Pat - sorry that you're having issues with your knees again, but please do share any new exercises your PT recommends - my "wandering knees" are ok for now , but I like the idea of doing some of these exercises as prevention.

Cindy

AAAACHHHHH! BLEEECH!

THEY changed the formula of my beloved protein powder. New improved taste my shoe! It tastes like dishsoap when mixed with my morning oatmeal and cottage cheese. And to add further insult the jar is just a little smaller and scoop is larger. All the while the label boasts more protein than the original formula. I guess so if you give me a larger scoop.

Had a great workout yesterday morning. I did get my 3.6 miles of walking in on the treadmill with a little bit of running mixed in to break it up. My outer hip is rather sore from the running so I will need to back off from that this coming week if I want to walk the 5k next Saturday. I spent about an hour doing a full body workout followed up abs and stretches.

I did have a pretty cool NSV yesterday. After I finished my squats and deadlifts another gym member approached me. I recognized him as a regular and thought oh geez, what did I do now. I've never spoken with this person before. He simply came over to tell me I do a really great job while at the gym. I made him say it twice pretending not to hear him the first tiime. Then he went on to say how many women he sees in the free weights area lift way too light and and too fast and begins to demonstrate this with a three pound weight. Yeah, well I've seen plenty of men do this too except they tend to lift too heavy and too fast but I thought I would let him ramble on a bit since his intention was to compliment me.

Anyway, the best thing he said and gets points for is that I am (drumroll please) TECHNICALLY SOUND! Okay. Maybe a weird thing to get jazzed about but I study this stuff almost every evening trying to be certain that I am using perfect form. So, ha. It's paying off.

Happy Mother's Day everyone!

yech on the protein powder, Lydia What do you use?

Congrats on the compliments. I mosty get stares at my new gym

Happy Mother's Day to all the Moms and remember your mom to all the daughters!

Mel

Lydia - that is a very cool NSV!! I know that I try so hard to have perfect form that I'd love it if someone would notice and compliment me! While we're talking about two of my favourite exercises - squats and deadlifts - I have a question for you. Right now I'm only doing those exercises in my Power class. The one time I looked at the barbells available to choose from (not dumbells) they seemed kind of heavy. I was afraid to even try them. I can't now remember the weights but even the lightest one seemed heavy (maybe the bar itself weighs a lot??). So what weight do you use and are you using a barbell? I can do squats with dumbells but it's not as much fun and I wasn't even sure how to do deadlifts without a bar.

As for me, I had a good weekend until the dreaded mothers' day brunch buffet. I think it was hosted by the No really! Anyway, so I ate too much. What can you do? It's back at it for me tomorrow with some spinning to burn some calories.

One more question before I go - has anyone ever tried the egg beaters in a carton (or some other brand) where they have the veggies already in it? I usually just buy the egg whites and mix it with an egg for scrambled eggs etc. but I'm trying to find something that I can make easily in the morning and bring with to work for breakfast or lunch. I get bored eating the same things. I saw they had a southwestern mix so I bought it. The nutritional information was good and I thought it was be really easy to make but I wonder if it's creepy? Well, if no one else knows, I'll let you know when I try it sometime this week.

Happy Mothers' Day!!

I've had the southwestern egg beaters and they aren't that bad. Nothing creepy and no real hidden nutritional worries that I could see but I actually prefer the store brands at the two markets I frequent and while the store brands don't have southwestern, if I want that style a little salsa comes close enough for me. However, since you are bringing it to work, the convenience of an "all-in-one package meal" probably gives the southwestern egg beaters the thumbs up

Hi Elisa

Sorry to hear about the Mother's Day Brunch hosted by the devil.

The barbell weighs about 45 pounds unloaded. So, yeah, it can feel a little heavy if you don't anticipate it. Currently, my squats are done on the smith machine and with dumbbells. I have no idea how much resistance the bar on the smith machine has unloaded but it doesn't feel like a lot. Currently I am adding 40 pounds to the bar when I am doing the squats. Right now it's okay because I am still focusing more on form.

When doing dumbbell squats I do a wide stance sumo type squat using only 20lb dumb bell. Again, I'm practicing more on form right now. http://www.expertvillage.com/videos/...lls-squats.htm
Be careful with these. I tend to pull groin muscles this way too. Really ruins the rest of my workout for the day.

When I am doing deadlifts I am using two 20lb dumbbells. I haven't tried a deadlift using a barbell yet. I meet with my trainer tomorrow and will ask her about this. I know the barbell deadlift uses a wider stance and an overhand grip with one hand and an underhand grip with the other as a way of holding the barbell more securely.

