Since I was planning on working from home today I was able to sleep in for an extra hour before getting up to go for a workout.

I decided to complete the same back and shoulders workout that I performed last week so that I could see how my body has improved, even with being sick this past week.

Before starting my workout I took time to stretch out my shoulders and focused on improving external rotation in both shoulders by increasing the total number of reps that I’ve been performing for those exercises.

The workout that I performed was:

Back

- Seated Rows: 4 sets x 12 reps (66 lbs, 79 lbs, 91 lbs, 104 lbs)
- Lat Pull Downs: 4 sets x 12 reps (95 lbs, 115 lbs, 135 lbs, 155 lbs)

Shoulders

Superset
- Alternating Dumbbell Front Raises: 4 sets x 12 reps (7.5 lb dumbbells)
- Alternating Dumbbell Side Raises: 4 sets x 12 reps (7.5 lb dumbbells)

- Dumbbell Shrugs: 4 sets x 15 reps (15 lb dumbbells)

I was able to increase the weight on both of the back exercises by one plate per set. 

The final 2 sets of the lat pull downs were hard to complete since that is the most weight that I have lifted since before my seizures/injuries.

It made me really happy to lift that much weight again and to not feel pain in my shoulders or the surrounding muscles.

It is important to me that I keep pushing my body to continually improve. I want to beat the doctor’s expectations and continue to heal faster than planned.

Due to how much weight I lifted during my back exercises I had to decrease the number of reps on the front and side raises to 12 reps instead of 15 reps like I was able to complete last week.

I also added in the 4 sets of dumbbell shrugs to completely exhaust my back and shoulders.

Today was my most productive day this week now that I’m feeling completely better. 

I had meetings sprinkled throughout the day and took the time between meetings to make progress on a number of fronts even though I am still behind after this week.

Near the end of the work day I took a small break to work through mobilization work, thanks to MobilityWOD, to help improve the internal rotation within my shoulders.

The mobilization work is never easy and is usually painful but even 10 minutes per day helps to drastically improve mobility throughout my body.

Unfortunately I don’t take the time to complete the mobilization work every day, though it is only 10 minutes or so. It is certainly something that I have to improve on.

Tonight we ordered pizza, our first since moving to San Jose, and watched the final 4 episodes of the first season of “The Blacklist”. 

As long as the weather is as they predicted for tomorrow then we are planning on exploring Carmel for the day which will be a nice break.