Busy and tiring Monday.

Today I was put on a route I’ve not done for a few months. Had no idea where anything was, but overall I managed to find 99% of places.

Arrived at the depot for 6:30am. Handled 290 parcels through the day and left the depot at 6pm. 11.5hrs, shite.

I had a high number of heavy parcels today including some awkward bastards, including a couple of fecking mattresses.

Including a lot of collection parcels, I was pretty tired when I got home.

But having not done any weight lifting yesterday due to going out all day, I bit the bullet and did some squats.

2 sets of 6 reps with 70kg of Barbell Squats.

Having squatted 60kg more than comfortably last week, I had intended on upping the weight this week. But to show how tired I was the last couple of reps felt really heavy.

I know I can work my way up to 100kg or more in the next month or so, but getting there will be testing, I think I might make sure I do them at weekends to make sure I’ve got enough strength.

This Sunday was a no go as I was out all day at the Birmingham Diamond League athletics meeting.

I’ve never been to watch athletics live, so it was a great day out and made even better by being quite close to the finish line and getting to see some athletes up close.

My seat was right next to the long jump ladies, which was pretty cool.

Until next time…

WeeMike

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Hump day an all that

Today as always on a Wednesday was busy and today was a bitch because it was pissing down with rain for most of it, nice soggy parcels, cool.

Arrived at the depot for 6:30am, handled 205 parcels through the day and left the depot at 5:30pm. 11hr day, moist.

Pretty much the same as yesterday too, minus the rain.

Got delayed on 1 of the M.O.D sites just like yesterday too, oh and I got moaned at by a private customer because of it.

I was given a specific time slot for my delivery and I shouldn’t have to wait to go out just because your late, now I’m late.

Oh well I’m sorry as I said, your not the only person who ill be late too today and the service isn’t guaranteed though as delays can be unavoidable.

Perhaps you should complain to the military site down the road.

She didn’t say anything more after that. Yahuh.

Anyways. Home and lifted some more heavy shit.

Yesterday I did some back exercises.

2 sets of 8 reps with 50kg of Barbell Rows.

2 sets of 7 reps of Chin Ups with 10kg on my belt.

I managed to squeeze out an extra rep on each set of the chin ups this week, so I’ll aim for 8 reps next week and add 2.5kg to the rows. Back is feeling good again, starting to feel like I might be able to do some deadlifts again soon, we’ll see.

Today I did some shoulder exercises.

2 sets of 6 reps with 50kg of Barbell Shoulder Press.

1 set of 10 reps with 7.5kg of Dumbbell Rear Raises and 1 set of 10 reps with 7.5kg of Dumbbell Side Raises.

Seem to have stalled on the overheads and really struggled to lock the last couple of reps of the last set out, could have been fatigue from carrying parcels, not sure.

I’m going to lower the weight of the 2nd set down to 47.5kg and add 1 rep to the 1st set. Work up to 9 reps on the 1st set then try for 50kg 6 reps on the 2nd again in a few weeks.

Until next time…

WeeMike

Normal days are few and far between.

A normal day delivering parcels. A few hard to find cottages but overall a non eventful day for once.

Arrived at the depot for 6:40am, handled 205 parcels throughout the day, left the depot at 5:45pm. 11hr day, meh.

Same route as last week, it seems I may be kept on this route for a while. Not sure I’m happy with that, but I guess I’m getting to know the area.

If the M.O.D sites weren’t on this route I’d be more than happy to continue on it, but as always, today they were a pain in the ass.

Anyway, we’ll see what happens in the long term.

Got home and did a quick chest workout.

2 sets of 12 reps with 20kg weights vest of push ups.

2 sets of 10 reps of wide hand width push ups.

I feel like I need to add 5kg to my weighted push ups now, so I’ll drop down to 8 reps next week and see how it feels.

I also feel like I want to add in a set or 2 of some flyes. I used to do them on my olympic rings, but I think I’ll start with some basic bench flyes first lol.

Steak burgers, cheese and ice cold beer time.

Until next time…

WeeMike

Parcel Delivery and Gardening – Two opposites make a whole.

This weekend I decided to plod around the house, seeing as though it’s been on and off pissing down with rain and gale force winds it turned out to be good idea.

