Exercise & Fitness III

[ztemhead]

in order to get in my Very Serious Workout today I'm going to wait until my gym isn't very busy. it should quiet down about 10PM. Just me and the iron. :D

that was some quality at the all night gym just now. like how it should be every time.

20 mins cardio "warm up" followed by 1:07 upper body, using the Stego routine laid out about a month ago, followed by 12 minutes of stretching. add in a little faffing around, and it was just under two hours from entering the gym to leaving.

so after a month of doing your workout at least two days a week, stego, (legs is the third/ fourth day) I've made progress. my bench is up maybe 5%, but I'm doing sets of dips like a mofo, and my incline dumbell press is up a bit more than 5%. It's been a good setup, thanks. Not that I don't find it valuable, but it's time for me to move on to something else; most likely the superset/ trisets I've been talking about earlier.

tell you one thing, all those incline presses have hammered my forearms. they're still skinny and girly-sized, but they ripple now.

and now for a bowl of egg beaters, Italian sausage, onions, peppers, and hot sauce. :D

[needle]

I'm feeling proud today - did my run despite hangover and the curse.

I'm following this programme, now on week 2 - which is probably going to turn out a bit easy by week 5 or 6 but it's good to have a structure to get me started. Learning to run after more than twenty years off is taking time...

[Minaku]

I remember when I was about 6 or 7 months pregnant. I was wearing ahttp://asoiaf.westeros.org/style_images/ASoIaF/folder_editor_images/rte-link-button.png preg-sundress outfit, and walked into Saks 5th Avenue. I asked a saleslady where the salon was (I had an appointment at their salon). She said in her charming French accent, "zeee salon, or Salon Z?" I totally went home and cried (Salon Z is Saks' fat chicks department). F*cking bitch!!!

My day at the gym yesterday was not quality, sadly. However, I got James interested in the bicycles - the ones that have a TV with scenery shots, so that you can choose a "Pacific coast route" and stuff like that. He was on the bike for a full 20 minutes, and worked up a sweat.

I was at the North Georgia outlets with Brian when we walked into the Jo. A. Banks store in search of shirts that would fit. While he was trying some stuff on I asked the salesman about suit separates, slacks in particular. I joked that he was so thin that even before I was pregnant his waist was smaller than mine. The salesman gave me a look and said, "Oh, you're pregnant?"

I just sighed. Would I rather look pregnant or fat? I really can't decide.

Edit: Forgot to mention, Schneeb got himself one of these Iron Gym contraptions because someone at work recommended it to him. He spent some time doing pullups, dips, pushups, and situps yesterday. Any opinions on this thing? I am pretty fucking skeptical of it doing anything because first, what he's eating isn't lending itself to weight-gain, though it's healthier than before, and second, he's not doing a ton of exercises on it. He's pyramiding for each type of exercise. I just eyeballed him when I got home and said that squats with weights would suit him better.

I hopped up and tried to do a flexed arm hang. When I failed even to flex, I got depressed and walked away, then went to the gym. Pregnancy be damned, I'm going to get my walk in, then work on shoulders and back today.

[Rubies & Jade]

Kat-- I had a similar story about being really spoiled as far as pools go when I was a kid--I swam on teams from a young age, and when I got to high school we had a boys swim team (it was weirdly a boys-only league), but no girls team and we had no pool. So, I swam on the boys team and we convinced the school to bus us to the rich kids school in the town over who had a fabulous pool but no team (a few people from that school swam with us, too). It was a really fun experience, and all the schools loved when we came to swim against them since there were so many girls on our team. We also kicked ass--I was in the top 10 for backstroke and another girl on our team was in the top 3 for butterfly. :smoking: Usually we had to share the boys locker-room with them (other schools would always forget to unlock the girls locker room since it was a boys swim team) but we always worked it out and it was really the only high-light of high school.

BJT : I hear you on chlorinated pools. Hate em. But I do love to swim..so what can you do? in the uk at least. Our pool here in France is normally salt, and it's great - for swimming, for the skin, everything.

France is where I first saw salt pools--I think they're great. Kat, I liked the salt water pools exactly *because* it didn't taste like salt (like the ocean or something). It was really lovely.

[Liffguard]

Edit: Forgot to mention, Schneeb got himself one of these Iron Gym contraptions because someone at work recommended it to him. He spent some time doing pullups, dips, pushups, and situps yesterday. Any opinions on this thing? I am pretty fucking skeptical of it doing anything because first, what he's eating isn't lending itself to weight-gain, though it's healthier than before, and second, he's not doing a ton of exercises on it. He's pyramiding for each type of exercise. I just eyeballed him when I got home and said that squats with weights would suit him better.

You have the correct. Pull-ups, dips, push-ups etc are all great exercises but they won't cause significant strength gains.

[Swordfish]

Should be a great challenge. I'm thinking about training for a mountain race. The craziest marathon that I've read about is the Pikes Peak Marathon in Colorado. From the website:

You have to deal with massive elevation gain plus the altitude. I'm not sure if I'll ever be in good enough shape to do this, but I might try one of my local mountain races that are much, much easier.