My advice for dumbbell deadlifts would be to square your shoulders off and keep your chin up and pointed toward the the wall, bending at the waist while your glutes push toward the opposite wall as you lower the weight. The back remains tabletop flat as you slowly lower the weight past your shins with a slight bend in the knees. Continue to lower the weight just before your shoulders begin to round off. You should still be looking forward with your chin up. Then pull the weight back up. (Not an easy thing to describe, maybe this could help:http://video.google.com/videoplay?do...deadlift&hl=en

When doing the exercise you should feel it in the small of your back as well as the bottom of your hamstrings just about where it attaches to the back of your knee. I usually find that my form is great for about the first eight reps and I can feel everything that I am supposed to up to that point. Then after that it starts to get sloppy and I have to stop and readjust myself before continuing. Its one of those exercises that I really have to think about, chest out, hips back, chip up while I'm doing it or it morphs into a toe touching exercise and loses its effect.

Haven't had the southwestern egg scramblers. I think the texture of just the regular ones is a little to airy for me. I still buy an extra dozen of eggs and throw away the yolks.

My DH is now practicing how to whistle through his fingers using instructions from some website he's found. Grrrr. Very annoying. Somehow I don't think this is a skill he needs to acquire. Time for me to distract him.


Have a great evening!

Lydia gave some great tips on the SLDL, especially the parts about pushing your glutes to the wall and the chin to the opposite wall. I would de-emphasize the part about bending at the waist, though. This is something that should happen as a result of the glute action and not something you should conciously try to do. If you bend at the waist first, you will be placing more stress than you should on your lumbar spine.

Take Lydia's tip of pushing your glutes to the wall literally and learn the movement that way. Stand about a foot away from the wall and think only of touching the back wall with your backside. You should do this fairly easily. (Now for form checks: While in this position also just bend at the waist here. You probably won't reach the wall just bending at the waist. Now bend at the waist and then try touching the wall. You can do it fairly easily but probably not as easily as when you simply concentrated on touching the wall the first time. If this is not the case, then you were bending too much at the waist the first time.)

Now step a few inches further and further from the wall each time until you can feel the stretch in your hamstrings when you perform this movement.

It's funny how psychological things can creep into food issues. I cannot eat scrambled egg whites or a clear egg-white "egg-beaters" type product. I don't enjoy them at all. I however, can and do almost daily, enjoy omelets made with egg-white "egg-beaters" type products if they have the added food coloring. It can be the same brand and same product but if the don't have the c0loring I can't eat them.

For me, for some strange reason, my scrambled eggs or omelets HAVE to be yellow.

Hope everyone had a great weekend and a wonderful mothers day.

On Saturday we went garage sale shopping and found some great stuff, including a bike for me. It’s an older 10 speed, but the brakes and moving parts are all in good shape, just needed new tires. Each tire cost me almost as much as the bike, but that’s ok because I only dropped $12.50 on the bike. So a perfectly good working bike with new tires for under $40, I can handle that.

I also got some new running sox and some body glide, really made a difference in my run yesterday. I will never go back to plain old cotton sox. I also picked up an off-brand “Camelbak” for a fraction of what the brand name one costs. Seems to be pretty good quality. Got a resistance band too. Hope all this new stuff motivates me to work out more, I’ve been keeping up with my runs but not doing enough otherwise.

Lydia – That is a pretty awesome NSV! I love getting complements like that. I’ve never done dead lifts, but now that I see what they are (those videos are very helpful) I may start practicing. Good form is so important with these things.

Gonna take my bike out for a short spin after work, then I’m gonna go play with my resistance band and maybe do some core work.

I didn’t do any major dietary damage this weekend, can you believe it. I may even be down a ½ pound over the last week.

Have a great Monday all.

Morning all! Happy Monday! Sunny and cool here in Albany - lovely day - too bad I have to work!

I agree about eggs - they need to be yellow. I always add at least one yolk to my egg white scramble for that reason. One hotel in NYC that I stayed at called this "pastel eggs" - I like that!

I absolutely KILLED my triceps today - my arms are all jello-y and I can barely type. Not purposely - that was just the scheduled circuit for today. It also had pylo squats and sumo squats, and those were killers too. Squats are bad enough, but jumping up in between them really adds to that torture! I don't use any additional weights as my body weight is enough for now!

Busy week ahead of me - mom and sister coming this weekend, so I have stuff that needs to get done each night in order for things to be ready by Saturday - wish me luck!
Cindy

Morning all.

