Good morning There was officially frost on the pumpkin last night! My family informs me that the house if freezing in the morning, but gee, 45 on the elliptical and I really thinks it's pretty toasty in here!

Ennay- I saw your question in yesterday's thread and will take a further look tonight. I'm going to paste it in here so anyone else can take a stab at it today:

ennay said:
Why can't you do weight bearing exercises?

Mel

morning all i've been lazy on posting for a couple days but all is going good. i had today off so instead of going to the gym i ran/walked on the treadmill.

and i don't remember who asked about how many people were in the gym at 3:30 but the gym just opened in oct. so the first week there were like 2 people that came in while i was there but i haven't seen anyone at all this week. i still have to schedule an appointment with the personal trainer and he comes in at 5 a.m. (i get one free session for joining the gym)

Morning all!

That pumpkin hat sounds adorable, wish I had one.

Went out for a run after work last night, was fun to see the kiddies out in their costumes. I just left the basket of candy on the stoop with the jack-o-lantern so I could go about making dinner and such without having to answer the door. Guess we didn't have too many trick-or-treaters, DF and I carted planty of lefotver candy to work this morning.

Power class this morning, tired now.

Ennay,

A couple of quick observations:

1. You did not state what you are trying to achieve from this program, so it's hard to know if anything that appears to be missing or overemphasized is done so for a specific purpose.

2. Like you said, you are missing your lats. Add some lat pulldowns or preferably some pullups. These are non-weightbearing.

3. You are really placing a heavier emphasis on your shoulder. You have reverse flyes, lateral raises, and military presses, yet you only have one exercise for the back. I would swap out the lateral raises for the above pullups or pulldowns. You appear to be very concerned about hitting angle and small muscle of the shoulder but aren't even hitting the three major areas (upper, mid, lower) of the back. I would also add some back extensions in there to work the low back. The mid back is taken care of with the rows.

4. There is a lot of isolation in your routine. 5 of the 8 upper body exercises and 7 of the 10 overall exercises are isolation exercises. Swapping out the lateral raises for the pullups would be a step towards more muscle recruitment. I would suggest swapping out the tricep kickbacks for a more compound tricep movement such as dumbell tricep extensions, skullcrushers, or even close-grip bench presses or diamond pushups.

5. Since you cannot do weight bearing exercises, you are going to lose a lot of the stabilization work that is inherent in those exercises, so you should seek to add stabilization wherever you can. For instance on the flat bench, I would at least use dumbells, and would probably do the presses in an alternating fashion or just use on dumbell and do one arm then the other forcing the stabilizing muscles to compensate for the weight imbalance. Also, if you feel comfortable doing weighted work while laying on a stability ball, I would use that also. You can do your rows with your knee on the stability ball as well or you can do horizontal rows to add stabilization work as well. Etc, etc. Look to add instability where you can to force the body's stabilizers to compensate since you can only do seated or supported work for now.

Working from the program you listed, I might suggest something along the lines of:

One armed dumbell presses on swiss ball / Reverse Flyes
Horizontal Rows / Pullups
Bicep curls / Alternating dumbell shoulder presses (both done seated on swiss ball)
Dumbell Tricep Extensions / Chest flyes (both done on swiss ball)
Back Extensions / Front and/or side brides (for some core work)

Hi LWL,

Ennay - I'm with you on the yoga thing. I have gone for a year now and I notice that the moment I think "I don't have time for that" usually is a sure sign that I am working to hard again. (Still recovering from burnout-depression-divorce). AND I found out that ir did work really well for my RSI bad right arm & shoulder. I do not have the same range of motion as in my L arm, but it is good enough for everyday use, and i can drive a stick shift with it , so to me that is really good.

This week I biked to work 2 times, and went to power class, yoga class & went to work out when DD had dance class. biked to the gym as well, so i am up at 3 + 3 + 45 m is 6 hrs 45 minutes of exercise ! My weekly goal is met.
Strange thing...after yoga class i had to keep my self from wandering in the next room and taking another power class. This is starting to get addictive.

And..BIG NSV! I realised this morning that I do not react to eating lunch anymore.It used to be that eating lunch would make me dead tired immediately, to an extend that I had to go to bed. I experimented and it was eating food that did it, made me dead tired, so I had to be very carefull as to what I ate and when. And I realised all of a sudden this morning that I do not have that anymore! My fysiotherapist told me that doing the cardio on a regular basis would increase the storage of something, and basically would help in this eating craziness, and I did not think this would work. But apparently it did ! Who knew!

Have a great day all,
rabbit

Morning, everyone.

I'm still here. Not much to say, but I thought I'd post to see if we can't get November's chat thread up at the top instead of late October's.

Have a great day!

Kim

Mel: So you were crafty...! Yeah, me too. Have I mentioned that my mom and sister used to send me Martha Stewart greeting cards?

I kind of left that behind me about the same time I picked up my first dumbell. Not that the two can't live together in the same mind, but there's just not time. With the experience I have had becoming more fit in the last three years I would much rather obsess over new routines and strengthening muscles than perfecting the chocolate cookie.