My knees hurt just thinking about that... That's crazy.....

[Elrostar]

Pull-ups don't cause strength gain? So the fact that when I was starting training a while ago and at that time couldn't do more than a couple of pull-ups (with pretty bad form), and that I can now do seven or eight on my first set, this has nothing to do with the fact that I've been doing pull-ups?

Say what?

Or do you mean that they don't cause you to gain weight, which is another thing entirely. But how are they not related to gaining strength?

[ztemhead]

yeah I too call bullshit.

[Stego]

You have the correct. Pull-ups, dips, push-ups etc are all great exercises but they won't cause significant strength gains.

Pullups are THE best way to induce muscle hypertrophy in your lats and biceps in a beginner, in my opinion. Dips are just as good for the chest and triceps, to be perfectly honest. They also tickle he deltoids.

Good for Schnee. He should still listen to his wife. :D

[cjfshaw]

Pullups are one of my favorite exercises. There was this one summer when I was doing tons of pullups consistently and my back looked AWESOME. I love the pullups because I can just feel so many muscles working together to perform the pull. And for anyone who likes pullups, you should try body rows, I feel like they engage a lot more of the middle back than pullups do. That is just based on my experience though.

[Liffguard]

Pull-ups don't cause strength gain? So the fact that when I was starting training a while ago and at that time couldn't do more than a couple of pull-ups (with pretty bad form), and that I can now do seven or eight on my first set, this has nothing to do with the fact that I've been doing pull-ups?

Say what?

Or do you mean that they don't cause you to gain weight, which is another thing entirely. But how are they not related to gaining strength?

Sorry, let me expand. In the long-term, all bodyweight exercises hit a plateaux in regards to strength gain since you can't increase the weight. Of course, nothing stopping you from doing weighted pull-ups, dips, whatever but I was just talking about bodyweight exercises above.

[Xray the Enforcer]

Had a great (if shortened) day at the gym. Still managing the faster pace with few problems, although my heart rate was higher than my target. Ah well, I'll have to watch that. Did lats, pullups, chest press and a few others -- it's lighter-weight/more reps week.

[Stego]

Sorry, let me expand. In the long-term, all bodyweight exercises hit a plateaux in regards to strength gain since you can't increase the weight. Of course, nothing stopping you from doing weighted pull-ups, dips, whatever but I was just talking about bodyweight exercises above.

When re-reading your statement, it's not so bad. You put a qualifier in there.

When one is 250lbs, one does not have to worry about weighted pullups. :D

[Stego]

Still managing the faster pace with few problems, although my heart rate was higher than my target.

Bah. Target heart rate is overrated. As long as you did not die, you is ok. :D Push hard, dearest one.

[Vethnar]

I had a strange and somewhat disturbing problem during today's workout:

While warming up for squats, at just 70 kg, I started feeling some pain on the outside of my left ankle. The pain was noticeable on both sides of the joint, both in the foot and the shank. The most painful part of the lift was the first 10 cm or so up from the bottom. The pain was far from unbearable and I could easily have continued lifting, but I got a little scared and decided to skip squats for today. I did deadlifts instead, which went OK.

Any ideas about what I could be doing wrong? In case it matters, I'm doing deep (below parallel) back squats, with the feet about shoulder width apart, and toes pointing a little outwards.

[Stego]

No clue, mate. Try it again in a couple of days...and stretch first.

[cjfshaw]

I have one of those two, it is what I use for my pullups, chinups, and body rows. It can support as much weight as your door frame which is pretty convenient. And it is really easy to remove.

[Stego]

Go to the gym. :D

[Vethnar]

No clue, mate. Try it again in a couple of days...and stretch first.

Thanks, I'll try -- very carefully, at first. Of course it is also possible that the pain is caused by some other activity, but just happens to be particularly noticeable when squatting.

The area on the outside of the ankle is a little swollen now; I hope it will be better tomorrow morning.

[ztemhead]

I just did my bike/ gym/ bike routine. the cross trainer is starting to bore me, and I'm going to spare my back the shock of the treadmill for a while, so instead I biked around running errands n such, then got to the gym where I did 17 minutes on the erg, which is a lot harder than it sounds, did a mini abs workout, and made another valiant effort at fixing my deadlift form. I'm getting a bit frustrated with that to be honest, and I don't think I'll lift 250 or more again until I can find someone to help me with it. it's one thing to watch a youtube clip, but something else entirely to have someone watching you do it, telling you when you're screwing up.

another dubious achievement, maxed out on the "torso rotation" machine. not to the point where it feels easy, just to the point where I have to start hanging weights off the front of the stack.

then I biked home. total it was 12 miles on the bike, 17 mins on the erg, another half hour doing random filler stuff I've been neglecting, and fifteen minutes of injury prevention. (stretches.)

tommorrow I'm considering doing this on the bike.

Despite carrying a 15 lb backpack, I figure I could bang it out in 90 minutes if I hustle.