Exercise and Fitness IX

[Vestrit]

Just to start up again…

Been getting back into the pre-work training. Only three times a week, cos I’ve got physio-supervised rehab on Monday and Thursday mornings. Failed this morning though - was supposed to get up at 6 this morning to do some rowing before work.

My fiancé got up at 5.50, was out of bed and away to meet her friend to do weights on the way to work. Meanwhile, as soon as she left, I went straight back in the land of nod and didn’t wake up until 7.30.

Still, got a good sleep, had a big breakfast and got into work early. So will just do my training after work today

Sometimes your body just tells you that you need the sleep I guess. I’d forgotten how tiring rehabbing an injury can be. Permanently knackered.

Also, it'd be nice if this thread didn't descend into yet another dull row over relative vs absolute strength. They're both equally valid. The argument and personal stuff is pretty dull

[Rubies & Jade]

Also, it'd be nice if this thread didn't descend into yet another dull row over relative vs absolute strength. They're both equally valid. The argument and personal stuff is pretty dull

besides having seastarr torture people--which would be rather fun-- I sometimes wish we could split this thread up into powerlifting (or whatever you guys like to be called) and another one for all other exercise. It sure seems like we've lost a lot of people posting in this thread because its dominated by his powerlifting conversation (over and over again).

I overslept a little this morning, but still managed to get to the gym and do cardio & a number of weights. didn't have time for the stretches & pushups that I usually do as well. I hate that work gets in the way of my life.

[MinDonner]

I only looked in the last thread because it got closed and I was nosy... but then I spotted seastarr's workout posts, which looked really useful. :) I know my lower back needs a lot of work, so any more core-improvement exercises would be most welcome.

Following a few weeks of irregular working patterns, my gym attendance has dropped right back (to zero), I'll need to get back on that from next week.

[seastarr]

I can't believe how eager you all are for pain.

There actually is an exercise piece affectionately known as "the electric chair." It's a variation of the pilates wunda chair .

[Greywolf2375]

I can't believe how eager you all are for pain.

There actually is an exercise piece affectionately known as "the electric chair." It's a variation of the pilates wunda chair .

No pain, no gain. hey, someone had to say it.

hammy's today...work schedule has really been messing with the workouts, but still making progress.

definitely need to go back through the last few threads and parse out all of your posts seastarr to make sure I'm stretching enough and correctly...

[Liffguard]

I would consider anyone who is a member of the 200 kg club to be pretty damn strong. 200 kg club means the people who can pick up 200 kg from the ground and place it over their heads standing up. There aren't too many of them in the whole world. Yet even this twig of a man can do it. I wouldn't call him huge by any standards.

Wow, very impressive lift. That just puts in perspective how woeful my olympic lifting is at the moment. That guy's my weight (well, 2kg under) and can C&J well over double what I can. Every time I see videos like this I get inspired, and I always have to disappoint myself by backing off. After all, there's only so many different types of training I can have going on at any one time.

[seastarr]

No pain, no gain. hey, someone had to say it.

hammy's today...work schedule has really been messing with the workouts, but still making progress.

definitely need to go back through the last few threads and parse out all of your posts seastarr to make sure I'm stretching enough and correctly...

Actually, we aren't doing much stretching these days. It's core fundamentals! (Slightly more fun than Islamic fundamentals.)

Don't mix the two or I will need to string you up on my wall unit and interrogate you.

Mindonner, I am planning to keep on keeping on with my long-winded core fundies posts. Today I am going to try tackling either the psoas muscle or the obliques, still deciding. OK, obliques. I just decided. I must be thinking I'm in the inner monologue thread!

[Eponine]

I'm in Blacksburg right now and I ran 8 miles yesterday. I wasn't able to run significantly faster, having lost some endurance during the bronchitis that I never bothered to regain, but it felt ridiculously easy. Going uphill was no problem, but the 90% humidity was a bit oppressive. I have to admit that I'm a bit disappointed about leaving the warm. It's supposed to be 72* here tomorrow, but only 37* in Conifer.

[seastarr]

I am separating my stuff into two posts this evening, because it's so darn long. First post is information. Second post is the exercise in case you want to skip the blah blah blah.

Yesterday I wrote about how it felt to engage the transverse abdominal muscle. The very short way to understand it is to suck the belly in. That action is important from here on out, so don’t forget about it as you progress to somewhat more complex patterns.

Today my plan is to give you an exercise to touch base with your obliques. Remember, these are not exercises for gaining strength so much as they are exercises for awareness, enabling you to access the muscles in your trunk in a conscious way.

I have to admit, I am a little nervous about trying to explain the obliques. They are quite complicated, in both form and function. I think they are very often the culprits in the big postural problems. If you have been told you are lordotic (having excessive curve in low back) or sway back (having ribcage distorted back and down in relation to pelvis) the obliques are likely a large factor in your misalignment. Usually, they require strengthening.

The obliques are separated into two separate muscles: internal obliques and external obliques. Both groups have lateral fibers (on your sides) and anterior fibers (on your front). The direction of these fibers is variable and makes the action of the obliques rather complicated—they can flex, twist, or side-bend your trunk, depending on how they are engaged.

The obliques connect your ribs to your pelvis, so they play a big role in how your ribcage stacks up over your pelvis. They also intertwine with your latissimus dorsi muscles and your serratus anterior muscles along your ribcage near your armpits, creating a banding of muscles around your sides that lets your shoulder stabilizers “talk†to your center. The obliques also work with yesterday’s muscle, TA, to give support to the abdominal cavity and hold the organs in that cavity.

The obliques are paired muscles---you have one of each (internal/external) on each side of your trunk. Thus, they can either engage by themselves (unilaterally), producing motions of twisting or side-bending, or they can engage together (bilaterally) to create actions of trunk flexion (curling). Bilateral engagement also helps you stabilize the whole region around your middle, and assists you compressing the abdomen inwards as we did yesterday.

