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Exercise and Fitness: bro science debunked


Iskaral Pust

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@Iskaral Pust I sprained my ankle this past summer and my Dr said that the ice and elevate routine for ankles can actually make the sprain worse in the long run.  The way he explained it is that if you don't use it and strengthen it as soon as possible, scar tissue will build up, the ankle will become weaker, then when the scar tissue eventually breaks you sprain it again.  Mine swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and I ditched the crutches on the 3rd day.  Mornings were SUPER painful, but by the evening it wasn't too bad.  I was playing softball in a week with a good ankle brace.  Not sure how bad yours is, but if you can walk on it you probably should and also do some ankle exercises like drawing the alphabet with your tow 5-6 times a day.

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14 minutes ago, aceluby said:

@Iskaral Pust I sprained my ankle this past summer and my Dr said that the ice and elevate routine for ankles can actually make the sprain worse in the long run.  The way he explained it is that if you don't use it and strengthen it as soon as possible, scar tissue will build up, the ankle will become weaker, then when the scar tissue eventually breaks you sprain it again.  Mine swelled up to the size of a grapefruit and I ditched the crutches on the 3rd day.  Mornings were SUPER painful, but by the evening it wasn't too bad.  I was playing softball in a week with a good ankle brace.  Not sure how bad yours is, but if you can walk on it you probably should and also do some ankle exercises like drawing the alphabet with your tow 5-6 times a day.

Thanks for suggestion.  I'm doing exercises now -- flexing, rotating, etc -- without putting weight on it.  And some massage to encourage blood flow.  When I've had this injury before I heard that walking on it while it still hurts means the ankle keeps the fluid around it longer to protect it, which slows healing.

Once I can stand on it without pain, I know how to do the balance exercises that help restore the lateral flex.

You're appealing to my natural sense of impatience, but I think I need to be careful not to extend the healing time by rushing it.

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4 minutes ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Thanks for suggestion.  I'm doing exercises now -- flexing, rotating, etc -- without putting weight on it.  And some massage to encourage blood flow.  When I've had this injury before I heard that walking on it while it still hurts means the ankle keeps the fluid around it longer to protect it, which slows healing.

Once I can stand on it without pain, I know how to do the balance exercises that help restore the lateral flex.

You're appealing to my natural sense of impatience, but I think I need to be careful not to extend the healing time by rushing it.

Check out this brace: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006XK3GAM/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B006XK3GAM&linkCode=as2&tag=bestprodtag159810-20&th=1

I had a grade 3 sprain and was walking on it pain free in a few days.  I'd bet that if you wrapped it with this thing you could ditch the crutches.  Mornings were rough, but after I got the brace on everything would feel pretty good again, then I'd work it out in the evening until it was painful again to stretch & strengthen it and put the brace back on until bed.  Was running on it w/ minimal pain in ~10 days.

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1 hour ago, aceluby said:

Check out this brace: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B006XK3GAM/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&camp=1789&creative=9325&creativeASIN=B006XK3GAM&linkCode=as2&tag=bestprodtag159810-20&th=1

I had a grade 3 sprain and was walking on it pain free in a few days.  I'd bet that if you wrapped it with this thing you could ditch the crutches.  Mornings were rough, but after I got the brace on everything would feel pretty good again, then I'd work it out in the evening until it was painful again to stretch & strengthen it and put the brace back on until bed.  Was running on it w/ minimal pain in ~10 days.

Thanks for suggestion.

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My ankle has improved a lot already.  I’ve been walking without crutches since Thursday.  The discipline to keep off it as much as possible, and elevate & ice & massage & flex/rotate really allowed it to heal quickly.  The swelling and discoloration is mostly gone.  I worked from home all week so I could rest it.  I’m still not running or jumping or even walking long distance, but it’s negligible pain now for short distances to and fro around the house.

I went to the gym Thursday and had a good session of shoulder press and pull-ups.  Today was a really good session of bench/chest press and cable/barbell rows.  I’d like to do legs tomorrow but perhaps that’s not yet a good idea for my ankle. 

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Randomly popping in but figured maybe I could get some input while I'm back on these forums for a fleeting nostalgia trip.

I've kind of gone back and forth with my weight since I stopped having full on teenager metabolism towards the end of high school. But I had a really bad stretch of letting myself go from late 2016 into all of 2017, due to a cocktail of depression and working in food service and picking on stuff all the time, where I got up to almost 260 lbs (I'm 6' 3'' for reference). Over the past year I've really buckled down and gotten myself down to the 220-225ish range, largely via eleptical, biking, and smaller amounts of light weight lifting. Alas, I live in an area that gets fairly cold and snowy in the winter so biking is going to be less than ideal for the coming months and is I've felt myself kind of hitting a plateau, but I still feel like I should cut another 10-15.

I guess my question is - what should I do in lieu of biking if I'm primarily concerned with losing weight still? Already upped my time on the eliptical a bit. 

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  • 2 weeks later...

I’ve been struggling with what I think is probably knee tendinitis on and off since the end of August but I’ve got 3 weeks off rugby so hopefully really resting it for a week or two will see it get better. It’s a good excuse to cut back on going out running in the dark and wet this year anyway.

