Amy, I missed it before, but congrats on your half!
Sept 15: none
Sept 16: NRLW S1W5B as follows
- 5 min warmup on climber thing
- 3x10 deadlifts, first two sets @60#, third @65#
- 3x10 shoulder press w/2x10# dumbbells, alternating with
- 3x10 lat pull down @70#
- 3x10 lunges (walking) w/2x15# dumbbells, alternating with
- 3x12 swiss ball crunch w/2.5# plate long arm
- 5 min stretching
I'm annoyed that my new work gym doesn't have 12# dumbbells. I was using the 10#'s to do my shoulder presses with 12 reps, so I figured I should go up in weight for 10 reps, but I can't even do 1 rep with the 15# dumbbells.
Sept. 14: none. First day in Sept. not to exercise but I worked two jobs from 7 am to 6:30 pm and then had to go to a meeting after so I was bone weary exhausted!
Tuesday - no exercise as had to work instead
Wed - back, biceps, shoulders
Thurs - rowing and x-trainer intervals
Fri - legs.
And that's week 2 done from my 6 week programme. I'm pleased with how it's going. My face has lost the bit of puffiness it had. My tummy is flatter. I can spring (yes, spring) into the downward dog if I've done enough calf stretching in advance.
Sat and Sun are active rest. We'll see how that pans out. It looks as though it could be a busy weekend. I must build a wood shelter soon. There is winter footwear to buy. I need a waterproof coat. That kind of thing.
Week 3 will be consolidation of my gains. So two kinds of intervals on the cardio days and two sets on the weights days.
Sept. 17:
15 minutes rowing on the Concept II, at six
(I never know what I should track on this machine -- the distance traveled? Keeping the number up high consistently with my strokes?)
60 minutes weights
45 minutes elliptical, half backward, resistance set at eight, just over four miles
When I'm warming up, I just build up slowly to get the sinovial fluid to bathe these old joints in preparation, and to get the blood moving and the lungs pumped up a bit. I'm on level 5 as that's within my 'pretty straightforward' range.
When I'm doing distance intervals (200m, 30s rest) I try to go like the clappers. I track the time each interval takes and try to improve on it without dying, fully and utterly. It's anaerobic exercise. Level 5 because I can really go at this level. Level 6 means (has meant?) that it's more a resistance than anaerobic exercise.
When I'm doing steady state (which I don't do much as it's a bit too time-consuming for me) I warm up as above and then I try to keep the strokes per minute up above 30. Level 6 can be in order for me here.
Final point. Form, in my most humble opinion, is key so I often track that for a bit. The machine and the body should work in utter harmony for efficiency. I hate seeing the chain jerk about or people's heads lolling about. Why bother at all? Why not just give yourself a hideous injury more quickly? But that's efficiency again, I suppose.
And a bonus. Did you know that there are Concept (virtual) competitions? And actual, I think. I met a rather alarming Concept evangelical missionary last year at the gymn who expounded on this. Just a punter but Very Keen. I had to zone out in the end.
A beautiful morning for a run. It rained last night but the sun was out this morning. Everything seemed fresh and clean. I was halfway through my run before I thought about the fact that I was running -- before I thought about pace or form or the hill I was climbing. I was just in the groove.
Sept. 18: 45 minutes spin class
60 minutes Pilates class
Silver, thanks so much for talking to me about how you use the Concept II machine. I realized I didn't know what the numbers I'd been looking at on the display really meant, and I ended up also going to the company's website, which is excellent. I've been watching the wattage or power of each stroke, and of course the time, but not the strokes per minute. I haven't even looked at the distance. I considered it a 15-minute warmup to other stuff. This is all very enlightening.
According to the Concept II videos of how to row, my form isn't bad, but that's because I got lucky: When I started using the machine, I was a member of a college gym. (An alumn, with access & a decent price.) On some mornings, while I was on their very sweet Precor elliptical, the crew team came in to practice on four Concept II machines, working in relays. I couldn't help but hear their coaches correcting & prompting them, and I tried to remember those things when I tried out a machine tentatively, myself.
Sept. 19: 15 minutes Concept II, resistance at 6, 33 s/m, 18 split, 2959 m
(5912 projected for 30 minutes). (I don't know what the
18 split" means actually)
60 minutes weights
45 minutes spin class, in Tricia's House of Pain, doing hill sprints, and flat road sprints, with quads burning.
Ha! I was just about to ask you what 'split' meant! I have no idea, either. That's a lot of movement, saef.
Yesterday - nothing.
Today - an ironing marathon (plus putting away summer stuff). Quite horrible. And I only do mine and the DB's. SO does his and bed linen. (No dryer here.)
Warm up on TM. 10 mins, 3.1 mph, 1.0 incline for 5, 1.5 for 5 (OK progression not consolidation)
Chest and triceps
Incline chest press (DB // with waist to minimise rotator cuff aggro) 4kg. 2 sets x 10
Triceps pulldown. 10kg. 2 sets x 10
Yoga and stretching. 20 mins. Must say again how thrilled I am with the downward dog. Think I widened my stance as well as stretching my calves. And success! (It is good for you, isn't it?)
15 minutes warmup on elliptical, hill setting, forward movement (no backward) resistance at eight (which means it varies from 4 to 12)
60 minutes circuit training class, in which we do 10 different stations, moving from cardio to weights to Pilates. This was a hard class for me. My balance is still shot due to my inner ear problem, and there were two stations on bosu balls, which I just could not do. Also, for some reason I had trouble with this one station where you dropped into a crouch & punched or boxed with two weights, and then rose up & lifted alternating knees very high while pushing the weights downward. (Probably it comes from a kick boxing class.) It was like choreography: Too many things to think about.
Anything like a dance movement or a cardio dance class, I do poorly on. I don't know if it's my balance issues or because I am a completely stiff, stilted, rhythmless white girl. Maybe I suffered trauma in these classes in the late 80s-early 90s that shook my confidence. All I know is, I'm far happier running freely or with my machine friends, the spin bike, the elliptical, the arc trainer, the Concept II rower, even the old-fashioned stepper. With them, I can do cardio forever.