Whew! And that is the very short life story of the obliques.

[seastarr]

In our exercise, we’ll keep it simple.

This is bilateral engagement, primarily of the external obliques.

1) Lie down on your back on the floor on a comfortable surface.

2) Extend the legs out straight. You will be in your neutral spine position and your lower back will not be touching the floor.

3) Put your fingers on the sides of your abdomen, slightly to the front, just beneath the ridge of your ribs. The fingers should dig in a little, a few inches outside the navel and up from it. Let me know if you can't figure tha hands positioning out and I'll post a picture.

4) Relax everything. You are going to try to do an isolation here, so you want to completely relax before you begin, to get rid of any extraneous holding patterns.

5) Do the belly sucking in exercise from yesterday.

6) WITHOUT squeezing your buttocks, try to imprint your lower back down into the floor. Don’t squeeze those glutes!

7) If you managed not to squeeze your butt (no small task) you should have felt the area under your fingertips get nice and firm and active. Those are your external obliques.

8) Practice several times turning your external obliques on and off. Now come to standing. Try to do the same exercise standing against the wall (your heels should be 3-4 inches out from the bottom of the wall).

9) Now practice the exercise standing away from the wall. Can you turn them on and off at will?

Good job!

These muscles are so important for helping you stabilize your torso during movement. If you have trouble holding plank shapes during push-ups, or balance is hard for you, these guys are essential to help you get your pelvis, spine and ribs stacked up into good alignment.

[Stego]

I apologize for being a judgmental asshole in the last incarnation of this thread.

[Fleeing Finn]

Going to have surgery tomorrow. Wish me luck.

[Vestrit]

Going to have surgery tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Good luck!

What's the op?

[Xray the Enforcer]

FF -- good luck with the surgery! may you have a speedy recovery.

Stego -- thank you. To be fair, you're not the only one (by a long shot) who has been judgmental in the past, but you're one of the only ones who has been adult enough to apologize for it publicly.

[mod] Going forward, I'm going to be a bit heavier-handed on the moderation (and other mods will be watching, too). This thread is supposed to be a gathering place where we all gain inspiration, ideas and focus for our individual fitness goals, and posts that are snippy about others' fitness regimes (be it a weight-lifting regime or running or swimming or pilates or hiking) will be deleted. Posts making stupid assertions will be deleted (a recent example being the utterly bullshit "you can't possibly be considered fit without a six-pack" argument). Attacking other boarders is grounds for a suspension -- so think 4 times before you call someone else fat or weak, or mock another boarder because they don't have the same fitness goals you do. That kind of behavior is beneath every single one of you. [/mod]

On to my workout: I'm almost back to my pre-surgery strength, even though I've been pretty lax about the workouts thus far (2-3 days a week). I've actually surpassed strength in some areas -- squats, romanian deadlifts. My squat form is getting much better. Some random trainer gave me encouraging words on the exercise I was doing for my lats, which made me smile. Another one gave me an exercise for my leg abductors involving resistance bands and walking like a crab, and it is literally kicking my ass -- in a good way. I've been slothful since Tuesday -- I had a houseguest for a week, and I'm now enjoying having my apartment back for a bit. Tomorrow, though, back to the gym. :)

[lessthanluke]

Going to have surgery tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Hope it goes well!

[Galactus]

Going to do another km of swimming tonight. I love swimming as an excercise, it might not be the best way to build muscle or lose weight, but it makes daily life a lot easier.

[Elrostar]

I am super psyched today.

Last night, following a wonderful recommendation from Nakkie, I went to Roadrunner Sports to get some new shoes. Other people (Epi among them) have mentioned that new shoes might help with my calf problems, and so I've taken the plunge.

That place is awesome. They did the whole thing of analyzing my foot shape and stride (video of it on the treadmill) and determined that I have a tendency to pronate, which is probably a source of the trouble. But some stability type shoes should help with that. So I tried on five different pairs, each on the treadmill to see how they felt. The only downside was that my calf was feeling unhappy so I wasn't really able to enjoy it as thoroughly as I would have liked to have done.

But the people were great, and I ended up getting a pair of Nikes which I'm extremely psyched about. Now I just need to rest my calves enough that I won't hurt myself when I try them out. Oh, and the best thing is that there's a 60 day return policy. Sweeet :)

I also picked up a rolling stick and a foam roller for doing stretches and massages, so I'll be going back to re-read seastarr's posts that detailed the wonderful uses of the foam roller.

The guy who helped me was particularly useful because he'd had similar problems in the past and had some useful suggestions on icing (using dixie cups) and even rolled out my calf for me with a rolling stick while I was there.

Overall, I cannot speak highly enough of this place. I'm going to spend the next several days icing, resting, and making sure I'm ready for it, and then I'm going to take these new babies out for a nice long run :)

[seastarr]

Elrostar:

I haven't posted all that much of the wondrous things you can do with a foam roller. I have a MS Word document with drawings and written instructions for a short and pleasant series on the roller. PM me with an email and I can send it to you--(If you want it).

I am happy to send it to anyone who is interested, BTW.

Glad you are feeling hopeful about your calf.

Never lose hope, people!

[Rubies & Jade]

Going to do another km of swimming tonight. I love swimming as an excercise, it might not be the best way to build muscle or lose weight, but it makes daily life a lot easier.

good for you! swimming is a totally fabulous exercise. I have found it *great* for losing weight & maintaining weight--its good cardio and endurance. Its a great exercise to do, and especially if you are going to do nothing else. Imho of course.

I also find it very zen... its a peaceful thing to do. I miss swimming!

[Vethnar]

Good luck, Fleeing Finn!