My last report was on Tuesday, March 5. The next day, Wednesday, March 6, I left for the USA on a 16-day business/pleasure trip. Business because I had to do research for a paper I am preparing to write for my institution and pleasure because it is always a pleasure for me to go back home to the USA. As far a working out, I didn't do any strength workouts, but I did play a ton of Pickle-Ball. On the 7th, I played a total of about 8 hours: 3 hours in the morning, 3 hours in the afternoon, then 2 hours in the evening. On Friday, the 8th, I played about 5 hours: 3 hours in the morning, then 2 hours in the afternoon. Then I played about 3 hours a day from Sunday to Wednesday. On Thursday, I went to see the 2018 BNP Paribas ATP Masters 1000 Tennis Tournament at Indian Wells. So, on Thursday, Friday, and Sunday, I was sitting most of the day just watching professional tennis matches. It was GLORIOUS!!! I got to see the G.O.A.T. Roger Federer play in person. Unfortunately, he lost in the finals after an incredible match. Then, On Monday, I pretty much just relaxed and went shopping and eating with family. Tuesday was my last research day so I spent all day at the University. I was due to return home to Japan on Wednesday but after a series of very unfortunate events, I didn't get home until the next MONDAY night! I took the rest of the week off to recover from my Jet Lag. Which brings me to TODAY!
I haven't played tennis for a month so I was a little nervous as to how I would play especially with all the Pickle-Ball I played early on in the month. I was worried that timing and contact with the ball would be problems. They were. Right from the warm-up I had difficulty finding the contact point. I was striking the ball all over the place. It was extremely inconsistent. I knew it would be, so I just took it in stride and kept on pushing forward. I got a little of the feel back, but I've got a long way to go. The days' menu was, as usual, Stroke/Volley first, then Serve/Return. My stroke was sometimes in and sometimes out, sometimes WAY out. Volleys were weak and missing the sweet spot of my racket. A lot of frame shots. But I got a few good strokes and volleys in there. Serve was also erratic. One round I would pound a series of aces and service winners, then the next series I would double fault everything. Pretty much the story of my day. The final hour was match play. I played in the first and last match. The first match was an easy win because the way the draw came out, our opponent was a mixed doubles pair and the female was a beginner. It was good, but the guys weren't able to really get into a groove. In the last match, it was a good pairing. I served first and quickly went up 30-Love, but a quick four points later, I lost the game. But we got the break back, by breaking in the next game. The next two servers held serve so the score was 2-2. My serve again. At this time, we looked at the court time and we only had 8 minutes left on our reservation so my service game would have to be the last game. This was the decider. This time, I went down Love-30, and I came back with some good serving to 30-30. Then two points later, it was 40-40. With no-ad scoring, the winner of the next point would take the game. I went for the ace on my first serve and hit it just long down the T. I didn't want to just dink it in, so I went for it. I took a little off and when for the Ad angle, and I nailed a service winner to end the game. On man, that felt good. No, that felt GREAT!!! That just made my day. It has been a while since I moved that hard, so my back and legs were feeling it. I wanted to just take a shower and relax when I got home, but I had a series of challenges to complete.
Not doing any strength training for a month really kills the strength levels. So, I'm using this month as a "Get-Back-Into-It" month. My Beachbody Coach is running a series of challenges in a group. We are free to choose one or more (out of 4) of the challenges, but I chose to do all four of the challenges. The four challenges are a Squat Challenge, a Beginner Push-Up Challenge, a Crunch Challenge, and a Plank Challenge. (See the graphic below.) But before seeing the challenges posted by my coach today, I had already decided to do a Push-Up Challenge I found on the internet yesterday, and also run it as a Pull-Up Challenge. (See graphic below.) Basically what I'll do is do the variations of Push-Ups, and then to an equivalent Pull-Up to match. So I'm doing a total of 6 Challenges that end up being a full-body workout. I'm sure I do some harder modifications and easier modifications as the month progresses. But my goal is to get some strength back so I can be ready to do the weight training program "Body BEAST" from May. Thankfully, today is "Day 1" so the reps were low. But I was feeling the Squats, and the Push-Ups were slow going. The other challenges were as expected... simple. Hopefully, I will be able to get my strength and endurance up quickly so the challenges won't be so tough on tennis days. Today I was really tired so it was tougher than it needed to be for a Day 1.
Here are the Challenges from my Coach:
This is the challenge I decided the night before. I have a corresponding Pull-Up Grip for each Push-Up variation, so when I do 1 rep of a Push-Up, I do 1 rep of the corresponding Pull-Up Grip. On Day 1, it was just one rep of each variation, but later on, I will probably lower the number of Pull-Ups but keep the challenge going.
In the end, I burned 2031kcals. It was a good burn for my first day in a month. I hope I can keep the streak on.
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