What Was Your Work Out Today?

AM: Heavy leg day - leg press variations, single leg deads, split squat, goblet squat, walking lunges, curtsy lunges, hip thrusts,

PM: 3 miles easy run on TM at 1% incline. 1 mile intervals playing with incline and push pace.

I have a half marathon in 6 weeks so I should probably think about training.

Treadmill run today, quite late in the evening after getting back from my parents: 5.5km at 9kph.

Something went very wrong with my HR sensor, my average heart rate was supposedly 102 with a dip as low as 24bpm 😆

Day 6 in a row of on-water rowing - something I don't usually do - that was an attempt to get past 40k of rowing this week for the Concept 2 Dog Days of Summer Challenge (the only challenge of the year where water meters can be counted).**

Today was the usual roughly 7k, bow of the quad. It was cooler, so I called sequences of 10 power (strokes), 15 moderate, for much of the row, when I had a clear steering line, and when we were after warm-up/before cool-down. Looks like I even worked enough to get into Z4 for around 8 minutes (in peaks spread through the row, because of that interval format).

We had one of the new folks (from this year's learn-to-row class) in the quad with us for his first time in a quad since he did it at the beginning of the class. (It tends to be a discouraging experience then, because none of the rowers are competent yet, and it's tough to synchronize.) He did great, very smooth even in the first power piece, where a lot of people tend to get adrenalized and rush the slide or make technical errors. He's a pretty athletic guy, though. I think he had fun.

** I'm a low few thousand over that, not sure exactly how much because I have a few hundred walking meters in my total: I forgot to stop the workout on my Garmin before walking boats/oars up to the boathouse a couple of times. Since I only need 40K, and Garmin saw 45,948m, I'm not going to worry about it - I didn't walk an extra 4,948m on the rowing-workout clock!

Biking ended up around the usual weekly total, at 41 point something miles, too. I'll be glad to go back to normal volume this coming week - that took more time than I really want to devote routinely, even though the fitness side of it was fine - just a mild challenge, which is a good/fun thing. Nice to know it's manageable.

Six of us rode one of my long routes this morning with the goal of prepping a friend for the Chattanooga bike course. We covered 81 miles in just under 5 hours, a 17mph average. The ride included 4200 ft of climbing, some in the first 15 miles, with the bulk done in the middle of the ride. The final 20 miles is a slight downhill, which made the trip home fast and fun.

While I'm not a strong climber and struggle to stay with the group on some of the long climbs, I felt good today and did my share of pulling. Now I'm good for nothing but couch time and lots of salty foods for the rest of the day.

Doing my lifting sets this AM and I've come to realize I might have to give up rowing for a while. I seem to have developed either "trigger finger" or arthritis so bad on my left middle finger (and, no, I haven't been flipping anyone off recently! ) that it's gotten to be super painful to straighten at times.

Going to finish my reps this morning and then do Assault Bike and LateralX for my hard interval workout today. Much less gripping on those machines than on the rower. I'll see how a couple of week break goes for me. I think I can still manage/workaround on lifting.

Yoga and 6K run

Did a solid interval workout on the Assault Bike. 12 X 90 second sprints/60 seconds recovery and then a C/D on the LateralX. Finally hit over 90% of max HR on last interval. It's hard to hit 90% on such short sprints. Much easier on 4 plus minute intervals.

Was mostly able to get away without aggravating my sore finger by gripping. Either held a loose grip or just did legs.

Back to the usual 7k-ish in the quad, but rowing stroke this time. I'm not a natural stroke, so spend the whole row counting "in . . . out . . . three . . . four . . . in" in my head! But it was fun. Only in the 70s F, but humidity was over 90% first thing this morning.

Obviously that percentage drops as the air warms, but it was still humid during the row. I've mentioned before that I sweat horrifyingly much. Today, my oar grips got so wet that they were slippery, maybe some accumulated sunscreen in there with the sweat. The only way I could feather, eventually, was by seriously overgripping, especially on the left side - not good, in various ways.

We didn't do intervals today, due to combination of the humidity and our least confident bow rower being in bow not wanting to call them . . . but I was grateful because I think I would've lost control of my left oar handle at some point during power pieces.

I brought my oars home to deep scrub-wash the grips - it was an adventure getting the 8-foot-plus oars into my smallish and twisty-pathed house! Yeah, I could take them apart, but it's a pain.