I hit the gym today for the first time in a week. G@d I needed that. I was almost in tears halfway through my cardio session. I can feel that I am not as fit as I was earlier this summer and I'm sad that I let it slide a little. I will get it back but it will mean having to take DS2 with me on his days home.

On the upside. Its another beautiful day here in central Ohio and it's FRIDAY!!!

Me too! I perfected the chocolate torte- many, many of them. Friends and neighbors no longer ask me which dessert I brought anymore, tho, because they know that now my contributions are cut up veggies and hummus or shrimp, or a great big salad!

I took a friend from work to the gym today at lunch. She does triathalons in her spare time and lifts a couple days a week. I showed her a whole new world away from machines and seated dumbbell exercises. Amazing how difficult one-legged bosu exercises can be! I think she's going to join and lift with me! I haven't had a lifting partner in 3 years, so this should be fun

Lydia- Don't despair-- fitness will come back once you start back with a regular schedule. Kid time is important too. Ah, balance! how do we achieve that?

kaw- Now that you've achieved bodyfat nirvana and have the hang of maintenance, got any fitness goals? My continuing one is to do my age in pushups- so far achieved each year but getting increasingly difficult!

ennay- I think depalma covered that!

Thanks, depalma

Mel

Thanks depalma--I'll take a look at your suggestions and see what I can work in at my gym --once I figure out what all those things are again.

Tricep - kickbacks are the only one listed that I can do that dont hurt my elbows, I dont know why...maybe I'll look at the pushups

I just came off a dip/pullup rotation, I was trying to switch out some things. I should have mentioned I had previously been doing ALL multimuscle stuff, so yeah, I had put in some isolation stuff on purpose, but I probably over-did changing things up. Kind of scrapped the plan and started fresh.

Just to clarify I use free-weights on all of the exercises I list (except quad/ham), I cant do anything like squats or lunges or legpress for low body right now as I am not allowed to put extra pressure on my foot for a few more weeks. I can stand but not do movement with weight. So basically any useful lower body stuff...if it involves moving the foot or ankle.

They dont have stability balls at my gym and no space to use one if they did...there isnt even enough bare floor to do crunches. My gym kinda sucks but hey...they are also overpriced and have crappy hours!

Hi - bye Having a super busy day. And I find my crafty time disappearing these days, for a variety of reasons, but the gym is definitely one of them.

Hello to you too Pat.

Mmm warm fluffy protein pancakes for breakfast this morning with DS1. He takes his first Tae Kwon Do classes today at the gym. It's an hour and half class so I can get most of my workout in while he's busy trying to kick with some sense of coordination.

Mel: Unfortunately I have not changed my habits enough to be the neighbor who only provides the hummus and cucumbers. I still use group gatherings as an excuse to indulge others and okay maybe myself once in a while with some "love from the oven" Did someone say bake sale.... But really, I am getting better at this.

Okay, got to get by bag packed and head out.
Have a great weekend everyone.

OK, so if I take out the lateral raises and put in pullups, I will also do dips as long as I am on the assisted station. So I'll probably have to take out something else, probably chest flys. We'll see, I should have a longer session available today for me to see what works for me right now. I am looking at developing a short program and a long program for upper body, and then when I can do legs it will probably be the short program + legs.

I get plenty of stability work with yoga, I really dont want to add stability ball right now even if I could find room for one in the gym. I am looking to build the larger muscles right now and I would have to cut the weights too far to do them on the stability ball. I cycle through different phases with weights and right now I am on the heavier weights phase. 3 months from now I may be in the other phase.

I guess I always considered low back part of ab/core work. That is a separate day for me. Although I have been slacking on my ab days lately- this injury has crashed my routine. I'll have to see if we have a back extension station (thats the one where you hang like an upsidedown L and straighten out right ? Thats the one I used to do anyway) I havent seen anyone doing it...I might need to go to the machines for that.

I am still the bring treats girl often...depends on the event. I like to bake so it is an opportunity to get that out of my system and not get stuck with the full batch. But if it is a party that I will be at I usually bring the veggie tray so I have something to eat in a group where I know there will be lots of desserts.

Happy Monday!

Weekend food was...ugh! SO I need to get my act back together this week.
Cardio done, gym at lunch.

Chest day for me. Lots of pushup variations, lying presses, standing cable flyes one legged, seated on the floor cable presses balancing in a V position. Then more pushups I have a new lunch time gym partner (if she hasn't chickened out!)

My coup of the weekend was finding a Footlocker outlet where running shoes were 1/2 price AND buy-one get-one free!! I got two pairs of Saucony Grid Propel Plus for $44 total. My old Nike shox broke in half last weeked while I was doing a treadmill run.

How's every one doing?

Mel

Ugh! Weekend food disasters abound. Back on track today.

Going for a run tonight, power class in the morning.

Felt sick - queasy and headachy - on Sat, so no exercise. I rarely do much on Sundays (gym is closed, we're at church, yada yada :lol ) so I'll be there tonight doing both cardio and legs. DH is feeling some better and while he's still bored alone, he's not whining about it so much and I can go to the gym without getting a guilt trip when I get home.