Exercise and Fitness IX

[Vethnar]

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 like having a single thread for everything. Although I'm mostly interested in running myself, I read both the powerlifting/weightlifting discussions and seastarr's stretching posts with great interest, and I greatly enjoy reading about what all of you are doing. We all have a lot to learn from each other; we should just all make an effort to be more respectful towards people with different goals and ambitions than ourselves.

[needle]

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!

Firm nod to all the above. I miss swimming so much (all the pools within a three mile radius are closed for repairs - boo!)

I've been rubbish at running of late. Need ass kicked..

[Elrostar]

I really like running because I can listen to music while I'm doing it. And for the fact that it burns proportionately more calories than other things. I'm not sure what I can be doing while I'm waiting for my calf/shin to get better. Is swimming my only option? I'm really not a big fan of it, although that may be a mental block I will just have to overcome... I've never been very good at it, which certainly doesn't help.

[Chaldanya]

Also joining the crowd of those who love to swim.

I swim 2-3 times a week for about 30 minutes during lunch. I can do about 750m in that time (I'm a terribly slow swimmer), but it always leaves me feeling relaxed and good about myself.

I also go to the gym on a Tuesday night and do 3km on the rowing machine and about 20-30 minutes on the bike (no swimming on Tuesdays cause then my hair would be wet for weigh-in and I need all the help I can get:p). I may try the couch to 5km programme to see if I can understand what all the fuss is about running.

N

[Rubies & Jade]

I like having a single thread for everything. Although I'm mostly interested in running myself, I read both the powerlifting/weightlifting discussions and seastarr's stretching posts with great interest, and I greatly enjoy reading about what all of you are doing. We all have a lot to learn from each other; we should just all make an effort to be more respectful towards people with different goals and ambitions than ourselves.

I completely agree--I generally enjoy talking/reading about exercise & staying fit in all forms. But this thread of late has been pretty aggressive/judgmental and I think we've lost posters because of it. But it light of some of the comments today (my post you quoted was from yesterday), I'd be all for being more respectful because we can learn a lot from each other!

cheers--

Elrostar--do you belong to a gym or anything? my gym has those cardio machines that are like bicycles but you use your hands instead of your feet. maybe something like that would work.

or, you could try swimming to try and get over your mental block... maybe a different stroke than what you're used to? or using the foam floaters (put them between your legs to keep your legs afloat but you don't have to kick--gives more work to your upper body).

Needle--I have to admit that the biggest reason I don't swim anymore here in the city is that the pools here are disgusting and overly chlorinated. The chlorine & the need to wash my hair every time I get out of the pool was ruining my hair (its quite long) and it still was like swimming through garbage--you'd be shocked at the crap that was in pools here. ugh. someday I'll have my own or will be somewhere that I have access to a nice, clean pool without as much chemicals in it (or a salt-water based pool like they use in France! I think we had this discussion once before!!) :)

[cjfshaw]

I wish I could swim more as a workout, but my school severely limits the pool hours. Plus whenever I try to swim for a long time I get a headache. It's a shame too, because I like actually using my upper body for an activity that is more than just lifting weights. I get so bored with weights, it's much more pleasant to me to actually DO something.

Good luck with that surgery dude.

[seastarr]

I wouldn't want to split our thread up. I like to hear about everything you all are doing and I think it's so important that we expose ourselves to the many diverse ways of keeping our bodies happy.

I do think we should try to be more sensitive to what it may be like to try to jump into this thread if you are a beginning exerciser and we should try to support people however we can, and that means being pleasant to each other as well as trying hard to give healthy and safe advice when we offer advice.

I had a lovely workout on my wall unit this morning. Got some delicious pops in my right hip and my psoas muscle is nearly back to normal. The spine is supple and the mind is happy.

[lessthanluke]

I also like the thread as it is. Though I'm mostly into weight training I like reading about the other stuff people are doing.

On a powerlifting/strongman related subject. I'm going to London a week saturday for my birthday. On the Sunday I'm going to Wembley Arena to see a strongman show. This years worlds strongest man Zyundas Zavickas is one of the competitors. Should be fun.

