[quote]pch2 wrote:
We started with a 400m run outside. I hate running. I also need to get a better sports bra. I sucked it up and ran, realizing that I need to work on my cardio endurance. I shouldn’t be winded after running, not even sprinting, 400m.
…
[/quote]
Of course you should! If you aren’t winded you didn’t run.
[quote]pch2 wrote:
I did get to wear my knee socks…
[/quote]
woohoo! pch2 in her hot socks! Now you’ve made MY day!
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Of course you should! If you aren’t winded you didn’t run.[/quote]
Hmm… you do have a point there.
Nice socks. Spinning can be a good workout if you work it. Nice job. Keep up the log.
[quote]GuerillaZen wrote:
Nice socks. Spinning can be a good workout if you work it. Nice job. Keep up the log.[/quote]
Thanks, they’re from american apparel. I’m definitely going to keep spinning as long as I can.
I had a lovely day yesterday. Started off with spin class at 6am, the guy in front of me was 45 years old. So, 20 years older than me, yet kicking my ass, wanting to be better than him is going to be a great motivation for getting my cardio in. I do really well with the slow high resistance songs, but the sprints kill me.
After work I did NR, it was my second physical activity for the day, and I hadn’t really eaten well, so I was kinda low energy but I had fun. If I’m going to give my adventures my all, I’m going to have to tighten up my diet. Magical how that all ties in.
1 arm DB snatch - 30 3x6 ea arm
I tried 35 and missed 
Also, my right side is much stronger than my left. I always do left first since it’s the weaker, but is that all I should be doing to fix the imbalance?
A1 BB B Row 75 3x6
A2 BD Single Leg SLDL 25 3x6 ea leg
I took DD advice and am just concentrating on making this a smooth movement with perfect balance for each set rather than trying to just up the weight.
Incline DB BP 25 3x6
OH Squat 1 arm up 1 arm down 8&15 3x6 ea side
I really like the OH squat, it’s so hard!
I skipped out on all ab work and drove to AA. My goal is to hit a Bikram Yoga class today. I need some sort of stretching/ flexibility work. My hips are feeling really tight.
Pch2,
In your original post, you were talking about wanting some goals. (Unless I misunderstood?) I was wondering if you’ve tried Tae Bo or Kickboxing, just for something different. You sound a lot like me.
I’ve reached a few of my LONG term goals. One was to see my collar bones again! I finally finally FINALLY hit that about 10 days ago! I have a goal of 1 unassisted pull-up by the end of July. I may need to downgrade that to 1 unassisted chin-up instead. I’m still pushing (or should I say pulling?) though!
I’ll be watchin’ your log ~ want an ex-Marine to GROWL at you once in a while? Lol… just kidding, you ROCK! I admire you.
Renee
So far you’ve skipped ab work at least twice. You are right in saying everything works the abs; but isn’t that just more reason to strengthen your core, because everything uses it. Maybe you should start with your ab stuff, so you cannot skip it.
Hey pch2, this just in:
Saturday 11 October for the BJJ seminar 12-3 in Chagrin Falls.
Sunday 12 is a kettlebell workshop.
This is going to be so fun!
Say you’ll be there!
[quote]pch2 wrote:
…my right side is much stronger than my left. I always do left first since it’s the weaker, but is that all I should be doing to fix the imbalance? [/quote]
First, let’s find out what you mean by “imbalance”–just how much is the difference?
You need to measure your strength in several different planes of motion, in both lower and upper body, including some isolation exercises.
You need to do (with the same weight and 3 min rest between each test):
One-Arm DB Press
One-Arm Lat Pull-Down
One-Arm Bench Press
One Arm DB Row
One-Arm Bicep Curl
One-Arm Tricep Extension
One-Leg Knee Extension
One-Leg Leg Curl
One-Leg Leg Press
Single-Leg Calf Raise
Single Leg Deadlift
Up to 2 reps is an acceptable differential. Pretty normal, in fact. More than 2 reps and you have a serious imbalance. This can be caused by a spinal scoliosis or damage to spinal access nerves.
