Exercise and Fitness VI

[Stego]

Is it really that abnormal that I can only do 35ish push ups? (thats up from 22 when i started doing them this summer)

I do accept that I need to branch out beyond cardio workouts. I really enjoy running, soccer, and cycling, but they make my workouts awfully one dimensional. I don't meet the usual runner's profile of the ultra skinny guy, however, as I'm 5'10'' and weigh about 195.

I don't know about abnormal. It just seems strange from my perspective. We were required to haul off 100 and then hold the push up position for 5 minutes before class in karate when I was a child, so I've been able to haul off 100 as a warm up since I was 8.

[Alcibiades]

A google search reveals that they do have calories. They are sweetened with sugar, albeit not too much.

If so, there is some seriously deceptive marketing going on. I have one in my fridge now, so I'll take a look at it when I get home.

EDIT: A quick google search reveals what I'm talking about. It says zero cal on the bottle.

[Alcibiades]

I don't know about abnormal. It just seems strange from my perspective. We were required to haul off 100 and then hold the push up position for 5 minutes before class in karate when I was a child, so I've been able to haul off 100 as a warm up since I was 8.

Yeah. I regard that as pretty amazing. Maybe I'll get there. I'm steadily getting stronger. While you were in those Karate classes, I was running my ass off at soccer practice.

[Stego]

If you're not wiling to go to a gym, I would recommend a pull up bar for a doorway and some chair dips to work on your upper body strength in addition to the push ups. That will increase your upper body strength a lot faster. Besides, push ups only do a few muscles. Spread the love.

[Alcibiades]

If you're not wiling to go to a gym, I would recommend a pull up bar for a doorway and some chair dips to work on your upper body strength in addition to the push ups. That will increase your upper body strength a lot faster. Besides, push ups only do a few muscles. Spread the love.

I actually really like the pull up bar idea. But I'm a renter, so I'm not sure I should go drilling holes to install a pull up bar. Historically, I cannot do pull ups, but it'd be nice to change that.

I'd never heard of a chair dip. I had to google it. I may try some later tonight.

And a I MIGHT be getting a gym membership come september. But I really like the idea of things I can just do in my bedroom.

The bike ride didn't happen today. I just have too much stuff to do. The trip I had planned was going to require a lot of time, so it'll have to wait until next weekend.

[Alcibiades]

Interesting. I may have been looking at the wrong stuff. I thought I saw it in the FAQ section.

I just got home. The one in my fridge has 100 calories. So there's a couple different varieties of life waters!

[seastarr]

You can get a pull up bar that just uses your weight to pressurize into your door frame.

No drilling or extra hardware needed.

[cjfshaw]

You can get a pull up bar that just uses your weight to pressurize into your door frame.

No drilling or extra hardware needed.

I would suggest an Iron Life pullup bar. They also need no drilling or anything, and look like a very similar design to this one, but you can get them in CVS and Wal-Mart for 25-30.

@ Triskele: Maybe you're just not loose enough?

@ Argive: Most of the people I know can not bust out 100 pushups in one set. But most of these people do not usually workout, at all. I think 50 is the recommended amount for the 'average' adult male

[Alcibiades]

Oh, sweet! I think I'm still going to get a gym membership soon. But having an exercise mat and pullup bar at home means theres never an excuse for not doing something daily.

[Alcibiades]

Just a quick caution (and you may totally know this, if so I apologize) but you don't want to do certain things daily. Pull-ups would be one of those things. You want to hit it really hard one day and then let your muscles recover for a few days and then hit it really hard again.

Yeah, I was thinking along the lines of alternating days between pull-ups and crunches.

[Kat]

Congrats on surviving your hike and climbing Whitney! You'll definitely come out of this stronger, especially after you've had time to rest and eat to catch up on calories. I ended up losing about a pound per day, despite eating about 4000 calories/day. I found it hard to eat much more than this because it seemed like a bad idea to stuff myself before or during the hike, which meant that dinner was the only time I could pig out.

Hope you don't have bronchitis. I picked up a minor cough that went away a day or two after my trip. I think it was just caused by the dryness in the air at high altitude. Plus the lower air pressure causes water to evaporate faster. And it was also very windy at the top of Whitney, which also makes this worse. The combination of these things caused my throat/lungs to dry out a bit and get irritated.

I had major feet and leg swelling the day after I got back, but not while I was up in the mountains. It was really weird as this was the first time this has happened to me. I ended up ballooning up 10 lbs, and then over the course of two day, quickly deflating...I wish I could pin down the cause so that I can do something to avoid it in the future.

Yeah...I'm hoping my cough is just from the dry air and not from the bronchitis that my ex seemed to have. He was coughing up a lung (maybe both lungs) the last few days, but had amazing perseverance in going up and up and up despite respiratory ailments. I think I just have some minor allergies to something that is everywhere in the air, because I always get the sniffles while outside, which makes me have to breathe through my mouth while hiking, which I think dries me out more. We'll see.

