I stayed up again late last night. Still managed to get up at 5:30 this morning. I guess this has not been too disturbing because I have been able to get myself back on schedule fairly quickly. I do, however, much prefer to be up at 5:00 and will be getting myself back on track starting tonight. Besides, there is no more television that I want to watch. The Amazing Race and The Voice are over, so I will be hitting the sack at no later than 9:30 now! LOL!  

What I have tried to do with my workouts since the injury is to rid myself of those exercises that render little or any benefit to my overall physique. I also made a very significant reduction in the total number of reps of any exercise that I do, which not only shortens my workouts, but most importantly, helps me to avoid overuse injuries. The addition of the full body daily stretching regimen has yielded tremendous results and I can say that my arm and shoulder continue to feel better every day---about 90% with little or no pain on any given day. My leg workouts are prime examples of my new approach to working out. Today's workout was short, but fairly brutal. LOL! I, like many folks, am not a fan of leg day. This is why I placed it in the middle of my workouts on Wednesday, "HUMP DAY." After this workout is done, the workout week is all downhill. 

Today I did my stretching regimen and then put on my 20-pound weighted vest to do those BLEEPING squat thrusts---3 sets of 35 of them. After that, still with the vest on, I hit 3 sets of 35 quad squats. I don't have a lot of weight, but believe me you will feel these exercises in your legs. The squat thrusts hit the entire leg, while those quad squats really burn the quads. 

The second part of the leg workout occurs outside in the midst of the 3-mile interval run. After running two laps (.4 mile), I did 1-minute of rope jumping, walked to the marked place on my course for the 40 yard traveling lunges, then walked the curve of my course into the next straightaway for the 40 yard bounds, and walked back to the beginning of the course and started the entire process again. By the time I finished this 5 times, my legs were spent. It was, however, a good day to be out in the weather. It was cloudy, a bit breezy, and cool---mid 40s. I still, however, managed to break into a sweat! LOL! Nevertheless, I was glad to get back into the house, get that very hot steamy shower, and massage the legs with some "old folks" rub, and then get a hot first meal of the day! I am going to get some rest today, because later I will be putting in a new broiler element in the stove. It should be arriving any time now and it will be a chore to move the stove and do all that is needed to replace the element.

One thing I would like to mention is that I APPRECIATE the great feedback that I have been receiving from my friends. I had a great week of workouts last week and felt that set me up to start seeing some great progress. I am FINALLY feeling like I am starting to look like my "old" self---a bit more muscular---for the first time since starting full workouts after my arm and shoulder injury. Your feedback has confirmed what I THOUGHT I was seeing in my pictures. A number of you have commented that it looks like I have gained some mass back. Thanks for the confirmation.

This is the reason I encourage all who join bodyspace to fill in a profile. You cannot get good critiques,  encouragement, and feedback (with a few occasional nasty comments at times! LOL ) if you don't put up some pictures, goals and information about yourself. Put aside your fears and fill in that information.

I will admit, that I got so tired of the blank profiles showing up in the friends section on my page that I deleted about 50 profiles. Among them were also a few with profiles, who seem to mostly "collect" friends (literally thousands of them) but did not interact. Funny thing is after getting the "Over 40 Transformation of the Week" recognition. I added 50 plus new friends and all of their profiles but two have profile pictures. I added those two because their profiles were otherwise complete. I don't understand, however, complete profiles, without the profile pictures. I have encouraged and still encourage them to add a profile picture. I thank all of my friends, old and new, for their support and feedback. 

Tomorrow is ab day, with stretching, followed by the final 3-mile run of the week. I am trying to get my lower abs back to their old "fuller" look. I need to do a bit more weighted work and may find a way to add some on tomorrow.  

I am wishing you all a great HUMP DAY! " title=">" />