Whenever the rain stopped and the sun came out, I went outside for as long as I could to do a little garden maintenance.

I really enjoy the extremes of my day job of parcel delivering and evenings/weekends spent tinkering in the garden.

Its taken a number of years to get to the stage where I can actually feel like the two halves of my day to day life actually gel pretty well together to make a whole.

From the often crazy, always physically and mentally intense world of parcel delivery to the slow, relaxing world of gardening.

In the warmer months I generally leave any tinkering with the plants until weekends and most evenings just enjoy sitting in the garden listening and watching the bee’s and bugs.

I like to go for a more wild approach to gardening. I leave our grass to grow tall in patches and this lets the wild flowers come through as we’ve got a meadow lawn rather than just grass and also provides great cover for pollinators, butterflies and moths etc.

We’ve got over a 100 potted plants around our garden, seeing as though it’s rented we went down this route so that we could move the majority of our garden with us when we eventually move.

We’ve got a lot of wild/native flowers to the UK and plants that are attractive to pollinators etc rather than just for show.

I like to think we’re doing our bit for nature in creating a little haven for it and we get to share it with them.

I even created a small Belfast sink pond a couple of years ago…

and whilst we’ve seen a small newt or two in it and various water snails and other bugs we’ve never seen a frog.

Until this year! Which was really cool, not sure where it’s gone as we’ve not seen it for a while, but I’m sure it’s are still around somewhere.

The wooden bee homes I got last year have filled up nicely this year too…

Each layer is like this, with various pollinator babies in them. I’ll leave them ‘bee’ until it gets cooler and then move them indoors over the winter ready to go back out in spring time next year.

Hopefully some survive and can live in our garden next year as last year’s perished as we didn’t get them in early enough before it got too cold.

I managed to get in some leg exercises in amongst all today’s relaxing gardening lol.

Today I did 2 sets of Barbell Squats with 60kg.

1 set of 10 reps at 10kg of Dumbbell Lunges and 1 set of 10 reps at 30kg of Barbell Good Mornings.

I upped the squats from 50kg and felt pretty good doing them, so I’ll add another 10kg next week and that will be bodyweight or just over 1kg over my bodyweight.

The lunges I left the same but added 5kg to the good mornings.

Nice brief 20 minute workout, just as I like it. And just in time ready to go watch the first Manchester United match of the season, come on yaniiiited!

Until next time…

WeeMike

High volume Thursday.

One of the quieter Thursdays for a while, about 20% down on actual stops, but the volume of parcels was higher than normal.

Arrived at the depot for 6:30am, handled 275 parcels through the day, left the depot at 4:30pm. 10hr day, bosh.

The parcel volume was mainly for the M.O.D sites and they were as always a pain in the arse as I was on the sites for nearly an hour yet again.

Got home and did some shoulder exercises.

2 sets of 6 reps at 50kg of Barbell Shoulder Press.

1 set of 10 reps at 7.5kg of Rear Dumbbell Raises and straight away 1 set of 10 reps at 7.5kg of Side Raises.

I upped the overheads by 2.5kg and definitely felt it as it struggled to lock out the last rep of the last set, so I’ll keep the weight the same for next week an see how it feels.

My right elbow was aching loads today, which isn’t a surprise, it seems to after doing any kind of chin ups.

I think I must’ve damaged the ligaments years ago when I did a week long chin up challenge and did something like 250 chin ups a day for a week.

I remember by the end of the week my arms or specifically my elbow joints were smoked.

Since then whenever I over do it on chin ups, they start to ache the next day. Added in with all the parcels I lift each day, it doesn’t take a lot to make them ache these days.

Oh well, a few days rest an it’ll be all good.

Until next time…

WeeMike

You never get used to aching muscles.

Arrived at the depot for 6:30am, handled 330 parcels throughout the day, left the depot at 5pm. 10.5hr day, pukka.

Fuck that was busy today. The route I was on included not 1 but 2 M.O.D sites which are always a bastard to deliver to due to security checks and the size of the delivery areas to drive around.

Both sites had a large number of boxes and took nearly an hour and a half to complete.

100 odd boxes but technically only 2 fucking deliveries in 1.5hrs, bastard fucking M.O.D.

