How quickly it goes

Last week was what I call "assessment week."

While we got in some great walking on our vacation, our strength workouts were nil.  Oh don't get me wrong, we took our resistance bands and told ourselves we were going to do two strength workouts per week to maintain the muscle we worked so hard for, but they never saw the light of day.  When you're as sore as we would be at the end of the day from walking an average of seven miles per day, busting out a strength workout wasn't high on the priority list.  I knew we would pay for it when we came back and we did.

I will do a low weight free weight session for our first workout after every vacation to see where I am. Before we left, I was using 15's to warm up and using 20's and the occasional 25 lb dumbbell depending on the exercise.  For the assessment workout, I used 10's to warm up and 15's for the rest.  If I tried going right back into it using the weights pre-vacation, I would've seriously risked injury or being so sore I couldn't do much else.  The next day, I was sore.  Not so much that I couldn't move or anything but enough to know that I made the right decision in going slow.  We did a hike the following day, then did a Fitness Blender workout to see how we'd do with something a little more "formal" but I stuck to mostly 15's, one 20 and I think two exercises with 10's like reverse flies so I could still have good form.    We got through two rounds and when she said time to repeat for round three, we had to check out.  We instead took the same amount of time doing stretching and light yoga.  Then the next day came and I could barely walk.  We didn't stretch on vacation either so going back into a stretchy pigeon pose, while it felt good at the time, did not bode well for the next day.  We did Walk Away the Pounds for that day's workout and it felt like it was dragggggging. We both commented on how it felt like she slipped an extra segment in on us.

When the next day came, I was not in great shape.  I didn't want to take a rest day but the Mr said we should think about it.  I decided after his telework day was done, we could do some work on the patio to get it ready.  I think doing Turbo Fire would've been easier at that point!  Three hours of scrubbing, running around and such and I felt whooped.  Come the next day, I needed the Mr to give me a deep tissue massage on the back of my legs so I could function.

This week, we were doing a lot of busy work and yesterday was our first "okay, we're back at this full force" kind of workout.  We did Turbo Fire 45 EZ...one that we did quite a bit beforehand and man, we were beat.  The Mr said it took a lot out of him and I agree, it was tiring.  Tonight will be a strength workout and I want to try to shed the 10 pounders if I feel comfortable with it but I'll let my body dictate that.

Maybe I'm a weirdo, but I always kind of look forward to this part after a vacation where you're rebuilding your strength and endurance.  It makes you not take that stuff for granted as much because you know how quickly it goes.

When you're out of your fitness routine for any period of time, have you ever tried to jump back in the routine you had or ease yourself back in?

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