Lessons my barbell taught me.

In the name of trying to keep my little Achilles injury a little one, I continued my low-impact restriction on my nonrunning days by doing Cathe Friedrich's Low Max workout as the cardio portion of today's fitness regimen.  It's a step workout with seven intervals, each of which concludes with what Cathe calls "intensity blasts" and what I call "butt and leg melters."  I only did intervals 1-4 because I just wanted a little taste of cardio today, with the main entree being weight lifting.  This is because I love me some straight-up weight work because I believe it helps your endurance as a runner, especially when you are in a trail race and you are fighting desperately to pass the woman trying desperately to pass you but you have stronger quads so you get up the damn hill first and leave her ass in the dust.  Not that I'm competitive or anything.

Plus, I needed an excuse to whip out the new barbell I got for Christmas yesterday.  The 25 mph winds today combined with the cold temps (it's like it's winter or something) also convinced me I needed to stay inside and pump a bit o' the iron.

So, after my cardio with Cathe, I did some weights with Cathe.  (I am Cathe obsessed.  Don't judge me until you've seen how many other DVDs I've tried and thought were crap.  Cathe puts out quality stuff.)  Specifically, I did her High Reps workout because a barbell was involved and I haven't done this workout very often.  It's not my ultimate favorite weight workout of hers (is there really a need to do tricep dips after you've done standing tricep extensions, kickbacks, and lying extensions?), but there's a lot of variety in the exercises that decreases the boredom factor greatly.  Plus, have I mentioned she uses a barbell during the workout?

And now, an artist's rendering of what I looked like with my barbell:

I had a shirt on.  Really.

Today's word was definitely strength.  Along with a lot of other words that this child shouldn't learn until he is much, much older and can use them in proper context and with appropriate vigor.

Now, I have never even lifted a barbell until this morning, so I'm surprised that I didn't drop it on any of my body parts during the workout to give myself a large injury to go along with the little one in my Achilles.  I found that I actually prefer it for some exercises, especially back rows and upright rows, because it was easier on my shoulders. But I realized that, as far as working out with a barbell goes, I am pretty much clueless as to what weights I should use.  And since the workout only told me what poundage of dumbbells I needed for exercises involving dumbbells and NEVER ONCE stated the weights they used on the barbell exercises, I was in trial-and-error land with a heaping side of error. Here are some of those lessons I learned from my errors:

• While doing bicep curls visions of hernias were dancing through my head so furiously that I put down the barbell and picked up some lighter dumbbells out of concern for my own safety and maintaining the integrity of my lumbar intervertebral discs.  
• I astutely ascertained that 30 lbs is (currently) too heavy to be doing all sorts of partial bicep curl reps unless I enjoy the sound of my elbows bending in the direction opposite of which they should be bending.  
• It is very easy to knock your ceiling fan out of balance with a barbell, much to the consternation of a husband who is responsible for fixing said ceiling fan while giving you the stink-eye.
• It is very easy to knock myself over with the barbell when I do not balance it on my shoulders correctly during leg exercises.
• It takes me a long time to change out weight plates.  Like, a really long time.  I have never paused a video so much in my life just to prep for the next set of exercises.  If I were scoring myself in my own classroom on this skill, I would send myself to the after school help sessions we have for mandatory remediation.
• I felt like a total badass doing lat rows.
• If I kill myself while using this barbell (highly probable), my obituary will be a hilarious read.  

Looking over the list, I am aware that this list is nothing compared to what happened the first time I tried to use a step in a workout (a post that has yet to be written but needs to be written for the greater good).  I'm sure I'll get better with my barbell as I use it with more of my workouts.  Until then, any lessons you've learned or near-death experiences from when you tried out a new piece of workout equipment?


photo credit: theloushe via photopin cc