My left foot seems to be de-swelling a bit, which is good. (It was the more swollen of the two.) I think I may look into getting another pair of boots that are half a size larger for hiking at altitude. Basically, every time I go on a plane, or go to 10k+, my feet grow. I already own 3 pairs of hiking boots/shoes, so I really don't want another. Maybe I'll just get the slightly looser/more flexible ones resoled, since they have almost no tread left, but those are not really suited for difficult hikes with snow and are not super waterproof. :unsure:

Kat -

How many days was your hiking trip?

I've been etching to do a hiking trip for some time, problem is that until september-ish it's too fucking hot over here to hike. Well, you can find places, but I've already been there and they'll be really packed. The cool places will literally kill you if you hike in July.

My trip was 6 days of hiking. If it had been at a lower elevation (whole hike except the very beginning and very end were above 10,000') the weather might have been too hot. (It was 128 F in Death Valley this weekend, which is not far from where I was hiking, but much, much lower! And still 100 F in the valley below where we started.) I hate heat, so I totally sympathize. Fall and spring are good times? Especially as I imagine it's pretty arid everywhere you could go hiking so you don't have to worry about too much rain.

Wow Kat! After your report, mine is rather lame. I will get some more distance in as time goes on (and increase the weight of my pack)

My hike today was not what I had planned. The trail I had planned on taking (same as last week, with and extra 1 ½ miles at the end) was closed. I was rather disappointed as I hike the less touristy trails and was now forced to take the tourist trail to Wolf Rock and Chimney Rock. Total distance was just under 7 miles but it took me over 3 hours. :blush:

Thanks Lany. You'll be able to make longer distances in no time. To tell the truth I don't really like to go more than about 12 miles in a day. I like to have time to contemplate nature, look at rocks, talk to people, etc., rather than just spend all the time moving, which for me involves a lot of looking down so I don't trip. 7 miles in 3 hours is good, especially with a lot of elevation changes. With a day pack on, that's about my pace with ups and downs and rests. I mean, part of the fun of hiking is being able to see stuff. Carrying a heavy pack at elevation, and bringing up the rear, I was going amazingly slow. I was carrying the medical kit, so I had to go last (hence being the "responsible person"....when I don't even know first aid. Don't ask me how I got stuck with this, please) and walked behind the slowest person. We probably went an average of 1-2 miles per hour.

Good for you for helping fellow hikers, though. I like that people are, in general, way nicer and more friendly when on the trail. Part of it is the feeling that you are all in it together, but paying it forward really helps. That girl will remember you and hopefully give aid to fellow hikers too someday. My last day, which was the day when I went up and down Whitney, the weather got bad just as we were leaving the summit. The clouds had begun to gather, and they have many signs warning people about the lightning strike hazard since you are, after all, the highest thing around, and there are no trees. On the trail from the top back to the pass, it was hailing, and it rained pretty much the whole way back down. At one point, we paused, and a guy came up from behind asking if we had seen any rangers. We had not. He continued to run down the mountain. We saw him at the bottom a little while later and asked him what had happened. It turned out he had seen some people who were stranded at the summit due to the weather....and then proceeded to run all the way down without his pack in search of a ranger. At the bottom, where there is a snack bar, he contacted the USFS and they sent a search and rescue team. I hope if I ever get injured or stuck, there is someone like that around to help.

Anyway, here are my pictures from the trip. If my friends send me theirs, hopefully I will have the ones from Whitney too.

[Alcibiades]

There is some disagreement out there on abs. Some say that they are something that you can work out everyday. I don't think it matters too much because I think you can really help your abs by working them often as it is, so everyday is just not that important.

On the pull-ups...others may disagree but I think you should give yourself at least two days off. If you really want something to focus on each day you could do a three day circuit of pushups, pullups, and abs.

So you can do pushups the day after pull-ups? The muscle groups are that much different? I had thought there would be a lot of overlap.

[Mudguard]

Did a 5K mud run yesterday. It was pretty fun, but kinda short. Basically, it was a 5K obstacle course with a lot of mud. I'm going to try and do the Camp Pendleton mud run next year, which is a 10k course.

Lany, nice job on the hike, and it's great that you helped that girl out. 800' gain over half a mile is really steep. That works out to be a 30 percent grade. As a rough guideline, I consider 1000+' gain/mile steep, and 1500+' gain/mile really steep.

Kat, cool pics. How the hell did Caltech get a mountain named after itself???

For some reason, I like doing death march type hikes. Luckily, I found a group of hikers that also like doing them. Grand Canyon in the fall or spring will be my next big one.

[cjfshaw]

That seems to be the same idea as the irongym pullup bar. My roommate has one and they actually seem to work great. I cannot wait until the day when I can do pullups legitimately. I can get a few right now but not enough to where it feels like it's worth it.

I actually started out doing sets of 3 and 4 until I was exhausted and now I'm doing sets of 9-10 after only a few months.

@ Mudguard: Mud runs are awesome! Was it raining while you did it? Those are intense.

