Richard Gibney's 365 Days of Fitness: Day 176 & 177
Day 176 & 177 Today will be two workout posts in one. After spending the whole day yesterday tearing out basements I was just too exhausted to sit down and write anything. I got back out to more volunteering with the flood relief today, but I called it a day a little bit earlier, so I have a little more energy at the moment
Part 1: Day 176
Yesterday, the physical activities began in the morning at my friend Steve's house. The other day we spent a few hours pulling his family's belongings out of the basement. This time we were demolishing the basement itself. Everything had to go. Drywall, ceilings, cabinets, wood panelling, absolutely everything. It was a really messy job. Steve's Dad Don, or Disco Don as we call him had a bar set-up in the corner of the basement with a mirror behind it with Disco's Pub. Unfortunately we had to demolish the bar, however, we were able to save the mirror, meaning that someday, Disco's Pub would open once again.
After completely gutting Steve's basement, and having some pizza and a beer (my nutrition has taken a bit of a slide the last few days) I drove to a different neighborhood to help out my friends Chris and Dustin with their basement. Their house had some flooding, but very little compared to the other houses I had seen. However, it was a still pretty big job. All the drywall and insulation up to 2 feet from the ground had to be removed. This was actually a lot more work than I had though it would be. In the other houses the drywall was so wet that it literally crumbled like oreo cookie. This drywall actually had to be cut with a saw, which took a very long time. This took a good 3 or 4 hours but it was nice to leave a house feeling like we had actually finished a task. All the other houses still had so much to be done when we left them.
When I got home, I was absolutely fried, but I decided before I went to bed that I needed to do just a tiny bit of "workout" exercise, so that it would be a little different than the day before. My friend and co-worker, Philip releases a weekly fitness tip on his website ndugga.com every Sunday. I found one of the exercises in last weeks fitness tip really interesting, so I decided to give it a try. The exercise is called the "Remy Squat". It's a deceivingly difficult exercise. It's done for 20 sec as part of a 5 exercise circuit. I really didn't have enough energy for the whole circuit so I did 3 sets of 60 sec Remy squats instead. You can watch Philip's tip of the week in the youtube link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ap43fM6hDn0&feature=player_embedded
Part 2: Day 177
Today was much like yesterday. More ripping up of basements and hauling of heavy things. I met my client Danielle and her parents at a house they were helping at. Her Dad was excited to see me as he was getting ready to take apart a furnace and hot water heater and needed someone to help him. When I first saw this thing I thought there was no way we were getting it up the stairs, but after some hard work with saws, crowbars, hammers, and good old fashioned elbow grease we managed to break the furnace down into some more manageable parts. The hot water tank was a little trickier to get up the stairs. A big slippery cylinder is a little more difficult to grab on to than a pile of sheet metal, but we managed.
On my way home I stopped by my friend Steve's place again to see how he and his family were doing. I had pretty much decided that I was done for the day but Steve and his Dad were still working away, so I decided to pitch in a bit. All of the contents of their basement were in massive heaps on their front lawn. We had to pile up the mess in a massive bin in front of their house so that it could be taken to the dump. It took us about an hour to fill it to the top. It was satisfying to see so much ready to be taken away, but then we realized that we only piled up about half of what needed to go. Oh well, they were still 50% farther than they were before they started.
When I got home I was pretty close to taking a nap and shutting down all physical exertions, but I felt I still had a little bit in the tank. I decided to put on my running shoes and go out for a quick run and a little workout on my neighborhood playground. I ran a couple minutes then managed squeeze out a few sets of chin-ups and push-ups.
Today's Workout:
50 chin-ups in as few attempts as possible 20 push-ups for every break in chin-ups
Chin-up attempts: 4 (30 - 60 seconds between attempts) Attempt 1: 15 (20 push-ups)Attempt 2: 15 (20 push-ups) Attempt 3: 10 (20 push-ups) Attempt 4: 10 (20 push-ups)
I think after 4 days of working in soggy basements and lifting heavy things, I deserve a bit of a break. Tomorrow, I think I'm going to sleep in and have an easier day. I might even get that massage I skipped last week when the flooding started and cancelled my race in the mountains. The Glencoe club is still closed, but it looks like it shouldn't be too long before we open again. I'll have to spend another day working out away from the gym but that's ok. It's been nice to switch things up.