So it’s always fun finding out that you’ve been (or are being) a doofus. Thankfully it doesn’t really happen to me TOO often (he says with all humility). I mean, there are certainly times when I’ve been wrong on things but not often to the level where I sit back and think “Man that was REALLY dumb”
So I have been going out to the Y to exercise pretty regularly since the new year (I know, me and everyone else). I’ve been training for the triathlon in April. Mostly running, a bit of biking and I haven’t gotten back to the swimming though I definitely need to. But I’ve also been trying to do some weights.
Now, I have almost never done any weight training. I am pretty much a certified wuss in the weights department. Except for legs – for whatever reason, whether it’s playing lots of basketball or always running around the living room trying to jump and touch the ceiling, my legs have always been pretty strong.
So after talking with a few friends of mine that do know a bit about weights (and probably mishearing and misapplying their advice), I have decided to do some of the weight machines in reps. I try to do 15 reps on a particular machine / weight, then rest for a bit then do 10 then 5. Since I’m new, I am still trying to figure out how much weight to do on each machine. Luckily they have cards that you can take and fill out so you can remember from time to time how much weight on each machine. My thought was once I could do 3 reps of 15 on 2 straight days, that meant I was ready to move up to the next weight.
As an aside, these cards are just 8×11 sheets of cardboard-y paper with spots to write down which machine and how many reps. Then you put them in various giant folders, one for each letter of the alphabet. I think the idea is that you put it in by your last initial. Well, as you can imagine, the ‘M’ folder is giant, so it makes it near impossible to try and find your sheet again the next day. So, for purposes of the Y, I am Dan Zmiller :-). I figured that was best since X is lumped with Y and there is no Q.
Anyway, so I was working on this one machine and I was on a 30 lb. weight. Now I know that sounds incredibly wussy and I’m sure that it is, but this is a machine where the weights are a bit lower. It’s not like the leg press or whatever. But I’m sure it’s wimpy just the same. But that is neither here nor there. What is both here and there, is that on my Zmiller sheet, last time I had done the 3 reps of 15, but this time I was only able to do 10 on the first time. I thought that was weird but just chalked it up to having done another similar machine or being tired or whatever.
But then, as I was walking around the machines, I noticed the additional weights that you can put on. Now those of you who know your way around a weight machine will know this of course, but there are additional weights that you can put on each machine. So, although the weights go (for example) 15, 30, 45, etc. there are also 2 5 lb. weights that you can add. So if you want 25 lbs, you can put the 15 lb. weight on and both the 5 lb. weights for 25. So I went back and it was not 30 lbs, but 40! 10 lbs. isn’t a whole lot, but in this case it is 33% more weight.
I always knew about these but just never thought about them. But now I will know to check them each time before I sit down!