@ Argive: I do my pushups on the same day I do my pullups because they work different muscle groups. Pushups work the muscles that push (pectorals, triceps, anterior deltoids), and pullups work the muscles that pull (latissimus, biceps, posterior deltoids). I actually do pullups opposite of the chair dips stego mentioned and IO do pushups opposite rows.

[Mudguard]

No rain, although that sounds awesome! Unfortunately, we don't get much rain in SoCal.

[Kat]

Did a 5K mud run yesterday. It was pretty fun, but kinda short. Basically, it was a 5K obstacle course with a lot of mud. I'm going to try and do the Camp Pendleton mud run next year, which is a 10k course.

Lany, nice job on the hike, and it's great that you helped that girl out. 800' gain over half a mile is really steep. That works out to be a 30 percent grade. As a rough guideline, I consider 1000+' gain/mile steep, and 1500+' gain/mile really steep.

Kat, cool pics. How the hell did Caltech get a mountain named after itself???

For some reason, I like doing death march type hikes. Luckily, I found a group of hikers that also like doing them. Grand Canyon in the fall or spring will be my next big one.

I also consider 1000'/mile steep. Do not really enjoy grades steeper than that unless the trail has steps in it. And then I dislike going down. But I dislike going down all slopes, as previously mentioned. :P

As to why we have a mountain...

Caltech Peak became the official name of a mountain about 15 miles northwest of Mount Whitney in December of 1961. The previously unnamed peak came to be identified with the Institute as a result of a weekend climbing trip by Jim Eder ('65), Dick Jali ('55) and Ted Matthes ('55) who made the third recorded ascent on June 25, 1961, following the route that we took 30 years later. The three Caltech alumni were struck by the fact that three California schools had nearby mountains named after them, namely Mount Stanford (Stanford University), Trojan Peak (University of Southern California) and University Peak (University of California). So, after their return, they petitioned the Department of the Interior and the Superintendent of Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks. After some months of successful lobbying, Dick Jali was able to tell the community of the naming of the peak in a letter published in the January 1962 issue of Engineering and Science. Since that time a number of alumni, staff and students have made the ascent, and been rewarded by the magnificient view from the summit.

We (Techers) considered some schemes involving explosives atop Mt. Stanford (13973) and Trojan Peak (13947). Knocking 175 ft off each one to bring them down to size shouldn't be that hard, right? :pirate:

[Fleeing Finn]

So you can do pushups the day after pull-ups? The muscle groups are that much different? I had thought there would be a lot of overlap.

You can do them on the same day even. I would even recommend it. There isn't that much overlap and besides using muscles forces the antagonist muscles to relax. For example flexing the bicep froces the tricep to relax etc.

At the end of the day pullups and pushups are quite low intensity exercises and you can quickly develop strength to do A LOT of both. In my opinion once your body is used to the exercises you can even do them almost every day. One really effective way to ramp up reps you can do in both exercises is to train them throughout the day. Meaning that once every 30 minutes or so you do a comfortable number of pullups/pushups variating the number of reps/sets per day. This will greatly increase the overall volume forcing your body to adapt faster.

To illustrate:

Let's say you are doing 3*20 pushups 3 times a week. That's a volume of 180 pushups a week. After you've done those 3 sets of 20 reps you can't do any more in one workout. Now let's say you start training throughout the day and start doing 20 pushup whenever you feel like it. If you can do 3*20 in one workout then 10*20 in a day shouldn't be too much of problem. In one day you get a volume of 200 pushups. If you do the same 3 times a week you get a volume of 600 pushups per week.

Another plus of this kind of training is that it actually requires very little time commitment. Some people who are very busy can have difficulties taking one hour every day to work out but less than five minutes 10 times a day is usually easier when all you need is a floor or a conviniently placed pullup bar.

[Mudguard]

Cool, didn't know that a bunch of universities got peaks named after them. Wonder if they are all close enough together to do a loop and summit them all in a single day. My younger brother went to Stanford, so I'm going to have to drag him along to hike at least that peak. I think he'd get a kick out of it, so it might not be that difficult to persuade him. He's going to like hearing that Stanford has the highest peak among the 4 universities.

[Vethnar]

I did some squats with just dumbells because my lower back is still not feeling up to doing real ones. Not a bad substitute I hope.

My favorite substitute for squats when my lower back can't take real squats is single-leg squats. Put a low bench behind you, unrack the bar, lift one leg and place the foot upside down on top of the bench (be careful with the balance). Squat down until the knee of the back leg touches the floor, and push up with the front leg. I guess this would work equally well with dumbbells instead of a barbell, but I haven't tried.

[Liffguard]

My favorite substitute for squats when my lower back can't take real squats is single-leg squats. Put a low bench behind you, unrack the bar, lift one leg and place the foot upside down on top of the bench (be careful with the balance). Squat down until the knee of the back leg touches the floor, and push up with the front leg. I guess this would work equally well with dumbbells instead of a barbell, but I haven't tried.

Another variant which is a very similar movement to one-legged squats is to do weighted lunges. You can use either a bar or dumbells.