more gym, short guinea pig episode, and socializing

[redbird]

Another good workout. But my arms were sore afterwards, because after I'd done everything else, one of the fine roving trainers came over and told me I needed to support my lower back for the biceps curls, and then showed me lateral raises--a shoulder exercise--and talked me through two sets of 15 of those. Tricky, as I had to pay attention to my butt, knees, abdomen, and elbows while I did them.


Hip adduction, took the weight down to 100 pounds: 15. 13. 15
Hip abduction, down 5 to 90 pounds: 15, 12

Cardio, 33 minutes, top heart rate 151

Adjustable row: 100 pounds, 3 sets of 15
Bench press: 50 pounds, 12, 11, 8+3 (I don't usually do those in that order, or right together, but the bench press setups weren't available when I got into the weight room.)
Seated leg curl: 75 pounds, 3 sets of 15
Triceps pull-down: 30 pounds, 3 sets of 15
Seated leg press: 140 pounds, 3 sets of 14

Crunches, 4 sets of 20
Back arches: 3 sets of 15
Yoga tree

Bicep curls: 35 pound bar, 3 sets of 15. Leaning against the wall not only supports the lower back, as the trainer said, it stops me from "cheating" and thus makes lifting 35 pounds more difficult.

Lateral raise: This means holding weights in each hand, and taking them out to the side, raising the arms to shoulder level, then bringing them together in front of me, down, and repeat. Meanwhile, bend the knees slightly, buttocks back, tighten abs, relax shoulders, and don't lock elbows either. My forearms were quite sore later in the evening. I dd two sets of 15 of these, with five-pound weights in each hand.

Stretches


After exercising, I went over to Amy's Bread for a light supper. I got their last brie-and-apple sandwich, which was on a wholegrain walnut bread this time, and had it, toasted, with a cup of tea, then filled in the cracks with a rosemary roll.

Then I went down to the Village for a quick stint as a psych guinea-pig. The whole thing took about 15 minutes, including reading and signing a standardized consent form. I was asked a few demographic questions, including when my family on each side came to the US and what languages I speak; then to think about my family and friends and what they expect of me without writing anything, followed by quickly putting down a bunch of self-descriptions. Then I got to answer questions in a scenario that felt very realistic: person needs directions to a store that is having a going-out-of-business sale, but the friend she asks says "later" because she's reading an exciting book. I could easily see myself as being said friend.

At the end, I had a choice of a $5 payment then, or a lottery for a 1-in-20 chance of $100 later. I took the lottery, and asked the experimenter how many people did each. About half.

By then it was sleeting, so I took a crosstown bus two blocks and the #1 train one stop, instead of walking to Rose's Turn.

Rose's was almost empty when I got there, so I sat down in about our usual spot, and wrote some diary-type stuff (not for this journal) and listened to the piano player until roadnotes arrived. We talked, sang, and listened, and gradually more friends showed up: eleanor, fangorn, lawnrrd, and the delightfully weird Chuck Hancock (on sax and flute). Much Beatles, much Chicago, random other music, and I sang along to what I knew, as did plenty of other people. Roadnotes and I got to talking a little with a woman behind us, who was sitting alone and waiting for a friend. She asked if we were together, and I explained that we're not together in that sense, but we've known each other since 1975. She said we looked like good friends--which we do and are, and I had been rubbing Roadnotes's hair and back on and off. I eventually left because I was having trouble keeping my eyes open, and the nice woman behind us (whose name I have lost--Roadnotes, if you remember, please tell me) asked if I was leaving, and leaned over to kiss me on the cheek. I walked out smiling and took the train home.

By about 181st Street, I was cold and unhappy (the train is still underground at that point, so I think it was me more than the ambient temperature). I developed a headache and had some trouble falling asleep despite two aspirin: maybe I should't drink alcohol two nights in the same week? A nasty holding-still-in-the-dark-doesn't-help sort of pain. Fortunately, it was gone when I woke up this morning.

Comments

[eleanor.livejournal.com]

It was a splendid ngiht, and as alwasy, you were excellent company.

[stealthpup.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm. I think I'll give that back-to-the-wall bicep exercise a try next arm workout. I'm actually pretty good about keeping my elbows in-and-locked during bicep work, but the extra reminder couldn't hurt.

I'd cut way back on my lateral shoulder work after the bursitis came on. Thankfully, the pain is no longer steady, and, indeed, my shoulder seems to be healing up nicely, but I'm still trying to stay easy on it, since I don't want it to flare up again. Bleah. (I'm restoring my incline chest presses again, but I've had to drop my weight by 25 pounds, and I'm having to concentrate hard on keeping the right shoulder back [yep, bad posture was what brought the bursitis on].)

Hee hee! I always like taking little psych tests. I remember one that I took in San Francisco (I was approached while visiting the Exploratorium museum), and, to this day, I'm pretty certain that the actual questions were unimportant, given my frustration at how badly they were worded, and the severe lack of proofreading of the test text -- I think that type of reaction was what they were testing for.

100% chance of $5 vs. 5% chance of $100 -- yep, sounds like another psych check. Cutely done. Given that they have the same expected value, I'd be curious to see the final results.

I'll have to get to New York one of these decades and visit Rose's. <wistful sigh>

[rysmiel.livejournal.com]

The psych undergrads in Trinity were always having to apply these sort of tests to other undergrads they knew, and they got into the habit of avoiding me fairly early on; they'd ask two of their eight questions, and I'd say, "hang on, you're trying to deduce a yes/no answer to question X, and my position on it isn't that simple", and I always correctly identified the question they were asking. Which really blew the gaskets of one person who had strongly internalised the science/art Two Cultures duality and did not get that I cared about both. *shrug* I'm a systems programmer; reverse-engineering the underlying structure from the surface manifestations is what my brain does, will I nil I.

[redbird]

*grin*

This time, all I did by way of reverse-engineering was to ask her "this is a general-purpose consent form, isn't it?" because it did things like promise that if they learned anything later that would affect my willingness to participate, they'd tell me. Only one yes-no question, which was whether the hypothetical person should be punished for her behavior. I said no; she'd done something I thought was at best poorly chosen, but that doesn't mean punishment is appropriate.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

Could it possibly have been a lack of caffeine type headache? There was only one cup of tea in there, in what described quite a long time. Sounds like a lovely day, even if it did end uncomfortably. *hug*

[redbird]

Probably not--there were three (I think) cups of tea before this entry started, and the timing of the cups was more or less as usual.

Overall, yes, it was lovely.

[kate_nepveu]

Do you think the payment choice was also part of the experiment?

[damned-colonial.livejournal.com]

Oh god. The world is too damn small. As well as knowing rysmiel from way back on alt.fan.pratchett, I met eleanor a few weeks ago when she was in Ottawa visiting with marnan.

K.