Headaches!
Last week I've been dealing with ongoing headaches and it drove me nuts to be honest. It made me very on edge at some point, especially as they didn't seem to end throughout the day. For a few days in a row, I blamed the storm because I've noticed since we live on a high floor and the wind is really affecting our home when it storms, that it also affects my head in terms of having a headache every time. I suspected it would pass on Sunday as the weather went back to normal, yet it didn't.
I didn't feel too great last week
When I have a headache, even if it's not as bad as a migraine, I'm not in the best mood. I can handle it for a few hours without getting on edge but then it really has to pass, lol. On top of the normal headaches from the storm and whatever it caused, I also dealt with the lack of caffeine as we ran out of coffee creamer on Friday and the new badge (it's not an item from here but import) would arrive today.
I started to get some aches in my arm again and although I know that usually it's caused by bad posture while sitting behind the desk too long or not adjusting the chair and/or desk properly until I get aches, I still feel a bit scared when these pains appear as I start to think it's my heart. In a way this is good because it makes me kick myself in the butt and push myself to get on the treadmill even though I feel it's a bit too much with the headaches.
And so I did
Rather than staying behind the desk or watch some stuff on TV, I pushed myself to get into the fitness outfit and start walking. As my knee has been acting up since I started to run a few short moments (interval training), I decided to not be stubborn and only walk on the treadmill without walking on a slope constantly. Although I know it intensifies the workout, I keep hearing a friend remind me to give the body some time to get used to being active every day to avoid injuries. And with my bad knees and the history of them causing me months of pain and recovery if I take as little as one bad misstep (which is quite possible to happen on the treadmill lol), I decided to go back to walking on flat surface only but instead I try to use intervals to intensify the training a bit when I feel I can handle it.
My knees appreciate it
I've noticed that I didn't have pain with walking anymore and neither did it hurt when driving the car, what a relief. I have been dealing with these shit knees since my teens and I know they have a flaw from birth which makes them weak, and with me not being used to being active, I know very well to give them some time to get stronger before I push the limits. Thankfully, there are more ways to burn some calories and get the blood flowing.
A great day in terms of workouts
Although I've been a bit reluctant to start the workouts some days, it really helps me when I use my boyfriend's JBL earplugs because they have an amazing sound and they really make me push myself a bit longer than I'd do when I'm not all in the flow of the music. I'm happy that he reminded me that I can use them too, lol. The first weeks I was listening to the music from my phone which sucks if you're trying to push yourself.
Once I'm on the treadmill and the time progresses, I've noticed that even though I say I will just do 20 minutes today, I end up pushing myself several times to workout longer and lately I've also added some higher speeds for short periods of times. I have to be careful especially with this because I know even with a regular walk my knee can pop from its place and you can understand the effect (and pain) will be much worse when it happens while running. I make sure to hold the side bars while doing so, as I don't trust my knees enough yet.
Today I felt great after the workout
After I was a bit annoyed for a week or so going in the afternoons (read: postponing lol), today I held myself accountable and went in the morning, I felt great after and my headache even disappeared for a few hours. I also steamed 3x today because I feel I'm congested so that could very well be the reason that the headaches won't leave fully.
Boxing workout!
Two hours later I decided I could do a bit more and went to the bedroom with the boxing pad on the wall. It's been there since new years more or less but I haven't used it as much as I wanted. Today I thought, let's see what it does when I do an intense 10 minutes of boxing on the pad and see what my smartwatch says in terms of burning calories/how intense the workout is etc.
I was very happily surprised when my watch showed that I went beyond fat burning after a short amount of time and this made me even more excited to keep going because on the treadmill I have to be careful because of the knees so it feels like a bit of a handicap to push myself. With boxing I don't have that handicap and I can punch really hard if I may say so myself. I forgot how awesome it feels to do so.
Pushing myself to continue
Even though I had some moments where I felt I had no strength left in my arms, I was easily motivated by pushing myself and noticing that I can do more than I think. The best thing was that I did not have one bad punch in terms of miscalculating how to punch, I was very focussed and I only had a minor scratch on my knuckle which is nice because it always sucks to have damaged knuckles because next time will be a pain, lol. No pain no gain they say though.
I burned almost the same amount of calories in just 10 minutes intense boxing, where I even went beyond anaerobic and reached extreme for a minute, while I did more than 20 minutes on the treadmill earlier burning just a little more. I saw that the recovery for the boxing working was marked at 13 hours, while the treadmill workout was just 2 hours recovery so I'm going to see what the best planning is for these two workouts on one day. To avoid injuries, I'm not going to do 6 or 7 days of boxing yet though, I will give my body some time to recover properly too.
But dang, I already look forward to the next one, I felt amazing afterwards!
The magic massage belt
What I love so much about our treadmill is the massage belt option, you can see it in the header image. That thing is magic! It has helped me massage things well enough to not get nasty pains afterwards and massage out the cramps from the first times I used the treadmill. I had to get used to it obviously and I used the belt every time for my lower back as well as my upper legs and hips. I can highly recommend anyone to buy a treadmill like this with the extra massage belt, it's been a pleasure.
I yet have to use the lower part where the weights are stored and where I can lock my feet to do some abdominal exercises because the treadmill is currently positioned in a way that there's just enough room to use the massage belt but not to lay down for these things. We're not 100% sure yet how we will turn the machine because there are just a few sockets making it a bit hard because it's not ideal to have long cables through the room. But we'll figure that out soon enough, if needed with an extension cable that we plug in and out rather than leaving the cables plugged in.
To be continued..
I hope you had a good Monday yourself!