Exercise & Fitness: it’s a marathon, not a sprint

[Iskaral Pust]

10 hours ago, BigFatCoward said:

The absolute most i will do is 4000m, and thats only on really good day, most days its 3000, sometimes even 2000 if i'm exhausted/hung over. 

I do 500m just as a quick warm up before weightlifting.  When I was rowing as the workout, not just the warmup, I would do 5k in 21-23 minutes (depending on how hard I was pushing) but my legs were like jelly after that and my heart and lungs would be heaving as I stood up to rest.

I have noticed that my new rowing machine in my home gym has a different pace than the ERG I used in our condo gym a few years ago (when I did 5k in 21-23 minutes).  The ERG in the condo gym was an older model with a chain cable.  On a setting of 10 (out of 10), I could sprint at 1:45/500m but a long row would have a sustained pace in the 2:10/500m ballpark.  My newer ERG in my home gym uses a fan blade resistance and on a setting of 13 (out of 16) I find that 2:25/500m is a brisk warm-up pace for 500m.  There’s no way I could do 2:10/500m sustained for 5k on this machine.

i wondered if my fitness just declined a lot in the last few years but we’ve been back in that condo building in Chicago in the last two years to visit friends and I’ve gone back into the gym and used the same old ERG machine and I still rowed at the original pace.  I think there’s just a large difference in either the resistance or how the machines convert resistance into distance.  They are from different manufacturers and use different mechanical designs, but different treadmills don’t produce that kind of discrepancy.

[BigFatCoward]

6 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Sorry I'm not a drug addict. 

The only drug you need to keep you going is bickering with DMC

[3CityApache]

12 hours ago, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Honestly I think a 30 mile bike ride while smoking a joint and stopping for a glass of wine/beer at the midway point isn't anywhere as close to as difficult as just putting 10 minutes in on that fucker. 

Ha ha, maybe not 10 minutes, but rowing longer than 30 is a real challenge for me. And I need to have a damn good music in headphones. Siamese Dream by Smashing Pumpkins is a good bet. 

[baxus]

On 4/19/2024 at 10:30 AM, BigFatCoward said:

The absolute most i will do is 4000m, and thats only on really good day, most days its 3000, sometimes even 2000 if i'm exhausted/hung over. 

The most I've ever done is 10k, which was in 40-45 minutes range. Not a pleasant experience and definitely not something I'd recommend. Rowing on water, on the other hand, I could do for hours. Going out on the river in a boat with your mates is such a great feeling and I miss it dearly. Obviously, I'm talking about recreational rowing on water, not training for a competition or anything serious.

[Phylum of Alexandria]

On 2/4/2024 at 9:33 AM, Mr. Chatywin et al. said:

Just stepped on the scale and I've dropped 8 pounds in the last month or so. Still need to lose another 20  to get back to where I'm happy, but given all my health issues over the last year and a half that's pretty good since I'm mainly just doing yoga and the row machine with weights twice a week. 

My Japanese mother-in-law actually asked if I had lost weight when I last saw her. That's a first. Usually it's "oh, you've gained weight." The first time actually included some pokes as I was washing dishes "here, and here." 

So...that's a good sign. I'm still taking things easy with respect to my back (which I hurt about two months back), but I have been walking a whole lot, some easy exercise, and trying not to go crazy on snacks.

[TheLastWolf]

Ran 3 kms after 2 years. Like the most running I ever did in the interval was to catch the metro or a bus. Few hundred feet. 

Me who could run semi marathons in contention now gasping like a fish out of water halfway through. Couldn't even manage a third of the pushups and whatnot calisthenics I could do earlier.

Gotta get shipshape soon, been too long a lazy moaner. Nearly forgot the rush when endorphin kicks in.