[ztemhead]

I also like the thread as it is. I enjoy hearing about different people's regimens, and what's working for them. My only desire is to remove the bit that follows where what's working for me MUST also work for you.

ETA, I upped my bench a little yesterday by changing my form and copying what B. was doing. It might just be a mental thing, but hey, whatever works. :) Same with my squats and deadlifts. Having someone to workout with who knows what they're doing makes so much difference.

[Vestrit]

I like having a single thread for everything. Although I'm mostly interested in running myself, I read both the powerlifting/weightlifting discussions and seastarr's stretching posts with great interest, and I greatly enjoy reading about what all of you are doing. We all have a lot to learn from each other; we should just all make an effort to be more respectful towards people with different goals and ambitions than ourselves.

I quite like you. I'm glad you're here. Always interested in your sprint stuff

[Vethnar]

I quite like you. I'm glad you're here. Always interested in your sprint stuff

:blush:

Thanks! I'm glad you're here, too. Hope your rehab is still going well.

I was excited before today's workout, because I had just bought a new toy: A Casio Exilim EX-FC100 digital camera, which can record movies at a speed of 210 frames per second and replay them at extreme slow motion. I was looking forward to capturing my olympic lifts on video, replaying them at slow motion afterwards, and studying my technique.

It turned out to be one of my worst workouts ever. I felt slow and not at all explosive, and my technique was so atrocious that there was little need for a video camera to check it. Moreover, my lower back hurt, and I couldn't attempt to lift even moderately heavy weights. Finally, I had no less than two stupid accidents: A power clean where I seem to have fallen asleep after the explosive second pull and just stood there passively while the bar crashed down on my mouth (fortunately my teeth remain intact, I only got a bloody upper lip), and a jerk where I hit the tip of my chin (which also caused me to bite my tongue quite badly). I managed to capture the first accident on video, but unfortunately it doesn't look as spectacular as I hoped.

Bruises like this don't help in my attempts to convince my friends that olympic lifting is fun and not at all dangerous.

[Fleeing Finn]

:blush:

Thanks! I'm glad you're here, too. Hope your rehab is still going well.

I was excited before today's workout, because I had just bought a new toy: A Casio Exilim EX-FC100 digital camera, which can record movies at a speed of 210 frames per second and replay them at extreme slow motion. I was looking forward to capturing my olympic lifts on video, replaying them at slow motion afterwards, and studying my technique.

It turned out to be one of my worst workouts ever. I felt slow and not at all explosive, and my technique was so atrocious that there was little need for a video camera to check it. Moreover, my lower back hurt, and I couldn't attempt to lift even moderately heavy weights. Finally, I had no less than two stupid accidents: A power clean where I seem to have fallen asleep after the explosive second pull and just stood there passively while the bar crashed down on my mouth (fortunately my teeth remain intact, I only got a bloody upper lip), and a jerk where I hit the tip of my chin (which also caused me to bite my tongue quite badly). I managed to capture the first accident on video, but unfortunately it doesn't look as spectacular as I hoped.

Bruises like this don't help in my attempts to convince my friends that olympic lifting is fun and not at all dangerous.

:lol:

Sounds like one of those days I would just drop the weights disgusted and swear revenge on them come tomorrow. A few months ago I actually managed to hit my chin while doing a jerk. I was so surprised I forgot it's supposed to hurt.

My op to fix the chronic tendinitis on my left hand went fine btw. Have to keep off from stressing the wrist for a few weeks but I'm thinking of doing some heavy front squats with a pharaoh grip, some back squats with a light weight for speed, box jumps and maybe practice some spritning. For the upper body I'm thinking of practicing a bit of shot putting since it's a good explosive movement where I only need my left hand for pivoting faster.

[Stego]

Driving home from the gym last night, my car was rear ended. My poor, poor CTS. :(

My back is really sore this morning and my tricep is bruised to hell from where I had my arm laying on the drivers window sill. I am taking today off from the gym, and I really hope nothing is wrong with my back. Not sure I can take another rehab.

ETA: I'm glad your op went well, FF.

