Cable Vision

Have you used cable machines at the gym lately?

I really enjoy the variety you can get out of this one piece of equipment. I’ll get to the cable stuff I did in a minute. Today’s workout, after biking to the gym, was as follows:

Planks (just swell for core strength).
Swiss ball crunches (big article on getting up off the floor).
Swiss ball Russian Twists.
Lower leg raises.*
Pushups
Chinups (just a few-ow)
Shoulder presses.
Squats (385 with freeweights. Yessuh!)
Leg curls
*I did a neat variant. Lie down on a tall bench, such that your lower back and legs are dangling off. Put a medicine ball between your knees, and keep your legs at a 90 degree bend, as if you’re sitting in a chair. Then raise and lower your legs, as if you’re trying to raise your knees to your chest. The bench gives an extended range of motion.

And then the cable stuff…

Take one of those big arms and put it way up. Take the other and put it way down. Grab the handle of the way up with both hands, and drag it down and diagonally, as if you’re chopping wood. Oh yes, that’s the name. Cable chop. It’s a GREAT core and multi-join exercise.

Then, take the lower arm, and pull up, somewhere between a golf swing and a deep baseball swing. I think it’s similar to digging with a shovel.

Make sure you get both sides (down from left, down from right ; up from left, up from right) equally. That stuff rocks.

I used the machine to do rows. I used it to do curls. I did tricep pulldowns. By the way, doing single-side exercises exercises your core, too!

Then, I did these great chest exercises, where I stood with the machine behind me, and pushed one hand at a time, as if doing a dumbell bench press, but because I was oriented upright, it looked more like a boxer doing a punch. Only, I was doing this punch through molasses. This exercise ROCKED for my chest. It really moved a lot of resistance against my pecs, my triceps, and through my core. I felt it deep.

Did I mention I squatted 385 in freeweights? Wow!

My bike ride home was through POURING rain, so that wasn’t exceptionally pleasant, but it was kind of interesting for what it was. I was wearing plain heavy cotton sweatpants, which was like biking home in bath towels you accidentally dropped in the tub. Whoops.

Eating-wise, yesterday was fairly good until the end. Right around supper time, I got ravenous. I think it’s because I tried to cheat my supper portion and I only ate an energy bar and a few nuts. It wasn’t diverse enough, and it didn’t have enough oomph to keep me feeling full. I added a veggie burger on a slice of multigrain bread, and that helped. Delicious smoothie for breakfast, and a hummus and vegetable sandwich for lunch.

Mentally, I’m doing well with my career efforts. Spiritually, I think I know what I want to do. I just have to enact it.

Want a motivational movie? Watch MIRACLE. Yes, it’s a Disney flick, but it’s the training of the guys that really motivates you. Have you seen it?

Have you tried one of those cable things? What do you think?

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