This way, you can see whether it’s a weakness throughout the torso muscles or within the particular limb.
You’re doing compound movements to see if it’s the torso and isolation movements to see if it’s an elbow or knee thing. Make sense?
[quote]reneeweimer wrote:
In your original post, you were talking about wanting some goals. (Unless I misunderstood?)[/quote]
You didn’t misunderstand, I do want some more concrete goals. I’m always going to strive for power and grace, but I’m the sort of person that needs a concrete goal and clear definitions as to what that goal is.
Power and grace don’t fit the bill. So I’m trying to find a sport/activity/whatever that I can set definite goals with in that will contribute to my overall goals. Geesh, does that make any sense?
I also just want to have some fun and try a bunch of new things for a while. I’m regularly doing things that scare the shit out of me these days. I thought you all would enjoy the trip.
I’ve actually taken quite a few cardio kickboxing classes at the gym. They’re fun and do kick my ass, I should probably try and hit the one at my new gym.
I haven’t taken a real Muay Thai class though I took a class at my old gym by a guy who wanted it to be muay thai but was told it had to be cardio kickboxing, so it was a weird combo of the two. I do love the sound of my shin making impact, I don’t love being hit.
Thanks!
[quote]
I’ve reached a few of my LONG term goals. One was to see my collar bones again! I finally finally FINALLY hit that about 10 days ago![/quote]
Woo Hoo! I loved it when I was first able to see mine, I went through and am probably still in a strapless dress phase. It just makes me feel more feminine.
Oh, don’t downgrade, you can do it maybe just extend the time limit for the pull-up. When my goal was a chin up I found these articles extremely helpful:
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=459572
http://www.T-Nation.com/readArticle.do?id=460273
[quote]
I’ll be watchin’ your log ~ want an ex-Marine to GROWL at you once in a while? Lol… just kidding, you ROCK! I admire you.
Renee[/quote]
GROWL away, I find not wanting to be yelled at motivates me much more than wanting praise does. The best part of spin is that he regularly informs me that I’m riding like shit.
[quote]Tire wrote:
So far you’ve skipped ab work at least twice. You are right in saying everything works the abs; but isn’t that just more reason to strengthen your core, because everything uses it. Maybe you should start with your ab stuff, so you cannot skip it.[/quote]
Yes, plank will now be the first thing I do for each NR day.
[quote]downwardog wrote:
Hey pch2, this just in:
Saturday 11 October for the BJJ seminar 12-3 in Chagrin Falls.
Sunday 12 is a kettlebell workshop.
This is going to be so fun!
Say you’ll be there![/quote]
I’ll be there! and if it’s not a Michigan football weekend, my little brother will be there too. This’ll be a great adventure!
Sweet!
Is there a rep range I should aim for?
Makes perfect sense, I’ll do it tomorrow and report the results. I’m excited, this will be a fun experiment!
[quote]pch2 wrote:
Is there a rep range I should aim for?
[/quote]
You want to go to complete and utter failure.
Pick a fairly heavy weight so you don’t have to do too many reps to get there. For most people that’s 8-12 reps. Some people will do better hitting higher reps.
Keep your form exact and go to absolute failure. Don’t do any cheat reps.
If the difference is more than two reps per side…I’ll tell you the next step.
Today I learned I haven’t been pushing myself nearly as hard as I should be.
I did dd’s are you imbalanced test. The good news is that I don’t differ by more than 2 reps for anything! The bad news is that I picked weights I thought I could do 10-12 reps for and ended up with way way more reps. I kept thinking one more rep and ended up with about 20 more than I expected. I need to be testing my limits more!
The weight (I did some on machines the numbers didn’t seem to correspond to anything), left side reps, right side reps
1 arm DB MP - 20 15 16
1 arm LP - 40 17 19
1 arm BP - 20 26 25
1 arm DB Row - 25 22 23
1 arm Curl - 20 9 8
1 arm Tri Ext - 1.5 11 12
1 leg Knee Ext - 3 21 24
1 leg Curl - 3 32 31
1 leg Press - 7 35 33
1 leg Calf raise - 1 12 12
1 leg DL - 60 11 10
I wore my Korn shirt for this test, maybe it gave me super angry strength? Though I listened to Montgomery Gentry the whole time.