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6 hours ago, ljkeane said:

I’ve been struggling with what I think is probably knee tendinitis on and off since the end of August but I’ve got 3 weeks off rugby so hopefully really resting it for a week or two will see it get better. It’s a good excuse to cut back on going out running in the dark and wet this year anyway.

Have you tried wearing a band just below your knee? (You see basketball players wear them sometimes).  I found that helped with tendinitis once mid way through a soccer season. 

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15 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

Have you tried wearing a band just below your knee? (You see basketball players wear them sometimes).  I found that helped with tendinitis once mid way through a soccer season. 

Yeah, I’ve seen people doing that. It’s actually the top my knee that’s hurting so I don’t think that’d work unfortunately.

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I’m on the latter stage of this cold and decided to go to the gym today anyway.  My wife has gone nuts with seasonal indulgence — usually she’s much healthier than me with her eating — so after Chinese food delivery, then pizza delivery, then cookies and brownies baked at home, and then leftovers of all, I needed some exercise for balance. 

Shoulder press and pull-ups is less risky than my other routines while I’m low on energy.  And it went pretty well.  I felt fatigued and sluggish from the virus, but I actually lifted pretty well.

We’re out of town for a week immediately after Christmas, so I’ll have to see what the gym is like at the hotel. 

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I'm off work next week and will try my hardest to leave the house as rarely as possible. Will still try to make it to workouts of course but I'll have to do it in the morning before the traffic jams so I can spend the rest of the day with my wife and daughter. Just thinking about it, getting up early on my days off is already a pain in the ass. :lol: 

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I think I'm going to experiment with Fasting in January. I have seen my best ever results in terms of fat loss in the past using intermittent fasting, having an 8 hour eating window, in the past, but now I want to go a little further and try longer fasts. 

I've read a lot of very interesting and exciting stuff on fasting recently, and more than anything I am interested in the Autophagy element, where the body tends to feed on itself, clearing out many of the old proteins hanging around and creating new ones. 

Now coming off of Christmas where I think there has been food in my mouth almost every minute I can't wait to try this out.

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Decent workouts this past week.  Last Tuesday I did a good legs session (squats and deadlifts) just before eating Christmas dinner. 

Then when we reached our hotel/resort in Arizona the fitness center is only OK: some dumbbells and weight machines but no barbell or even a Smith machine.  I did chest press and rowing on Thursday, then leg press and calf press on Friday.  Saturday was a rest day before shoulder press and pull-ups on Sunday. 

The LSU college football team is staying here ahead of the Fiesta Bowl game tomorrow.  Yesterday I was alternating pull-up sets with one of their coaches, a former player (probably mid-twenties now).  As we were watching KC Chiefs destroy Oakland he was telling me about playing against Mahomes at college level. Now I have two degrees of separation from Patrick Mahomes.  I aspire to the same for Mohammed Salah.

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Weighed and measured myself this morning. Compared to January 2018. Felt really sad. In 2018, I managed to gain 14 pounds, 2.5% body fat (as measured by a very inaccurate home scale) and .8 inches on my waist. It feels really demoralizing to see it so starkly. I knew these past 6 months I've been struggling with my fitness a lot, especially with being in a new relationship and having surgery and recovery, etc. So while I don't really hold much with "New Year, New Me", I think this is a good time to pause and reflect on how I've been behaving towards my body and getting back to my healthier habits. More like "New Year, Old Me"!

I started back into a gym routine last week. Counting calories has worked well for me in the past, but hasn't been effective at all in the past few months, so I think I am going to try some different strategies. Probably going to cut out drinking for at least a month, not buy any new desserts (I have plenty of chocolates on hand), and just generally try to opt for healthier options. Then see where I am in a month. Also been toying with the idea of intermittent fasting, but I think that might backfire on me as I can eat a *lot* even in short amounts of time.

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8 hours ago, Starkess said:

I started back into a gym routine last week. Counting calories has worked well for me in the past, but hasn't been effective at all in the past few months, so I think I am going to try some different strategies. Probably going to cut out drinking for at least a month, not buy any new desserts (I have plenty of chocolates on hand), and just generally try to opt for healthier options. Then see where I am in a month. Also been toying with the idea of intermittent fasting, but I think that might backfire on me as I can eat a *lot* even in short amounts of time.

How as the counting not worked? Have you counted but realised you have been going over and not cared?

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We arrived home late last night (so restaurant delivery was needed, on top of a week of restaurant food) from our short vacation.  As usual, a week of restaurant food has ruined me.  I had maintained a steady weight of ~183lbs all the way up to and including Christmas, but now I’m 188lbs this morning.  Good news is that it cannot possibly be all new fat added that quickly, so I hope to shed some of it quickly as I revert to a normal diet with a lot less sodium and more fiber.  Restaurant food for every meal of the day is by far the worst thing about vacations, even though we enjoy trying great new restaurants each time. 

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New year new fitness goals.

Last year was a bit mixed for me. Hit some pretty good running times (5km in 19:21, 30k in 2:17:33) but missed my major goal of a sub 3:30 marathon. Climbing I hit the goal of climbing at >20 grade in the gym (5.10c in US grade terms).

This year I'm going to try for the 3:30 marathon again, and see if I can push a 10k in sub-40min. Climbing I'm going to aim for being able to climb at a >24 (5.12a) grade.

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