Fitness and Depression

Over the weekend, my dearest Soul Sister came over and helped me finish unpacking my apartment. We cleaned and had wine along with our friend L, and it was just a brilliant weekend.Soul Sister and I were talking about the new Henry Ford program that she's piloting. The program is designed to help people suffering with depression by not only providing therapy, but also life tools and exercise opportunities for patients. It reminded me of why I started this blog, especially in light of the hard, long, depressing winter we just had. It's only now becoming spring here.

In talking to her, my  enthusiasm for so many things came back to life.

I had seen this coming for Soul Sister for a very long time. I had know that her life would lead her in this direction, and just as I wrote about way back in the earlier days of my blog, I feel like it's connected to me as well. Something magical is brewing. 

The events of the weekend led to a truly great feeling as I entered into this week. My apartment is tidy and feels like home finally. The place is decorated and organized and I have room in the Gymbrary. So much good came from the simple conversations of friends and spending time with Soul Sister and Beef. 

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Tuesday was Upper Body! Beef and I decided to tackle a legit weight training workout Tuesday and ventured into the Bro Zone of the gym. It was very busy and I admit I was very intimidated as we were using a bench and taking up space in the male dominated area. Here's what we did:

Warm Up:
-25 Minutes on the Elliptical
-15 Minutes of Stretching

Workout:
Everything was 3 sets of 10, and I attempted to keep to 3 second movements, although we were using pretty light weights by nature of not being very confident or skilled at the motions. 
-Dumbbell Bench Press: This felt wobbly and odd and I was certain that all the jockstraps at the gym were disgruntled I was taking up bench space to lift 15 pound weights.
-Barbell Rows: These we did standing, using a fixed weight bar of 20lbs. I didn't want to go to heavy because I was concerned that we'd do these wrong and end up hurting our backs instead of working our shoulders. 
-Dumbbell Shoulder Press: This too felt wobbly and odd, but it was challenging, which felt nice (15lbs)
-Dumbbell Flys: Lying on the floor (away from the bros) we used lighter weights for these, about 7.5-10lbs)
-Lateral Raises: Used nice light 5lbs for these. Felt very fatigued at the end of it all. 
-Told Beef we need to do some tricep dips too, but we were ready to leave, so we didn't. 

It was really difficult for me to work with Beef on these things. She is new and unfamiliar with the movements, so while if I were by myself trying to figure them out, I'd have a basic understanding of what things should feel like and how I should stand, etc. I just suck at explaining it to her. I can see that there's something a little off with say, a shoulder press, but I'm inarticulate and can't explain how to do it differently to get better results. I don't want to be giving poor advice which would lead to injury, so I suppose all I can do is try to teach myself how to do the movements so well that I can understand the mechanics enough to explain them to others.