Lifting Differently in the Boot

When I lift between classes at the college where I teach, I tend to get a pretty good workout because I'm (consciously, or at least subconsciously) pushing a little harder as I'm with a bunch of beefy college athletes. If I'm doing a lighter weights workout, I'm adding lots of reps. If I'm doing a pretty "normal" workout, I'm getting in a few more reps as well, or I'm upping the weight a bit more than I'd usually do.

Here I am yesterday after doing some pull-ups in one of the racks at school. I set the bars at a height that I can climb up onto to reach the pull-up bar above as I can't jump in the boot:

Ten minutes earlier, I was benching on the other side.
Now, I just got done doing pull-ups on this side.


Close-up of me still breathing hard in the mirror. In the boot.
With the "knee scooter" just out of frame to the right.

Back in December, I wrote about lifting a LOT more for my upper body as I wasn't running or biking, but I wasn't in the boot back then. Lately, I noticed 3 main differences while lifting in the boot (and with the scooter):

• ONE: I spend a MUCH greater percentage of my time actually lifting. A year ago, a 90 minute trip to the gym would have started with me walking a few laps on the track, stretching a bit, maybe foam rolling, THEN finally lifting, and maybe stretching for a moment when I was done. The lifting would have been about 40-50 minutes of those 90 minutes (or about 50%). Lately, I go to the gym for 75 minutes and lift for about 60 minutes (or about 80%). I like that. [UPDATE, 3/1: Today I kept track. I was at the gym for 80 minutes, and I lifted for 69 minutes of that.]

• TWO: My "variety" is gone. I can't be moving weights around like before - try to balance on one knee on a scooter while leaning to the side to grab a 45 lb plate. And then MOVE it somewhere. Nope. I tend to do 1 or 2 standard moves for each muscle group. Take my back exercises for example: in the past, I might do the cable row, a 1-armed dumbbell row, or a machine row. Well, the first 2 require a lot of pressure on my legs, so I don't do those any more. I only do the machine row, where the pressure is on my chest.

• THREE: I don't do circuits anymore. (Well, just much less frequently.) It's HARD to jump around the weight room in the scooter. So moving from bench to machine to different machine to free weights to yet a different machine and starting that all over again a bunch more times is difficult. So I tend to lift pretty "traditionally" (for me) since I've been in the boot: I work 2 muscle groups at a time as mentioned in this post.

On that note, I might try to do a circuit-style workout tomorrow at the gym if it's not too busy. [UPDATE, 3/1: that's what I did today: 7x everything circuit workout.] Back with something new I'm trying (and that includes not always being in the boot!) in my next post. Happy weekend!