Sunday, April 29, 2007

Recovering from Dengue

Recovering From Dengue

So after 5 days of "enjoyable" stay at the hospital, the doctor came to me one morning and told me, we will see the blood test results, if everything is okay, you can be discharged. You did hear about my appetite which wasn't present, but that day, I must have recovered abit, I was caught eating some fruits when the doctor came in. Whatever it was, the hospital food didn't help me very much with the appetite, I was wacking the grapes, Jambu Air which was brought over by parents and relatives.

When I got discharged that, day, I remembered the doctor telling me, eat anything you want to eat. My body was still bloated, I looked fat, had a lot of water in my body. I got discharged on a Wednesday and got a two day MC, for Thursday and Friday. I slept most of the time, with my appetite still recovering. No more fevers to say the least.

Sayang was nice enough to come over every day, hence her disappearance from gym.

On Thursday and Friday, my sleeping patterns were still abit weird. I'd sleep at 10pm the latest, and wake up at 2 - 3 am and stay awake till 5am. I had time to think, during these two days of staying awake in the morning. I was thinking about things I wanted to eat, do, as well as gym.

I know my workout patterns will have to change. Less BC, perhaps more weights training, and little bit more RPM for myself. As I lay there in the middle of the night, I somehow had the time to not only think, but to visualize what I was going to do in gym as part of my recovery program. While I was thinking, more like visualizing, I was getting cramps just walking up the stairs back into my room.



Saturday afternoon, I was ready to drive out on my own. We went watch Wild Hogs at TGV @ KLCC. Just the right kind of movie to get you going again after being bed ridden for so many days. You somehow had to go somewhere, do something, and also to eat something. Hence the pic, at Chilli's, I needed my beef. The movie was great, no doubt about it, and so was the food. Yummy !!



So come Sunday, I was well rested ( relatively), recovering very well from dengue and all, I got tempted to go to gym. I walked into BC class, after 3 tracks, I punctured liao. During the warmup track, my legs almost cramped. So I paced myself through 3 tracks before moving out to the weights area to do some circuit training. 2 sets of Circuit Training, and I was exhausted. Phew !! I had to come to terms with myself then, my recovery wasn't that fast, I am probably old liao, the amount of muscle lost, my body still have to readjust to the condition.

Circuit training is probably the best way to recover for now. The programme was simple, a little bit of something for the whole body to recondition it back.

Hack Squats, Leg Extension, Lunges
Upper Back Row, Low Rows, Pulldowns
Chest Press, Flyes
Shoulder Press, Upright Rows
Bicep Curls, Tricep Extensions
Abs

Sayang did a little bit more than me in terms of resistance and reps. By the end of the 2 sets, I was already sweating buckets ( thanks to 3 BC tracks), and exhausted.

I did the same thing on Tuesday. We went to MJH, Sayang went for her BC Class, while I could not attend, I stayed downstairs to re-condition my body. This time it began with 10 minutes of warmup on the bike, followed by:

Leg Extensions, Leg Curls, 2 Sets each
Pulldowns, Upper Back Row, Low Back Rows
Incline Chest Press, Flyes,
Shoulder Presses, Bicep 21's, Tricep Presses, Tricep Extension
Abs

This time around, I increased the resistance by a little bit. Also did 2 sets of it, and by the end of it, I was again exhausted, and sweating buckets. Skipped Wednesday, for recovery, and Thursday since I was off, we went to Curve to attend BC. I proudly lasted all ten tracks, without doing many options. My legs didn't feel like cramping. I told myself, if I can last 10 tracks, I will attempt to do a RPM class.

Today was great, my body still aching from Thursday's class, I attempted to do BC again. I was okay until track 8, that was when my body suddenly didn't have enough energy to continue punching, and scissoring. Its like that stupid KFC advertisment, the idiot asks, Never Eat Rice ah ? My reserves went zelo, conditioning also cannot tahan.

I think the circuit training helped quite abit, so next week I will attempt to do 3 sets instead of two, with 2 minutes of cardio in between sets(just to keep up the heart rate abit). Time to up the tempo abit and see how I recover from this.

I found one website which has got a range of circuit training programmes for different types of atheletes.

Now my next challenge is to finish one RPM class without cheating.