Speed
How fast will it go
Can it get me
Over her quickly
Zero to sixty
Can it outrun her memory
Yeah, what I really need
Is an open road
And a whole lot of speed
After I get more food I’ll tell ya’ll about Bikram.
I know I need to work on my mobility and flexibility and the spinning has made my hips feel super tight. Of course I thought - yoga. Since it was to be an adventure why not do that yoga for 90 min in a room that’s 105 degrees? So, on saturday I took my mom and little brother to a Bikram yoga class.
We were not early, so when we got there I was a bit frazzled. I like to have time to assess my surroundings and get comfortable, I didn’t have that time. We borrowed mats from the studio (I don’t recommend doing this, they were smelly!) and entered the room. It was fucking hot, it was a hot day outside and it was hotter grosser inside.
We set up in the back row since there were actually quite a few people (15-20). I was kinda surprised that about half of them were guys. One guy looked like he had been under a bar before, but the rest looked like they needed to eat more. I didn’t really check out any of the girls except for the one directly in front of me. She was anorexic thin (I could see every rib), and was an instructor that happened to be taking the class.
In the 2 minutes it took to put the mat down, and put my towel over it, I was already dripping sweat. It was wonderful! Painfully and unbearably wonderful!
We started out with simple breathing that left me soaked with sweat, and moved on to the Bikram sequence of movements.
Bikram has patented a specific sequence of yoga poses and every class is the same, you just do the level of pose that suits you. I think this is a negative to the class. There is no catering to your own needs. In other yoga classes I’ve been able to tell the instructor that I’d like to loosen my hips and not do too much spine mobility stuff. That’s not an option here.
I really enjoyed the class. The heat made everything so difficult that balancing on one leg required all of my attention. I wasn’t able to watch what other people were doing, I paid no attention to my family. All I could do was think - do not fall over, do not move. I was able to understand how yoga can be used to clear away everything else.
That being said, I don’t think Bikram yoga and strength training go together. We did so much spine mobility work, I was shocked and in actual pain. There is a sequence where you kneel and put your forehead on your knees and then immediately go to putting the top of your head on your heels. This hurts, this hurts a lot. The instructor also kept telling us it was supposed to hurt, which I’m not sure is true. I’m used to muscle soreness and stretching, but this was just straight up pain.
The class was 90 min long, we got through the sequence. By the end of it all I could think was - this is not impossible, I will finish. That’s it, I was just focused on getting through it. I really enjoy things that force me to be in the moment, and this fit the bill. If I wanted to just do yoga and nothing else I’d pick Bikram to stick with. Unfortunately, it’s incompatible with other things I enjoy (deadlifting) so it’s not something I can regularly do. I did feel much looser and just better overall after the class though, so it was a great adventure.
I just wanted to add that I spun on sunday and got to spend 90 minutes being yelled at. I occasionally wonder if I’m just insane.
And it rips my life away, but it’s a great escape
escape…escape…escape…
All I can say is that my life is pretty plain
y’all don’t like my point of view
y’all think I’m insane
Its not sane…it’s not sane
[quote]pch2 wrote:
…The bad news is that I picked weights I thought I could do 10-12 reps for and ended up with way way more reps. I kept thinking one more rep and ended up with about 20 more than I expected…
[/quote]
Utoh pch2,
For the test to be accurate, you should rest a day or two and repeat the test with almost double (say 30%) the weights you used before. Otherwise you were just testing your local muscle endurance. For a true test of muscle efficiency you need to test at a heavier weight. Sorry, babe.
[quote]downwardog wrote:
For the test to be accurate, you should rest a day or two and repeat the test with almost double (say 30%) the weights you used before.[/quote]
I pretty much anticipated that. I’ll redo it tonite? I have a long day (12hrs) in lab tomorrow and thursday, so gym time needs to be short those days.
