Workout Notes - Spring 2013

       

          About three times a week, I do abdominal workouts usually consisting of sit ups, crunches, twists , or sit ups with a 15 pound weight which I hold against my chest. All of those without anchoring my ankles to anything. Occasionally, I also do leg lifts. With the weighted sit ups, I could normally do 30 to 32 reps. Then I discovered another variation of the weighted sit ups a couple of weeks ago. That time, I held the 15 pound weight against the back of my head then tried to raise my upper body off the mat. I managed half a crunch and a huge grunt, but no sit up. Wow, that was way harder than I thought! I couldn't help but laugh at myself when that happened. I then tried a 10 pound weight with similar results. Down to 5 pounds I went, and was finally able to lift my torso from the ground and managed to do it 16 times. Remember, this was without anchoring my ankles to anything so by the 14th repetition, I couldn't keep my feet on the floor due to the forced reps. I could feel my stomach muscles burning. So that was  surprising sit ups discovery - lesser weight but more resistance and lesser repetitions required. I think I may add that to my routine.
          One Saturday morning, I planned on driving to the bank to get some money from the ATM machine. It was not cold outside so I decided to do a 1 minute jog with 1 minute walk to the bank and back. Just to remind you, I haven't done a run in months because of the myopathy problems I have been having while taking generic Lipitor for my high cholesterol. When I was still running fairly well, that round trip would have taken about 25 to 26 minutes. That Saturday, it took 35. Well, my legs generally felt slightly but pleasantly sore after doing that jog/walk. Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness (DOMS), the pleasant soreness I had is however totally different from statin myopathy which feels more like a cutting pain. This time it affected my right thigh muscle as opposed to the left side a few months ago. To add to that, this run didn't even hit the pleasure areas of my brain and left me dissatisfied. Maybe the reason is because I don't do it as often as I want or can anymore. What was good though was that the afterburn of that brief workout kept my weight down the next day even after eaten a lot of red velvet cookies with white chocolate chunks.
          A couple of weeks after that 1 minute jog/1 minute walk workout, I went to have an oil change for my car and instead of waiting around while the mechanic did it, I walk/jogged around the area. I didn't keep track of how long the jogging and walking parts were but did it by feel. That way, I was jogging more than I was walking and the whole workout lasted 45 minutes.
          I did a rowing machine workout one morning while watching a Japanese documentary film called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. Since the wind resistance machine makes a lot of noise, it helped that the movie had subtitles. You would think that after watching that movie, I would be craving for sushi. Well, I did not.
          And finally, my workouts before and after my colonoscopy. On the day of the procedure, I felt so weak from the clear liquid diet and the trips to the bathroom so I had no choice but take it easy on my 30 minute workout on the recumbent bike. My discharge instructions after the colonoscopy said no vigorous workouts for 24 hours after the procedure. So it was more of the same the next day on the recumbent bike. Two days later, I did a somewhat vigorous uphill walking workout on the treadmill for 45 minutes then a full body weight training workout using rubber tubing. Don't even say I don't follow doctor's orders.
          So there it is folks - dreary descriptions of what it takes to stay in shape: a little bit of this and that which even included some running.

Workout Notes Plus A Week of Running

I’ve had the Asus Transformer 101 Tablet PC for more than two months now but I haven’t used it while running on the treadmill (or on the road, ha!) until two weeks. On the first try, I started with a 10 minute walk then started jogging gingerly because I was still recovering from the thigh injury I suffered the previous week. I didn’t feel any thigh pain so I continued. Ever since I found an app for the local newspaper, it’s been so much easier to scroll the pages, so the initial run which lasted for 35 minutes turned out okay as far as reading and scrolling went. A second try a week later at a slight faster pace went well too. So how did it feel compared to a netbook? Well, other than the touchscreen scrolling as opposed to the arrow keys on the netbook, they worked out pretty much the same.

I rarely use the rowing machine more than 5 minutes at a time because I find it boring. So far, I haven’t found a way to read while rowing  so what I do is turn the TV on to the news and also turn on the captions. I usually do a circuit of rowing, spinning, and recumbent cycling. Somehow, last week I zoned out on the rowing machine and lasted for 15 minutes before hitting the other two machines. As far as the perceived effort went, I think repeats of 5 minutes each on the machines for 2 or three sets had better aerobic effect than 15 minutes straight on each. But that’s just me.

I don’t know what all the hullaballoo is about H.I.I.T. and Tabata. In the mid-70’s in college while taking my Physical Education degree, we already learned about circuit training which wasn’t even new by then. H.I.I.T. and Tabata are basically good old fashioned circuit training renamed.

 Ever since I started weight training in 1979, I’ve always used the suicide grip when doing the bench press because that was the way I was shown to do it. I didn’t even know it was called that until two weeks ago when I was searching for suggestions on how to do the bench press more safely without a spotter. The suggestion was not to use the suicide grip and since then I have wrapped my thumb around the bar. At first it was difficult to complete my usual number of repetitions because it felt awkward. After a few tries, I had to reposition the bar on my hands a certain way and it seems to work better.

