What Was Your Work Out Today?

Snuck in a bike ride after running errands today, by missing the first part of the rowing club board's Zoom meeting. (I'm not a board member. I'm just an active member, and the board welcomes members attending their meetings.)

We have a lot of rain the in the forecast the rest of the week, so I wanted to get a ride in today. It was getting toward the low-angle evening light that I don't like being on the road (with cars) during, so I didn't go crazy.

So, 13.62 miles, 11.4mph average moving speed, just over a minute of Z4 (some hill someplace? 😉), some Z3, mostly Z2. The rest of the week could be indoor-ish. Or lazy.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Snuck in a bike ride after running errands today,

So, 13.62 miles, 11.4mph average moving speed, just over a minute of Z4 (some hill someplace? 😉), some Z3, mostly Z2. The rest of the week could be indoor-ish. Or lazy.

You're becoming a regular roadie! 11.4mph is moving right along on a hybrid.

Today was one of those days that the workout I did and the workout everyone else was doing are unrecognisable as the same thing, that's how much I had to scale it. But that's okay, because those just identify the areas I need to work on.

The original workout was a 12 minute amrap (as many reps as possible) of 10 toes to bars, 20 box jump overs and 30 double unders. It was preceded by some skill stuff on the pull up bar and the cooldown was pallof's presses (idk how to spell that, they're deviously simple and kill your arms and shoulders, we did 4x10).

I posted in the nsv thread in success stories about hanging from the pull up bar for the first time in my adult life a few weeks ago (I can deadlift maybe 5 lbs less than my bodyweight now so that gave me courage) and today is the first time since then that I hung from it again. For the skills part I did 4 sets of 4 strict knee raises. Kippings scare me a lot so I was really glad the coach told me to do strict ones.

Then for the amrap I did 3+2 strict knee raises (my max is 4 but takes a lot of effort and is unsustainable in a fast workout), 20 box step ups but without extending at the top, so stayinh squatted on the box, then stepping down from that position, and then 12 calories on the ski machine (because while I can jump a little, my physio advises against any jump rope stuff. I did 20 jumping jacks during the warm up and while they didn't hurt my leg got really tired). I managed 3 full sets and 3+2 strict knee raises. My heart was racing during parts of it.

My hands are even more blistered now because I did the warm up stuff on the untaped part of the bar. The tape really helps. I got on the taped part during the workout and it was almost easy.

Tomorrow is the benchmark wod DT and I have no idea how my hands will handle it. I'm definitely not RX'ing it, that's for sure.

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Djproulx wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

Snuck in a bike ride after running errands today,

So, 13.62 miles, 11.4mph average moving speed, just over a minute of Z4 (some hill someplace? 😉), some Z3, mostly Z2. The rest of the week could be indoor-ish. Or lazy.

You're becoming a regular roadie! 11.4mph is moving right along on a hybrid.

Thank you - that's so nice of you to say! I'm never really sure how to look at my cycling metrics. I admit, I'm mostly just trying to have fun and get a little variation in outdoor activities, but as a non-cyclist it's really hard for me to understand if what I'm doing is reasonable or not, since bikes and terrain vary so much.

I think cycling in general "checks a lot of boxes" for adults concerned with longevity, health span, etc.
When easy cycling, we are putting in a bunch of time in Zone 2, which is a key health practice, according to many who study healthspan (Thinking of Peter Attia's youtube podcasts,etc.)

Plus riding the bike a nice complement to rowing, strength, etc. I find that the easy rides help to flush out the lactic buildup from hard efforts.

Finally, for me, the biggest reason is that it is such a fun way to be active. There is both an exercise and social element to riding outdoors, with very little residual fatigue from Z2 outings.

Just stay away from power meters and FTP tests, since they drain the fun right out of it!

I hate cycling but maybe that's because it's been my primary mode of transportation all my life and I'm just tired of it. It's not super tiring and it's efficient and good for the environment and I'm actually pretty good at it but I'd rather walk places if I don't have to wake up extra early to do so, because I hate getting up early more than cycling.

Today we did the benchmark wod DT, which is 5 rounds of 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans and 6 push jerks. I didn't realise quite how not ready I was for this workout until I tried warming up with a 25kg bar but it was so hard and I only did half of a single round with it. I kinda felt my shoulders more than necessary because I did all the knee raises yesterday but it was mistly my wrists that were holding me back.

I used to waitress for a few years, holding really heavy trays, and I did a lot of self-defense stuff with hapkido and taekwondo at the time so my wrists have been extremely overworked. Add to that very limited wrist mobility and a few broken wrists in childhood - I was such a clumsy kid - and I was struggling to do the workout with a 20kg bar. But I did it and it took me 12 min 6 seconds and afterwards I did a whole hour-long pilates class as well.

dralicephd wrote: »

Missed yesterday's workout because life got in the way (fun stuff, at least). But I woke up way too early (stupid nighttime hot flashes!) and couldn't go back to sleep, so I'm just feeling off today. But I persevered and got my tired butt on the elliptical. I managed an hour, 3.2 miles, about half of that in zone 3, the rest zone 2 and below.

My brain is kind-of funny. I was tired and wanted to stop, but it felt wrong to get off the machine if I didn't get to a nice round number - somewhere. Usually I end at an even mileage, but that wasn't going to happen today so I had to decide between an even calorie number or time. I went with time: 1 hour exactly. Yeah, I'm weird.... As if the 4 minutes, 0.2 miles, or 20 calories was going to make or break me, right?

LOL, See...it gets sort of addicting. With me it's either, I try for the even minutes or even miles on the Elliptical.

Speaking of which...I worked today, so not a usual exercise day. But we didn't have many patients to fill my 10 hour day so I got to leave 2 hours and 40 minutes early. I thought, "I'll put the time to good use and hop on my Elliptical for 2 1/2 hours." Well as I said above, it can get a bit addicting. I have to finish a show/movie, get a certain number of minutes or a even mileage. I ended up doing 185 minutes for 13.1 miles. It's hard to get minutes and miles all even at the same time!!!

AnnPT77 wrote: »

I've gotta remember to turn on the ceiling fan when I do this, since it's not Winter anymore (AC not on yet). If sweat were the measure of workout quality, I'd be a champ, since I sweat easily and lots even at low intensity: Even with a terry sweatband just above my eyebrows, I was getting sweat in my eyes by the end, and the backs of my hands were visibly wet (!). Jeesh.

I was thinking along those same lines today too. I was a bit warm on the elliptical this afternoon and thought "I'm bringing a fan down for tomorrows minutes."