During warm weather months, Saturday mornings can be occasions for bike rides, bike races, yard work … any number of outdoor activities. But during cold weather months, Saturday mornings are nothing special. Even today—a very nice day for December 21—the morning was significantly colder than the afternoon, and I’m always going to choose to be outside for the warmest hours of the day if I can.
So, I did wait until late afternoon to ride my bike today, but I didn’t waste the morning. When my overnight work shift ended I checked into the company’s fitness room for an upper body strength training session. My workout looked a lot like my home gym routine. The difference, though, is significant. At home, all of my weightlifting moves are “push” moves. It’s hard to do “pull” moves with free weights. But the big cables-and-pulleys machine at work makes these moves easy. I’m talking about things like rows and lat pulldowns, centerpiece moves for strong back muscles. And hamstring curls … can’t forget those. These are exercises I have missed for a long time. I’m going to give them my Saturday mornings between now and, I think, March 28. By then I should be riding the bike outdoors on a regular basis again, and it will be time to update the strength training program to fit my new cycling objectives.
There’s a stationary bike in the fitness room. There’s also a pair of treadmills. Don’t know if I’ll bother with the stationary bike when I have a pretty nice turbo trainer setup at home, but I might put in some treadmill time. I don’t have that option at home anymore, and with the incline cranked up it’s not a bad change-of-pace workout.
I had the fitness room to myself today and that’s not likely to change, as my office is only sparsely staffed on weekends. That’s more than OK by me. Even when I have no other plans for my Saturday, I won’t want any delays in executing my morning workout.
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