Day 94: My First Full Workout
Today started out with a visit to the orthopedic surgeon. As with all visits to see him, we took x-rays to see how my shoulders are healing.
After reviewing the x-rays and doing a few tests with me, he said that my shoulders have healed anatomically.
There is some light calcification in one of my shoulders, potentially from my brain surgery, but other than that he is happy with how my shoulders are progressing.
My surgeon wants me to start working out again, slowly increasing my output over the next 2 months until I see him again. This is in-line with what my physical therapist said last week and my orthopedic surgeon was happy to hear that.
Much like last week this was music to my ears. It was awesome to know that the x-rays continue to show healing with no concerns and the clearance to push my body harder.
As soon as the appointment wrapped up we raced back home so that I could jump on back-to-back meetings. Tuesdays are typically meeting day for me so that I can have more time other days of the week to focus on projects.
After a couple of back-to-back meetings I headed over to grab lunch with my friends and amazing Twitter partners, Alexandra and Jason. What was supposed to be an hour lunch easily turned into a 2 hour lunch.
It was great to see both of them since I hadn’t seen them since the week before my seizures when we had a full-day meeting at Twitter HQ.
I came back home to an afternoon of more back-to-back meetings, including one really fun one that I can’t talk about. Yeah, I know, it’s a tease.
I had a physical therapy appointment at the end of the day with another physical therapist at the office who expressed an interest in working with me. It was a different type of therapy than I am used to but was great.
We spent most of our time working on how to repair other areas of my body that are compensating for my shoulders. After just a few exercises I could see noticeable differences in my shoulders including in my mobility.
When I got back home from physical therapy I took my pre-workout drink, grabbed my resistance bands and headed next door to get in, what I hoped would be, my first full workout.
Using a 2-4 lbs resistance band I completed the following workout, which I adapted from Men’s Fitness:
3 rounds with 30 seconds rest between rounds
- Bentover Row - 15 repetitions
- Resisted Pushup - 5 repetitions (goal: 10-15 reps)
- Reverse Flye - 15 repetitions
- Monster Walk - 10 repetitions (each direction)
- Squat to Curl - 15 repetitions
- Russian Twists - 15 repetitions
- Toe touches - 15 repetitions
- Planks - to failure
It took 25 minutes to complete the workout, not including warm up and cool down. I was drenched by the end of it but happy that I pushed myself to complete it.
The hardest part of the workout for me were the pushups. I wanted to complete 10-15 repetitions per round but could only get 5 pushups per round. I expected pushups to be hard but didn’t realize how hard they would be.
Though I wasn’t able to execute as many pushups as I wanted, it is another success in rebuilding myself.
As I build mobility in my shoulders I will add in overhead presses using the resistance band into this workout.
Today was a successful day from start to finish. I am happy with my check in with the surgeon and that I finally completed a full workout.
With an early alarm for tomorrow to head down to Santa Clara, we are winding down rather quickly and trying to get to bed a bit earlier tonight.