[Liffguard]

I guess I'll jump on the injury bandwagon as well. Was having a really good session last night. Muay Thai sparring first which is always an awesome stress reliever. I got the shit kicked out of me and all was well. Moved onto takedowns and MMA sparring. At first it was going well, I got a really sweet takedown on the guy who'd beat me at MT and I decided it was time for some good-natured revenge. That is, until I made a stupid little mistake and wound up in an armbar. "No worries" I thought, "I'll just roll out." Except I forgot about the massive gloves I was wearing (much bigger than I'm used to) that make such an escape all but impossible. My elbow goes "crunch" and I go "fuck."

It's not too bad. I reckon two weeks of leaving it alone with ice, heat and ibuprofen should be enough. In the meantime I can't fully bend or extend it nor take any significant strain on it. Looks like I'll be focusing on lower body for a while.

[Xray the Enforcer]

:(

Shit, people, that sucks all around. Car accidents, elbow incidents, bars out of control...

Yesterday was a bit truncated because it took me forever to get out of the house. Revisited an exercise I hadn't done for months -- T-bar row. Goddamn.

[ztemhead]

ouch. *knocks on wood*

curious to see how much weight I could gain in a single day, I utterly fell off the diet wagon on Wednesday with ice cream, pizza, and a not very satisfying lunch at Burger King. The answer is five pounds. :ack:

[Happy Ent]

I was excited before today's workout, because I had just bought a new toy:

New toy here as well: a Nike+ Sportsband and pedometer. Taken it out twice (after the half-marathon last week-end). Even the uncalibrated pedometer seems to be very accurate right out of the box, guesstimating 6.22 and 6.17 for my standard “short†route that I’m quite sure is 6.2 km.

It lets you sync your workout to a annoyingly sluggish, flash-based website that shows nice(*) graphs and has a mii-like avatar. And a community of other users. If anyone is up to a “BwB runs 1000 km for every manuscript page GRRM finishes†challenge, I’m game…

(*) The graphs are surprisingly useless. I would have expected straightforward features like comparing to runs along the same route, lots of statistics, etc. But it actually displays very little information beyond the basics. There seem to be other sites and applications that let you go more crazy; I have to look into that.

[seastarr]

I just finalized my plans for my first lesson on the flying trapeze!

I am so excited. OK, a little nervous about my grip strength, which has always been a bit of a struggle for me, but I just can't wait to go flying through the air! Oh boy oh boy!

Is anyone wanting me to finish my explanations for isolating the muscles of the core?

I am happy to do it if anyone's wanting it, but also happy not to do it if no one's using it.

[Starkess]

I'm absolutely awful at eating well, so I need to not be so lax about working out...

I'm so excited to get home next weekend so I can start working out again! We have a gym on the ship, of course, but it's hard to find time to go down there, because if I do have the spare time, I usually want to nap (those night watches really get you!). And because I am not coordinated enough to run on a treadmill while the ship is rocking and rolling. I'm seriously impressed by how well some people can do it!

What I'd like to do is start swimming for a half hour or so at lunch (there is a pool on base), and then running with my fiance later. I like to run with him, but he kind of hates it and has only once managed to make it through a 1.6 mile run with me without stopping...so it'll be nice to give myself an added workout.

[cjfshaw]

I'm absolutely awful at eating well, so I need to not be so lax about working out...

I'm so excited to get home next weekend so I can start working out again! We have a gym on the ship, of course, but it's hard to find time to go down there, because if I do have the spare time, I usually want to nap (those night watches really get you!). And because I am not coordinated enough to run on a treadmill while the ship is rocking and rolling. I'm seriously impressed by how well some people can do it!

What I'd like to do is start swimming for a half hour or so at lunch (there is a pool on base), and then running with my fiance later. I like to run with him, but he kind of hates it and has only once managed to make it through a 1.6 mile run with me without stopping...so it'll be nice to give myself an added workout.

Naps are the bane of my productivity, but they feel sooo gooood. If you are swimming and running I'm sure you'll be able to run that distance non-stop damn soon.

Eating some dindin now, then running hills...for 30 minutes straight.