Got home and did some back exercises.

3 sets of 8 reps at 50kg of Barbell Rows.

2 sets of 6 reps with a 10kg weight belt on of Chin Ups.

I added 5kg to the Barbell Rows today and did an extra set as I felt good. Will keep to 3 sets now but add a little weight each week.

The chin ups were a struggle for the last 2 reps of the 2nd set.

Well, I say a struggle. They were still clean chin ups, but I technically do sternum chin ups, as most reps I like to get my chest to almost touch the bar, but on those last 2 reps I barely got my neck above the bar lol.

I’ll keep the weight the same for next week but try an extra rep on each set.

One thing I’ve noticed since being a delivery driver is that my muscles ache at the beginning and end of most days.

I like to put maximum effort into each day and really enjoy the physical aspect of being a high volume parcel courier, so I don’t whinge and moan about the job like some drivers do.

Sometimes I’m my own worst enemy though, in that I’ll challenge myself to load 150 parcels into the van really quickly or carry a 40kg box in my shoulders rather than use a trolley.

The amount of farmers walks I do some days, I’m sure I walk several miles with heavy loads lol.

Anyway, you’d have thought I’d be used to tired muscles at the end of each day after doing this job for nearly 3 years now, but I’m not.

It’s currently taking a lot of motivation to come home and push my muscles a little more.

But I do feel like I’m getting into a routine again though and it’ll soon be second nature and I won’t need to use any motivation to go lift, but it’s taking a lot of mental toughness to do it right now.

The mornings are sometimes the worst though. After a particularly busy day like today, I know for a fact that my joints will be aching when I wake up.

I get out of bed and bam, my whole body sometimes feels like I’m about 300kg lol.

It soon wears off though, once I get moving around and lifting parcels again at the depot.

The weekends can be tough sometimes, especially if I want to have a lazy day at home or round a friends, whenever I go to move I feel like I’m 90yrs old lol.

I’ve learnt over the years that I’m better off doing some basic body weight stuff through the day now, just to keep the blood flowing, even if I feel stiff, it seems to ease the stiffness a little than if I don’t do anything.

Mmmm beef steak mince for dinner and of course an ice cold beer.

Until next time…

WeeMike

Migraine puts a spanner in the works.

I got another fucking migraine last week, only today Tuesday has it completely gone.

I’ve had migraines on and off for years, I’ve tried everything to find a trigger but nothing is ever consistent, I just know when I’m going to get one when the lower back of my head gets tight.

Sometimes I can go 6 months without one, this year I’ve had fucking 3 already, bastard thing.

I woke up Thursday morning with the tightness in the lower back of my head and by the afternoon my head was proper banging, not what you want when your driving a 3.5 ton van and delivering parcels.

Friday was the same and I only got to the end of the day without coming home by doubling up on some pain killers, which I only do in an emergency to get me home and normally they don’t work long, but this time they seemed to ease the pain for a several hours and I was able to finish work and get home before they wore off.

It seemed to ease Saturday but I couldn’t do anything vigorous as it made my head pound too much, Sunday was the same. Several times though it got too much and I had to shut myself away in our bedroom under cover so it was dark and quiet.

Yesterday it had pretty much gone, I just had a tight lower back of my head still and thankfully today its gone completely.

Frustrating is an understatement, I was looking forward to doing a heavy weight lifting session at the weekend, alas my body had other ideas.

Anyway, it’s gone now and I didn’t hang around and got back on it today.

Arrived at the depot for 6:40am, handled 205 parcels throughout the day, left at 5pm. 10.2 hrs, bosh.

I’ve been on a different route both days so far this week, I think it’s going to be one of those weeks.

Got home and did some push ups.

2 sets of 10 reps with my 20kg weights vest on and my feet on a 6 inch high board.

1 set of 20 reps with just bodyweight but a wide hand width.

Felt good on the weighted push ups, not quite ready to add any more weight so I’ll do 1 more week with 20kg.

Increased the wide hand width push ups from 10 to 20 this week and man my chest was burning by the end of them, nice and slow feeeeel the burn lol.

Mmmm I can smell dinner cooking and I can hear my ice cold beer calling haha

Until next time…

WeeMike