Stll rehabbing. I parked by the beach & walked briskly to and from my meeting. Say 35 minutes. I'm pleased. No attention-seeking, bending over at the waist coughing fit I call that success.
Meg - do you include back squats where you hold the bar static behind your head on the bad list? Or specifically things like behind the head pulldowns, OH press behind the head, that kind of thing? Since my recent shoulder aggravation I'm trying hard to isolate things that might bother it.
Last edited by Shannon in ATL; 03-02-2010 at 03:45 PM.
My strength workout is totally wussy compared to Megan's! Plus I went a little light on the weight since my knees were bugging me.
Done today:
5 min warmup walk/jog
3 sets of 10 squats with two 15# dumbbells, alternating with
3 sets of 10 push-ups at whatever angle it is when I put my hands on the bench
3 sets of 10 lunges with two 15# dumbbells, alternating with
3 sets of 10 bent over rows, one arm at a time with a 20# dumbbell
3 planks (on elbows), 30 seconds each
5 min stretching
Not to worry Jessica, mine are more similar to yours.
A whole body workout that I really didn't push. I woke up with a headache, so didn't go to the gym til later, and the headache was better, but not gone, so I didn't push it. Wonder if I'll ever be able to do an unassisted pull-up? Sigh.
Meg - do you include back squats where you hold the bar static behind your head on the bad list? Or specifically things like behind the head pulldowns, OH press behind the head, that kind of thing? Since my recent shoulder aggravation I'm trying hard to isolate things that might bother it.
No, resting a BB on your shoulders is a different kind of exercise than pressing up or pulling down from a behind the head position. Squats are probably my all-time favorite exercise! (and they work -- I'm told -- 73% of the muscles in our bodies!) When I do a squat, I start off with the bar on a squat rack at shoulder height, duck under, and position the bar on my shoulders, so I'm not pressing up and then behind my head. The position we do squats in maintains a neutral spine, especially if you look up slightly as you go down. I always focus on the top of the mirror that's in front of the squat rack.
As for pulldowns, when you do them correctly, your spine stays neutral like this:
Notice how he's not rocking back with each rep? He's making his lats do the work, not turning it into an ab exercise (#1 lat pulldown mistake).
But in order to do a behind the head pulldown or press, you have to bend your head forward so you don't bop yourself on top of the head, so your spine is bent during the exercise (sometimes almost to a 90 degree angle). And that puts a lot of stress on your neck, which is also the area where people tend to hold stress and have tense muscles, so it can be a bad combination.
But the most rule is -- if you feel an exercise bothering your shoulders, stop doing it. There are so many alternative exercises for all muscle groups that there isn't a reason to risk injury. IMO, we all need to be hyper careful about protecting our shoulders because they're so prone to injury.
As someone with a trick shoulder, I can also say that the behind-the-head pulldown is really hard on the shoulder. I would also avoid any kind of overhead press with elbows out to the sides, like with dumbells. Always keep elbows more in front.
Do you have the specific rotator-cuff strengthening exercises? They are great to do.
Good morning. It was hard to get out of bed today. I got to a 5:45a spin class at 5:50ish but had not missed anything the teacher had a few operational difficulties, which were worked out in my absence.
Sorry to say that I missed the weight/interval class yesterday due to a genuine time crunch. I WILL get to it next tues.
Meg, thx for shoulder tips. I find mine are prone to injury and I will keep your guidelines in my mind during my next weight training. Dh has had both of his shoulders operated on. He is still hoping to be relieved of pain and recover range in the one he had done this past thanksgiving.
-until tomorrow...
In my opinion, no one should ever do a behind the head/neck exercise. One of the tenets of safe weight lifting is that we maintain a neutral spine throughout the lift. And it's impossible to maintain a neutral spine while lifting behind your head.
The other big rule for protecting shoulders is never to lift shoulders to failure.
That's exactly what I was thinking... not doing that exercise again.
Headed to the gym after work today, will post more later/tomorrow.
Monday I broke my all-time distance record and did a full 7 miles. The first 5k was sprint intervals...recovery at 4mph, sprint at 9mph. Then I took 5 min, grabbed some water, and went back for a 4 mile steady state run at 5.5mph. I was BEAT.
Tuesday I did one of the Jillian Michaels pre-programmed workouts on my incline trainer..they tend to be very high inclines at moderate speeds, so it's less joint stress from running 2 days in a row, but the same calorie burn. I love my incline trainer and the pre-programmed workout cards!
Then I did my bi-weekly, kick-butt, no-rest strength training (I do 22-25 exercises in supersets of 2 or 3 exercises together, shuttling the work between upper and lower body to keep HR up...it takes a little over an hour). I can post one with the specific exercises but basically I just make sure I hit every muscle group and don't stop moving.
Today - The plan is to spend 70-80 min on the incline trainer, and get in 20-30 min of yoga.
Today I went to "boxing boot camp" for 70 min. I won't exercise tomorrow since I work both of my jobs. I like to keep track of how many days and minutes I exercise each month, so for March so far:
Yesterday afternoon was a placeholder workout. 65 minutes of elliptical (b/c I didn't want to get off and do anything else), 10 min. stretching (which I need to do more often, but again, it was b/c I didn't want to do anything else). Meh.
I am so in!
