A New Stair Stepper and Other Random Thoughts

I’ve had this exercise machine for more than an month now and you are  probably scratching your head and thinking “What? He got another exercise machine?! Doesn’t he have everything already? Is he nuts?” My answers are: yes, no, and probably. Here are what I have: a treadmill, elliptical machine, recumbent bike, spinning bike, stair stepper, weight bench with barbells, dumbbells, resistance bands (rubber tubings), and a chin up/pull up bar. In the last 30 years, I’ve had 3 stair stepping machines. The first two were utilized until they finally broke down. When I bought the elliptical machine, I thought it would take the place of the stair stepper but after just a few uses, I found out that even though it was low impact, the forward and backward motion of the pedals irritated my bad ankle tendons, so I used it infrequently. The up and down motion of the stair stepper does not. When I first looked for stair steppers online, the cheapest one I found was $128. A few weeks after, I found the same product at Overstock.com for $108 with just 2.95 shipping and no tax. When it arrived, assembling it was pretty easy. My concern when I first saw the photo online was if my book rack would be stable on the machine’s handle. I found out after assembling the machine that it would not, because of the curvature of the handle. I tried to think of a remedy and I finally came up with one. I wrapped a bungee cord at the base of the book rack and around the handlebars of the machine. At least even if I bumped the book rack accidentally, it would hold steady and not drop my Asus Transformer, which I use to read while working out.

So what to do with the now unused elliptical machine? Maybe I’ll put it up for sale on Craigslist. Anyone reading this wanna buy it? I bought it for about $500 and am willing to part with it for half that, or best offer.

And then there is this matter of my Nike Velo cycling/touring shoes. I’ve had them since the 80’s and they have served me well. I’ve patched them up so many times that the tops look like they have more Shoo Goo than leather. Well, the glue had become so stiff that they were beginning to hurt my feet. Since I’ve been using the two year old Louis Garneau shoes the last couple of months (even though they are not as comfortable), I finally parted with the Nikes.

          We have a couple of swimming pools in our condo complex but the human occupants haven’t used them yet this year because of the cool spring climate. However this hasn’t stopped some visitors from a nearby park from cavorting in the water and leaving their droppings. I’m talking about ducks who usually come in pairs. Maybe they found our pools to be a nice place to bring a date. I'm not sure if they are the same two every time though.

          And finally - I was going to post some photos here of my face unshaven for 8 days (I don’t shave on my days off from work) and after shaving, but they are too dorky and ugly so I’ll spare you. Thanks for reading y’all J.

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Witnessing A Cross Country Run and An Obesity Walk

After having to workout indoors on the upright and recumbent stationary bikes from Wednesday to Friday, I finally went out on the road bike Saturday morning. It was something I’ve been putting off for a few days for reasons I’ll explain below. I was planning on an hour ride circling the Virginia Country Club area several times but when I got there, there was some kind of cross country race going on. It looked like there was an open race where all comers were welcome to participate in, and a separate high school and maybe even middle school race. Well, I didn’t want to get in their way and also didn’t want to feel envious seeing all these people running, so I left the area and went on the L.A. River bike path instead. It’s still a surprise to me how few people use that path. There were not even too many cyclists, runners, or walkers on Saturday. When I reached the Long Beach lighthouse, there was another event going on but they were already finishing. It was a walk for obesity which was organized by a bariatric medical group who do stomach stapling and lap band procedures. My ride lasted just an hour and nineteen minutes but that was good enough since I haven’t ridden outdoors in a couple of weeks. It still exceeded my one hour goal. Don’t you think it’s interesting that I encountered skinny high school runners with obviously no obesity problems and bariatric patients on the same ride separated only by about 6 miles?

The reason why I’ve worked out indoors since last Tuesday is of course because of my recent right calf injury. I couldn’t even use the elliptical machine and have to limit myself to cycling. Well that injury made the calf hurt a lot going down stairs so either I have to step down with only my left foot with the right foot going down the same rung, or step sideways alternating right and left. I had been afraid that if I was lifting something heavy like a bike, I might fall down the stairs. Somehow doing it sideways doesn’t stretch the injured muscle too much and I found that out on Friday. Finally, I found a way to go downstairs with little pain so I could lift my bike! Not terribly exciting, but if finding something that worked made me mildly ecstatic.

On Friday, I went for a slow 15 minute walk to test the calf and as long as I do it slowly and with short steps, it felt ok. I was able to double the time on Saturday but there was some discomfort after 15 minutes. Oh, I forgot, I was finally able to wear the Louis Garneau cycling shoes during the bike ride and they felt okay.

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Riding To Nowhere

Feeling a little bit better on Sunday, I had to make up for the aborted workout on Saturday and did an hour and half stationary bike ride while reading the newspaper. In the past couple of weeks I have done two 1 ½ hour rides on the upright stationary bike. The longest I can remember doing that was in 1980 when I was still working at the CDCP employees’ gym in Makati, Manila where I was the fitness trainer. While rehabilitating from my first running injury (I just started running that year), I had done a couple of two hour rides. You wouldn’t believe what reading materials I had that enabled me to ride that long: Playboy and Penthouse magazines that clients left for the gym staff!

I wore the new Louis Garneau cycling shoes and they felt okay other than because of the shape of the sole, your center of gravity shifts slightly backwards. I would liken the feeling to those rocker Skecher shoes with the concave shaped soles which are supposed to burn more calories when you walk on them because they engage more muscles.

It appears that the malaise I was feeling on Saturday can be attributed to a slight increase in blood pressure. I didn’t check it Saturday morning but did so on Sunday and noticed the difference from the usual norm, although it wasn’t abnormally high. Time to cut back a bit on the 32 oz. a day coffee habit.

This has nothing to do with the workout, but later on Sunday, I watched an English movie which was dubbed in Chinese and in turn came with English subtitles. That was weird. Can you imagine John Cusack speaking Chinese?

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