"Benighted" is a lovely word, Silver, though at first I took the meaning to be "beknighted," and thought you'd been honored as a Dame of the British Empire, perhaps for the woodpile you've so assiduously accumulated.

Monday, Dec. 13:
60 minutes arc trainer, resistance at 9, intervals
60 minutes circuit training class

We did this move in circuit training that I found difficult. Balancing on your butt, with knees bent & feet off the floor, you twist at the waist, holding a weighted ball in your hands. I don't balance very well & kept tipping further back.

:) I do a double-take when you write 'weeknights', saef. I think you must know both wee knights and large knights, and how interesting that must be. Then I translate to my own lingo, 'in the week'.

I'm going to collect 1/2 a salt marsh lamb today from an estate 40 miles away. I will fit in a walk. No idea about Christmas dinner yet but there will be something worth eating at least.

Ah Birchie, my acquaintanceship is very wide indeed: I know both week knights and strong knights.

Tuesday, Dec. 14:
15:05 rowing on the Concept II, 2,867 meters, 2:18 500 meter (a new personal best), 46 s/m, projected 6,101
60 minutes weights

45 minute spin class tonight, with me singing happily off-key to Usher (the song "OMG": I'm strangely in love with the line: "Honey got a booty go pow-pow-pow")

Saef

Can you explain the rowing numbers? I want to start using the rowing machine at the gym and I do not know what your numbers mean and am afraind when I start using the machine I will be at a loss.

Hey, Slim CB, I'm relatively new at this, but here's what I'm learning:


I'll translate those figures.

Okay, first thing: I set the resistance level at 5. That's a given.
I make myself do 15 minutes. The momentum usually carries me over a few seconds further.

I set the machine on "just row" and I change the display units so that I can see the figures that I always write here. (Rather than the graphic with the little boats moving forward across the screen.)

It means I did a total of 15 minutes and five seconds of rowing.
During that time, I rowed a total of 2,867 meters.
I rowed one 500-meter interval at 2 minutes and 18 seconds. That was my best time during the workout.
My highest rate of speed during the workout was 46 strokes per minute
If I kept up that pace for an hour -- which will not happen during this lifetime -- the machine projects that I would row 6,101 meters.

I really commend the Concept II website, which has a wealth of information on how to use the machine.

http://www.concept2.com/us/default.asp

Click on the "training" and "motivation" headings for some interesting stuff.

Please delete. Repeated post. Too many windows open at once, I think.

Ahh....thanks a lot!!!!

December 13: 75 minutes boxing boot camp

Totals: 13 days
728 minutes

Slim CB - I love the Concept 2 as well. (Mine is 2, saef's is II - probably the same). I row distance intervals. Click on 'select workout', I think, and follow. I do 10 of 200 metres, with 30 seconds rest. You might like 45 seconds to start with.

I do this on my other planet where I am not impeded by lots of work, school holidays, an ill SO, Christmas stuff and winter stuff like wood. NB I'd like to be a Dame for my services to the woodpile, saef. Thanks for considering me to be worthy.

December 14
5.6 mile treadmill run
60 minutes

and a little futzing about with some weights

Wednesday, December 15:

45 minute spin class, at 6 AM, and it was so hard to leave my kitchen table & a cup of coffee, bundle up, and trudge out into the cold to get to class.
45 minute Pilates routine, on my own

Longer than usual workout today, trying to counter some overindulging...

December 15:
45 minute treadmill run 4 miles
30 minutes stairmaster
15 minutes rowing machine -- my rowing debut!

Saef, I am amazed by how fast you row. I was hanging around 28 s/m.

That was a personal best, Amy, achieved under highly caffeinated conditions, and certainly not my very first time doing it.

You can & will do better, if you try it again & then again after that. Your height is gonna help you with that, too.

I've gotten faster with practice, and also from concentrating on my form. I am an amateur. I have seen the times posted by devotees of CrossFit, and I know my place in their world, which is lowly. Things I have learned from these sessions:

- If my head bobs all over the place, or if I look right or left, because of the monotony, it will slow my time & throw off my strokes. I try to look straight ahead, with a level head, or tuck in my chin slightly. You can give yourself whiplash on this thing if you don't take care.

- Turning my thighs inward slightly, so my kneecaps aren't quite parallel, definitely helps.

- I've gotten better at really using my legs, particularly as spinning has firmed up my quads. I can snap them up & back much more forcefully than I probably would have a year ago. Kicking outward really hard is critical to my getting any kind of speed.

- All that upper body work I've been doing with free weights has definitely helped. I am still trying to figure out whether elbows held straight & parallel to the sides or elbows turned out is the better position. (I need to look at another video. Or watch the Winckelvoss twins racing scenes in "Social Network.") Turned out seems to mimic a benchpress movement.

- When I row, I am shamelessly into it. It's not pretty. I am really out to "win," basically. My nose runs, saliva has been known to fly out of my mouth & the front of my shirt gets soaking wet with sweat. I really "want it." It's an attitude thing. Other people at my gym whom I've seen rowing have a less intense attitude. That's okay. We have different goals. I am numbers-minded on this one. I want to see a measured improvement. It's why I post the figures here. I don't tend to watch or record my elliptical or arc trainer miles, but for some reason, I do care about these 15-minute rowing sessions.

(I think it's due to lingering crew-team envy from my undergrad years.)

(ETA: In fact, I know it is. But of the male crew team. They used to eat in my dining hall, in my freshman year. They were nearly all tall, tanned, golden gods, like another species entirely. They looked like they ought to be bare-chested on the side of an Abercrombie shopping bag. Oh, Lordy, I sound like an Aryan worshipper here, and am not, actually, but that long-ago crew team has a special place in my pantheon of desirable men who were way, way out of my league.)

Amy - take your time to get your form right. There's a lot of terrible form around on rowing machines. Injuries waiting to happen. Keep the chain level. Don't let it flip up and down. And don't loll your head around. saef is right about whiplash.

And enjoy your time on the water!

Nil exercise yesterday and today. I'm sub-clinical with something or another. Slightly swollen glands in my neck which I think means I'm producing antibodies. Overall assessment: pathetic.

Please get out there for me, everyone!

Amy, listen to Birchie on this. She knows her s&%$#t, as we say here in NY. I'm glad she posted.

Like every other exercise in the world, it's all about the correct form.

It's a shame there is no metric for form, the way there is for speed & distance & time. That would be the most helpful metric of all.

(Well, maybe a Wii has that metric ...)