@MikePfirrman, sympathies on the trigger finger/arthritis situation: I hope you can find improvement. I have episodes of trigger finger in my left ring finger, where I can't straighten it at all without using my other hand. It seems to happen mostly when I'm gripping tightly with that hand, so relaxing my rowing grip did help, in my case. (Also helped my rowing in other ways, which is why I pursued it - the reduced trigger finger incidents were an unexpected happy side effect. 😆) That said, it did seize up today, as a consequence of circumstances mentioned above.

@drmwc, I'm happy to hear you've tested negative and are able to be out and about again. Your photos are lovely! I rarely see our herons so high off the water here - they usually seem to be down near the shallows where the snacks hang out. 😉 That's a great image of the one on Diana with the dramatic sky behind!

Yesterday was heavy leg day:

Squats
Stiff-leg deadlift
One-leg leg press
Leg extensions
Seated leg curls
Planks

Had to work the early shift, so couldn't hit the gym first thing after waking like usual, instead had to try to workout after a full day of work. Got it done, but sure is easier when done earlier!

@AnnPT77 -- sorry about your finger too! That sounds worse than mine currently! Mine just got the stage where it was snapping when I straightened it (and very painful). With taking the last two days off the rower, it's already feeling much better.

I did 30 minutes on the LateralX today (mind numbingly boring to me but it is a good machine) and then 25 minutes or so on the Assault Bike (an AD Pro). Not as boring but not my cup of tea. Hope to be back rowing by Sunday or next week. I'll take a few more days off of gripping so hard or lighten up the Drag Factor so it's not as much tension/pressure on the finger. I have a feeling it's my uneven rowing stroke that contributes to it -- my body is all out of whack from previous injuries -- I have a deformed right thumb (broke it in a college four wall handball tourney years ago and never fixed it), I have a broken left collarbone that never healed right from football and a terrible right knee. So when I row, with all of my imbalances, sometimes pressure goes to strange places, like more on my left hand than right hand, I'm guessing from the imbalance in leg strength.

To be honest, there's a million reasons I shouldn't like the rowing machine, but I do. I'd likely be much better built for cycling.

Tuesday is bike day, but my tree service guy got here a little late, so once again I got a late start. On top of that, there were egrets (I think - vs. white phase herons) along the river, and I had to stop and gawk a while because they're much less common here than blue herons. So, only just over 17 miles on the bike today, at 10.7mph moving average about like usual.

I was going to open rowing (no one was signed up to supervise), but didn't plan to row. But one of the other experienced club members (much younger than me) also showed up to supervise, and we got to talking about her beautiful new-this-season deep-blue Fluidesign double. Fluidesigns have these funny behind-the-rower riggers - the part that holds the oarlock out away from the boat). She asked if I'd like to row it with her. I've never rowed a Fluidesign, never rowed with her . . . so how could I say "no"? So, we rowed about 5k. The boat is much lighter and a little twitchier than my old (heavy) Pocock double, but moves really nicely. So fun!

TicTacToo wrote: »

For those here who are dedicated to one particular sport (rowing/paddling/biking/running/swimming/whatever), how much do you think your body shape is "naturally" suited to your chosen sport, and how much have you overcome lack of genetic blessings through training? Example - some sports are made easier with long legs and arms, and being short all over isn't too helpful.

I don't know if I count? I'm dedicated to rowing, but do some other stuff, too.

My body shape (and especially brain) are naturally suited to things like reading books and doing misbegotten craft projects. I was one of those "chosen last in gym class" kids. I have nearly no kinesthetic sense. Coaches ask me to do a thing in a different way, and I can usually do it (kinda), but if they ask me if I can feel the difference, my historic answer is "no". I learn physical skills best via verbal understanding, which is a very, very dysfunctional way to learn physical skills (vs. kinesthetically or visually). I have more kinesthetic sense than I did when I started being active, but it's still sub-par.

The rower natural body type is tall and strong, ideally with a naturally high VO2max. I'm 5'5". I do seem to be stronger than many of similar demographics and training level (always have been, even when inactive - I assume it has to do with geometry, muscle insertion points, etc.). My trained VO2max is decent for my demographic (based on estimates), but I don't know if that's more training than nature, since I'm old and the age comparatives may be less trained. No matter what, I could not be elite, even if I'd started early, instead of in my later 40s. Way too short, but not tiny enough to be an elite coxswain. (Their ideal weight, 110 pounds, would be underweight BMI for me.)

I've stuck with it a really long time. I've made huge progress by working at it. I seek out opportunities to get coaching. I go to camps. I did two levels of USRowing coaching education and attended multiple coaching conferences to learn more. I read books, watched videos. I went to - jeez, I don't remember - around a dozen rowing camps. I rowed a lot, tried to improve. I asked the people I was rowing with for feedback (and still do). I noticed physical deficiencies that limited me, and did other things to try to improve them. Every little bit helps.