A quiet weekend here. DH is away til the 22nd, so me and the cat hung out. (Literally, as we had to have our other cat put to sleep a few weeks ago, and now with DH gone, this one is feeling like everything in her world has changed. She follows me everywhere and wants to be in my lap whenever I sit/lie down. Consequently, all my clothes are covered with cat hair!)

I did an abbreviated training walk on Sat, and will do more tonight. My stomach was feeling queasy, and in fact still a little touchy. I'm also hoping to get some upper body work done tonight.

Met with the physical therapist (the other PT ) this morning. He confirmed the doc's diagnosis, and says indeed my kneecaps are way off from where they should be, plus my tibial tuberosity is also out of alighnment. Plus he thinks my kneecaps are smaller than normal - not much to do about that! So today was mainly assessment, though I did leave with both knees taped and some information on what not to do while exercising (leg extensions on the machine being high on the list - I don't do them anyway) and how to modify a couple of things to help realign my legs. When I go next week he'll have a plan for what to do. He was very supportive of my half marathon training, and also assessed my gym shoes (okay) and wants me to bring in the others I use for outside. So all in all I felt good about it.

Hi everyone,

Interestingly enough mother's day has been the first holiday where I had a problem with food.

Not serious only a few bad things but I am usually so careful. Oh well I suppose I get a cheat day once a year. Not bad really.

OK my big story today was that there was a mountain lion in my yard today. It has left me a bit freaked out. Not a bad day to stay in and lift the ol' dumbells.

Oh and on mother's day I went into one of those big sporting goods stores to get running shoes and thought maybe I'd purchase some heavier dumbells of course they only had ONE of what I needed. Thought about buying a barbell but when I tried to ask the employee for assistance it was clear she was even more clueless than me.

So here goes. What do I get? Is there any difference in barbells out there?

And here's another question.

How do you learn to do the olympic lifts. They look so cool. Can one learn these in the comfort of ones own home or is there some special magic.

I agree. They do look so cool. I especially love seeing the girls do them. Here's a great you tube video of women oly lifters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSyeiy99J9w



And here's a couple of quick instruction videos by Tommy Kono:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wt423i1w6vs



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=71den...elated&search=

I love doing olympic lifts, but found that it was really hard to learn them from books or a video- maybe I'm just dense, but I really needed someone who knew the proper form to help me, otherwise I just kept getting hurt. You also need a great deal of flexibility in your elbows, wrists, and rotator cuffs to do them with a barbell. In the interest of keeping my dentition, I've gone to using dumbbells or kettlebells instead of a bar for a lot of the lifts. I just can't rotate the bar safely enough to be assure of NOT knocking out my lower teeth.

It's not just me-- a lot of women's university conditioning programs have dropped barbell lifts out of their programs because too many girls were losing their lower jaws

They are great full body exercises when done right and safely...but I'm sticking to dumbbells!

lol on the eggs...it's been so long since I ate a yold I'm not sure I could choke down yellow eggs!

Mel

Depalma: Thanks for the link. It actually came at a good time. I did my first snatches today with my PT. Loads of fun but uhhh, lets just say that it didn't look as smooth as those in the video.

Mel: Sooooo Mel?! Is is possible for women to do dips like these.

http://www.exrx.net/WeightExercises/...tChestDip.html

I suggested these but unweighted with my PT this morning. She stepped to the side and talked me through it while admitting to me that she can not do these. Needless to say, I could lower myself but couldn't get back up. So much for suggestions from the peanut gallery. Course it was the third chest exercise I had done by that point which may have affected this but I kind of doubt it. One nice thing about working with her is that I have been able to truly test my boundaries. She doesn't tell me no but just lets me try it for myself to see how far from NO I really am. I think I might be pushing it though.

Oh I forgot to mention earlier today. My protein powder is Jay Robb Vanilla Whey. It actually smells like cake batter when its in the jar or mixed with milk. There's just something about the oatmeal and cottage cheese mix that doesn't work

Hikerchick: You had a WHAT?! in your backyard. Yeah, first time I see a mountain lion in my backyard there will be a For Sale sign in my front yard. Geez, you run out there too don't you. Is this common? Be careful out there. That would seem like extreme cardio to me.

Pat: Your poor kitty. She must be so lonely losing her friend. No wonder she is sitting on your lap. She wants to be sure that your not going anywhere either. We had two cats who were litter mates as well. Unfortunately "my cat" became ill three years ago and we had to put her to sleep. The other one, she prefers DH and lets me know it, is still running strong here. I keep waiting...she knows it. It's a bit of a stand off really. In her cat mind she thinks she will outlive me, I'm sure.