55# | Chest |
Standing Single leg Calf Raise | 3 sets with 10 with 45# bar | Calves and balance |
Prone Cuban Snatch | 3 sets of 10 with 10# DBs (20# total) | Shoulders |
Triceps kickback | 3 sets of 10 with 15# DBs (30# total) | Triceps |
Then I walked for about 10 minutes on the treadmill waiting for the birthday boy to get to the gym. We then biked to Panera Bread per his request for breakfast! I have not done a bike ride after lifting in a few weeks and had forgotten how tiring that was….
Asiago cheese. Yum. I started to wolf it down and actually had to tell myself to slow down out loud. I was wearing Triscuit (my trisuit) today because of the heat and humidity. I felt funny walking into Panera wearing it, and I swear I saw 2 women looking at me and talking to each other. Kind of felt exposed and uncomfortable. I thought maybe I was imagining it, but when we went up for coffee later, they asked where were were riding from. Not sure what they were saying to each other, but I guess it doesn’t really matter.
Lifting Move of the Week: The Close Grip Lat Pulldown! This exercise works the back and actually gives a nice stretch feel, which I really like. Most of the time, you will see the wide grip bar used on this machine. Swap out the wide bar for the V-bar (the little v-shaped handle) for variation. Make sure your legs are snug under the lap bar.
While this mostly does the back, your rear deltoids (back of shoulders) and a bit of chest muscle is used as well. When pulling down, think of pulling with your back muscles. If you hook your hands on the grip without your thumbs, you will use less arm muscles. These are good practice to graduate to chin ups!
Slow work day today on both job fronts, but I had a lot of other things to do. Lunchtime was a quick egg sandwich on the yummy bread!
Then I picked up John’s requested birthday cake from Baker’s Dream:
It is a vanilla cake with coconut cream topped with chocolate buttercream. Total decadence! We got a small cake so there wouldn’t be a lot of leftovers.
We had cake in the afternoon with my folks, since with dinner and a movie tonight, it would be too late for cake (is it ever too late for cake??)
My slice with some caramel swirl ice cream.
I had my dad’s extra frosting. He said it was too much frosting. I disagree
I got John his own cycling jersey. It has a poker hand on it, so we both can be cool riding now. I need to get a photo of both of us all tricked out.
Posting early today as we are going out for dinner (Pizzeria Uno) and a movie – Inception.
Happy Birthday to the best husband in the world!!