I'll never be great. I have hope that - in a technical sense - I can keep getting better.

Generically speaking, I do think that persistence and training can overcome a lot, at the recreational athlete level. When I was racing, I was far from great, but I wasn't super-bad appalling, either, as an age-group competitor.

I used to be the "faculty advisor" to a university martial-arts club (long story, none of which involves me being highly skilled at the martial art, or even a faculty member). An observation I made was that people who were doggedly persistent, really worked at learning and improving, achieved more in the long run than people who were athletically talented and picked things up quickly, but didn't put in the work (stick with it, chase it, grind - basically). Talent + the dedication and dogged persistence? That'll win out . . . but not that many people have both.

I've watched adults learn to row for almost 20 years now: Same perception. Talent and short attention span/limited work ethic applied? Poor results. Less talent, more dedication/work/persistence? Better results.

I found that same thing to be true in my career (IT developer then manager): The character parts, like dedication, persistence, willingness to work, steady pursuit of personal improvement - those mattered a lot more to effectiveness and success than raw talent/smarts. (Again, someone with both is gonna win, but not many people have both.)

Are you trying to be elite at your sport? If so, nature (genetic body) matters a lot, IMO - though it's not the only thing that does. If you're just trying to be lifelong recreational pretty good, I think you have a shot via the "work at it" approach. Just my opinion.

And apologies for the essay. It's a character flaw. 😉😆

TicTacToo wrote: »

@AnnPT77 Lol, I have the right body to be an elite darts player but lack the hand-eye coordination and affinity for plaid.

My question was prompted by watching some rowing videos and noticing that rowers are often leaner than swimmers although it helps to be over 6' either way. Then I found an infographic that compared rowers, swimmers, cyclists and long distance runners and showed which muscle groups get used most in each sport.

@TicTacToo, do you have a link for that infographic? That would be interesting. Yeah, tall is good. Unless you're trying to be elite, don't worry about it - that would be my advice. Work hard, have fun - you'll surprise yourself.

I'd note that in some contexts, one can compete as a lightweight rower. Elite lightweights can't compete (at the highest levels) with elite openweights. But there are races just for lightweights.

I'm in a not-very-competitive rowing demographic for structural reasons. There are some greats, but women's sports were in the dark ages when I was at the age where the magic starts happening, so many women my age who doubtless had potential never got the context to see their greatness bloom. (For clarity: I was not one of those who had the seeds to bloom with!)

When I trained in a structured way - which I didn't do for long, and was in my late 40s/early 50s at the time - my C2 race time (at an actual indoor race) was IIRC somewhere close to the 75 percentile level of openweight (heavyweight) in the C2 rankings for my age group - I was obese at the time. I think that's not terrible - seriously not elite, soooo not, but not terrible for a late starter IMO.

Women's lightweight 60-69 - my current classification - is even less competitive than openweight 60-69, in my view - probably because not a huge percentage of women my age are at low enough weight, especially not the strongest women of my age. I only did one race as a 60-69 lightweight, the first World Rowing Indoor Virtual Sprints, and placed 3rd (of 33). That race was especially less competitive, because of being the first one ever. This year, the same time would've only been 7th place (of 42).

Like I said, unless you're trying to be elite, don't worry about having the right body. If you are trying to be elite, and are too short of stature to compete as an openweight, consider whether you have the natural ability and character, plus the right body size/configuration to be strong at the required weight, to be able to compete as a lightweight.

ETA: Being an elite rower is not a good way to get rich and famous. 🤣

I would echo what Anne has said. My main sport is climbing. To be good at climbing requires a mixture of strength, endurance, flexibility, power and technique. I suspect I'm genetically way below average in each of these areas. However, it doesn't really bother me. More important questions are:
1) Do I enjoy it?
2) Am I making progress? (This is a slow an non-linear process so best not judged session to session but over a longer time-frame.)

The answer to both of these is yes. I am old, so I'll never be a brilliant climber. But I'm improving, and it's fun, so I'll carry on with it until my body no longer lets me.

I lifted yesterday. I had to cut the session short as I met up with a friend, I had time for:
Hangboarding, My fingers are strong.
Pull-ups, 3 sets of 10. These were hard, I am weak.
Push-ups, 4 sets of 25. These were hard.
Bench, 3 sets of 3, 50 kgs. This was hard.