Or perhaps a brain dump.
Health
About 2 weeks ago now, I took a puck to the side of the helmet. It split open my temple and rattled my brain. No stitches, lots of blood, some medical glue, and now I have another scar. If that was the only impact, then it would be easy.
I suffered a mild concussion with the injury. I took the following day off, then tried work. That didn’t go so well. Spent 2 days in a dark room and that had a rather dramatic impact on my brain functions. See, concussion protocol dictates that you don’t do the following: exert yourself, read a book, stare at a screen/TV. What sucks about that, is that they are the exact things that I do to de-stress. I play hockey 3x a week, I workout 3x a week, I play games, and I work in front of a computer. Asking me to stop eating for 3 days would be easier.
I’ve cut down on as much as I could. Gaming has been minimized. Work – I make efforts to get away from the screen. I haven’t played a hockey game in 2 weeks. Workouts I still do mind you. The difference is that hockey gets my heart rate to about 140, while lifting weights rarely has me break 110. My resting rate is around 50.
Fitness
Related to above, taking time away from cardio work (hockey) and just plain being in recovery mode, has allowed me to make some progress in my fitness regime. It took a month, but I finally received my weight lifting belt from Amazon, and it’s a beaut. I don’t get dizzy lifting, and for those that do lift weights, you can relate to the “zen-ness” of it all. The downside is that my body can only really take 90 minutes of it every other day. Not having hockey around means that there’s more rest, and the progress between sessions has improved.
I’ve limited myself to a 225lbs squat, 25lbs chin-up and 25lbs dip. I can physically do more, but I can’t play hockey 2-3x a week and keep pace. The rest of the movements I can increase just fine. Bench, row, press, and dead lift are all moving at a good pace. I have numbers that I want to achieve before the summer and all of them are within reach – though the bench is going to be the hardest one.
In an interesting twist, my wife wants to share in the program. I think she’s going to do great. Plus having both parents do sessions on alternating days, means that the kids will see a daily dose of exercise from their parents. Can’t get them started on body weight exercises soon enough!
Games
It’s only 1 post away, but I’ve put enough thought into it over the past few months. I’ll be picking up the PS4 tonight. I took Murph‘s suggestion to heart, scouring local ads for used games. That’ll work out if I want a cheap version of Killzone or some other FPS. The particulars that I want don’t seem to be on resale that much, or at a price point that seems worthwhile for a 1 hour drive. I’ll find something that works…
Leo's Life 
Sorry to hear about the concussion. I don’t have to worry about those as a tendy. I changed my lifting routine to a 3 day on, 1 day off rotation and I just skip leg day if it falls on a hockey day (Monday, Tuesday, or Saturday) which means I skip a lot of leg days. I do find that being in my stance is a great leg workout anyway.
I also changed it off of heavy weights. I used to do all compound exercises but with my elbow and wrist injuries I skipped to supersets, lighter weight/high rep to heavy weight low reps, Starting with more compound exercises to more focused. So chest/back day (1) I will do benchpress (15/12/8/6) with a pullup superset after each to failure. Day 2 is shoulders/legs, Day 3 is bicep/tricep. I’m lifting ok still, and focusing on really good form over weight. I;m still just as sore. I don’t expect to put on 20 lbs of muscle or anything but it’s keeping my 43 year old body feeling and looking in my 30s. I mix in HIIT on days 1 and 3, and Abs / LISS on day 2.
I look forward to working out everyday, it’s just a habit that gets my day started off right. 5:30 am everyday.
I also agree, my wife is on different programs (a lot of HIIT, yoga, etc.) and our son sees both of us keeping very active, which I hope gives him good habits as he gets older.
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Body splits are something I used to do before. I think I’ll swap back to that in the fall. My main hurdle on that front is that my home gym isn’t set up for it. My guess is another $500 or so to get a few more pieces in order to accommodate isolation exercises.
I’m still amazed at people who can workout at 5:30 in the morning, as I guess people are amazed at me doing it at 11 at night. I’ve tried a half dozen times to do it in the morning – each time caused an injury.
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