Five Week Gym Challenge: Week 3 & 4 Recap

I forgot last week’s recap, in part because it was a fairly dull, somewhat disappointing week. I hate to say it, but Week 3 was technically only 5 days of meaningful exercise. I had to take one day off to deal with my horrific allergies (I probably sneezed more than 300 times in one day…and that’s no hyperbole) and another to help Erinn move into her apartment. That moving day kinda sorta counts as a workout, I think, not in the least because I did a fair amount of heavy lifting (both loading and unloading the truck) and running stuff up and down the three sets of stairs to Erinn’s second-floor apartment. I sweated through a shirt in the process, so I might just chalk that one up to being a 75% workout.

Commonplace Book: Hobbes, Leviathan

From “The Introduction” in Leviathan, Thomas Hobbes [1651]

“But there is another saying not of late understood, by which they might learn truly to read one another, if they would take the pains; and that is, Nosce teipsum, Read thy self: which was not meant, as it is now used, to countenance, either the barbarous state of men in power, towards their inferiors; or to encourage men of low degree, to a sawcie behaviour towards their betters; But to teach us, that for the similitude of the thoughts, and Passions of one man, to the thoughts, and Passions of another, whosoever looketh into himself, and considereth what he doth, when he does think, opine, reason, hope, feare, &c, and upon what grounds; he shall thereby read and know, what are the thoughts, and Passions of all other men, upon the like occasions. I say the similitude of Passions, which are the same in all men, desire, feare, hope, &c; not the similitude of the objects of the Passions, which are the things desired, feared, hoped, &c: for these the constitution individuall, and particular education do so vary, and they are so easie to be kept from our knolwedge, that the characters of mans heart, blotted and confounded as they are, with dissembling, lying, counterfeiting, and erroneous doctrines, are legible onely to him that searcheth hearts. And though by mens actions wee do discover their designe sometimes; yet to do it without comparing them with our own, and distinguishing all circumstances, by which the case may come to be altered, is to decypher without a key, and be for the most part deceived, by too much trust, or by too much diffidence; as he that reads, is himself a good or evil man.”

Five Week Gym Challenge: Week 2 Recap

Week 2 was something of a strange bird. The weather was so nice on Tuesday and Wednesday that I couldn’t bear to bring myself to spend my workouts indoors, so I took to the neighborhood soccer field as a change of pace. My day at the soccer fields on Tuesday was fantastic: I did some light jogging, stretched out, did a good half-hour of juggling (I got up to 120-something using just my feet), and capped it all off with some push-up/sit-up/tricep-lift circuits that left me pleasantly burnt out.

Five Week Gym Challenge: Week 1 Recap

Monday, July 27th –> Sunday, August 2nd

I’ve managed to work out six of the last seven days, which, outside of playing year-round sports way back in high school, is some kind of personal record. By and large, I have no great love for indoor workouts — I like my fresh air and wide open spaces more than the cramped, sweat-soaked muscle dungeons in the SERF — but I think I’m coming around at least a little bit. I can attribute part of that, at least, to finally coming up with a workout regimen that I enjoy. What might that be, you ask?