If I were to believe my bioelectrical impedance weighing scale, I lost 1% body fat by sitting for 30 minutes while on the computer, but only lost half a percent after a half hour workout on the spinning bike. Nuts!

In other exercise news, after I did the unplanned run on Easter Sunday, I was able to do three more runs the week after. They were only very slow 45 minutes to an hour - twice on the treadmill and once on the road, but nonetheless, I’ll count them as runs. Based on my recent running history, that's plenty.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!

On Training and Other Random Stuff

On Training and Other Random Stuff

Training for hours on end isn’t my cup of tea any more. Concentration, which counts for a lot, wavers early now. After all, marathon training is more about mental toughness than anything. Mind over matter, the will to do it, standing up to the challenge - that motivation doesn’t exist anymore.  In other words, my mind has become lazy.  I don’t know if the reason is because I’m no longer able to run but I’m sure that’s part of it. Not that I mind too much. I still have the motivation to exercise every day. I just don’t want to spend so much time doing it. Running had become a case of brain pleasure versus joint pain and joint pain won. I grew tired of waking up, getting out of bed, and limping due to pain.

I don’t know why my hamstrings are sore. All I did was the clean and press last Friday morning, which I haven’t done in months. This soreness has never happened before. It’s my shortcut weight training workout when I’m pressed for time or when I get lazy.

I figured out why a workout in the recumbent bike is relatively easier than one on a spinning bike. Because you can put your back into it.

Since I couldn’t find someone to work for me on the weekend of the Long Beach marathon, I sent an email to our running club members offering my race bib for a discount. A couple of days later I was able to sell it. He was going to switch it for a half marathon bib since he hadn’t trained for the full marathon. Still, the price was $30 lesser than if he signed up this coming week at the expo.

I don’t know if many people remember that in the late 80’s we already had minimalist running shoes. They were the original Nike Huaraches. It was yellow mesh on top, thin white soles, and a buckle on top to tighten it.

I tried using kinesiotape for my posterior tibialis tendon problem last month and it seemed to have a placebo effect because my ankles didn’t hurt so much. The second time, it didn’t seem to make a difference as far as perceived pain. I found out that body fat percentage is not accurately measured when part of the sole is covered by kinesiotape. The body fat weighing scale shows an additional 3 to 4%.

Speaking of working out, I’ve started to use my rowing machine again (a cheaper imitation of a Concept II ergometer). I’ve hardly used it in the past couple of years and all because I didn’t want to drag it out of the corner of my living room and unfold it. But lately, I’ve been wanting more variety to my workouts. I would prefer to just run of course, but since I can’t do that, I have been relying on machines. Rowing by itself is pretty boring to me, so I break down this particular workout between several machines. By breaking it down I’m able to increase the duration of the workout. If you’ve been following this blog, you already know I also have an elliptical machine, a recumbent bike, a spinning bike, and a treadmill. The elliptical machine makes my ankles hurt so I’ve eliminated that machine for now. If I do 4 sets of five minutes on each machine, an hour goes by quickly.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!

Post-Crooked Running Workouts

After doing all that crooked running two Saturdays ago, my ankles couldn’t quite recover even though I kept myself from running again since then. The pain in the past week was just too much despite all the icing, compressing, and elevating. That means I didn't even bother preparing my running gear on Friday night and missed the AREC training run this past Saturday morning. I even avoided walking so as not to put pressure on the sore tendons, so the workouts for the past week have been limited to the stationary bikes with a few bouts on the elliptical machine and rowing machine. I even had to go overtime on the bikes one morning because I lost control of my eating the previous day. There was a sale on cookies with lemon flavored cream filling and they were so yummy that when I started eating them, I found it hard to stop. I’m now trying to keep it down to three cookies as dessert after a meal. Just one bout of mindless eating and you pay for it dearly.

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it before now, that I’ve started using the rowing machine again. I find it hard to do a rowing workout for extended periods of time so I do a sort of circuit training among all the machines in my living room. I usually start off with rowing for 5 minutes, followed by 5 minutes each on the elliptical machine, spinning bike, and recumbent bike. That makes one set. I do three sets and I’ve done an hour long workout while avoiding the boredom of doing it on only one machine. Heck I only usually do 40 to 50 minutes on the recumbent or spinning bikes if I use those by themselves. Five minutes increments on each machine at medium intensity makes it more manageable and easier on the mind, rather than thinking of it as a whole hour of working out. I turn the TV on for the rowing portion, then turn it off and read the newspaper on the other machines. It’s not as satisfying as finishing an hour run, but it’s enough to keep the endorphin cravings at bay.

This is life with a bad case of PTTD. Run a few weeks as the tendons allow, stop a few weeks when they protest. By the way, I bought a roll of Kinesiotape from Walmart a few days ago but I haven’t applied it yet. It was a surprise to find it at that store because previously you can only buy them online or locally from podiatrists and chiropractors. Although I think my PTTD is beyond help from Kinesiotaping, I’m willing to give it a try. I’ll let you know how it works out.

Public comments below, private comments: E-mail Me!