A little friendly competition

Wednesday, December 12
Those of you who know me even just a little bit know how competitive I am. I have often wondered if this is a good trait to have or if it is detrimental to my long term fitness. I have no great answer. Expect to see other blogs about competition. I have one waiting for a good rest day.

My shoulder issue has offered the opportunity to learn how to push myself when I am unable to "compete" with others. Today was a perfect example. The prescribed workout (by the way, I hate not being able to do workouts as prescribed) was rowing, push press, squats & KB swings. I can squat and I've pretty much worked out a way to do one arm KB swings or do them only using my left arm sparingly. It leaves me with two other exercises that I have to sub in something. Jerry's torture of choice box-jumps and situps. Because no one else was doing the same movements I was, the only thing I could compete with were my own numbers. I'm forced to be my own motivation.

I did the first round with a decent pace. I didn't set any goals, just did the movements and waited to see where I ended up. My second round was the gasser. I decided that not only was I going to kill my first round score, but I wanted to get 100 in one of the rounds. I did some quick tallying and figured I could rack up some solid numbers in squats. I pushed really hard in the other rounds and went for it in squats.. trying to remember to keep my good form. I think I may have been relying on the barrier a bit much. I wonder if I could have made it without that bounce up. I hit my hundred and went for 10 more. The final round.. my goal was to do better than the first round.

Being your own motivation is a solitary thing.. I've never been good at being alone. It's forced me to really set goals during workouts. I realize when I compete against myself.. I end up really kicking my own ass.

Workout:
Box Jumps: 139
Situps: 211
KB Swings 35lb KB: 175
Squats: 257

Jerry, I'd love to post up the breakdown of the rounds if you still have them handy.