What Was Your Work Out Today?
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Crashed and burned last night, couldn't keep my eyes open, shortchanged PT exercises.
Still felt draggy today, did the 60' + 3' stationary bike in afternoon instead of evening, mysteriously slightly better outcome from "accept the comfortable intensity" approach, 102W on the 60', 86W on the CD, about 1/3 Z3, 2/3 Z2, so pretty easy.
Will do better with PT tonight, I swear. Gotta.5 -
Dog walk to lake and beach, I was walking up and down the beach for a couple hours. Then I did a quick Belly Dance routine ( Bodyfx ), I should have done more but the osteoarthritis in my knee was aching, everytime I have a long walk my leg hurts, so I usually prioritise my workouts over my walking!
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Just 2000 yard swim (80 lengths).
I will need to take a break from the pool or figure out how to get my fins to stop wearing a hole in the top of my feet.
JUST? More than a MILE! Did you try wearing a sock? Like a no show type or the kind made for with scuba or snorkeling?
My kids were competitive swimmers. One of the kids on the team, his dad, played professional football for the NY Jets and the Philadelphia Eagles. He told me once he felt swimming was a harder sport than playing football. I was shocked. He said, " You have to swim in a controlled rhythm and control your breathing."
I have some neoprene socks; they are more intended for warmth when paddling than for cushion for swimming. Most likely I will swim without fins for a while as my foot heals and maybe builds up callouses.
Since most of my swimming is with a mask and snorkel, I think it is a LOT easier. I can breathe at will whenever I want. Swimming without my mask/snorkel definitely ticks it up a notch. That's how I swim breast stroke, and while I can swim breast "all day," I still have to time my breaths. Every now and then I try to swim a few lengths of freestyle with just a pair of goggles. I flail. Yes, it's definitely a good workout.
2000 yards is a nice swim!
To me, the bolded comment from @swimmom is the key. Endurance swimming is ALL about form and breath control. For freestyle work without a snorkel, many swimmers use a mantra to help establish and maintain a rhythm. Some also use a metronome/ear buds to provide a regular cadence that makes it easier to time your strokes.
One simple mantra that works well for breath work (bilateral breathing in this example) is to think of the words "Bubbles"......"Bubbles" ........" Breathe" in a recurring controlled cadence. This prompts you to always be exhaling a controlled stream of air as you take a left arm stroke, then a right arm stroke, then turn your head and take a breath on the third stroke. Holding your breath makes it hard to keep your breathing controlled as you swim. On the first breath head turns to the left, second breath turn head to the right, etc. If you only breath on one side, then do a two or four stroke cadence. Getting the breathing down is the fastest way to build endurance (assuming your body position and strokes are reasonably good).
I may give that a try. One thing I do like about swimming the way I do is that it does become more meditative. Sometimes I don't want to get out of the pool! Last time I would have gone another 20 laps, but was worried about the holes on the top of my feet. I have, in the past, tried to swim with technical proficiency. I actually took swimming in grad school not because I needed a P.E. credit but because I knew swimming is really good conditioning exercise, and I wanted to get better. What I found is partially related to my body and keeping it on the surface. To go fast enough to stay on the surface, I'd get "behind my breath," and then I'd actually have to swim FASTER to be able to breathe fast enough and then.... bad feedback loop. I might be able to do better with fins to keep speed up. I might try it, but the other reality is it's still a decent workout to swim with a mask and zoomer fins if I'm doing longer distances. It's also nice that I enjoy it so much; that makes it easier. If I dislike it, I'm less likely to do it as long.
If the snow lets up, maybe I'll go out and try today.
Oh yeah, swimming with fins and a snorkel is great. I often use fins and snorkel during drill sets. Fins to work on my (lousy) kick, such as during a 6/1/6 or 6/3/6 drils, and a snorkel when I'm working on the reach, catch and pull phases of my freestyle stroke.
I occasionally use fins during long "recovery style" swims in open water, typically on days when I know I'm going to really struggle to complete a 3k or longer out and back swim.
Regarding the bolded section: This is the classic issue for many swimmers: Sinking legs (or raised head) causing lots of drag. What you've described is the natural tendency to "swim faster" to keep yourself on the surface, which you've also noted is a losing battle. You might practice staying (nearly) flat on the surface by doing the face down "dead man's float". Engaging your core muscles, pointing your toes out and squeezing your glutes together will keep you on the surface even when still. While swimming, try thinking of squeezing a coin between your glutes (lol) and kicking from your hips, not your knees. Engaging your glutes forces your pelvis forward and doesn't allow your knees to bend. That's an easy way to stop sinking legs. Finally, your body acts as a fulcrum. If your head is too high, your legs sink, so head position is also important.
That's enough swim blabber from me. Good luck with your swims, it's a great conditioning exercise.
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Swimming IS terrific exercise, but I've never been comfortable with my face submerged for long periods of time. Maybe tied in with my claustrophobia, feeling like my world is pressed all around me, maybe just because I never had that good of control holding my breath for more than a couple seconds at a time. I learned how to swim, including the "proper" form of the crawl, but never got smooth enough to make it efficient. I can get from point A to point B, but will be exhausted when I get there.
Even floating on my back never worked for me, as my natural level of buoyancy was about 2 inches below the surface, meaning I'd stay level but not above the water. My mother, however, could lie back and look like she was resting in a recliner, with at least half her body above the water at all times without ever moving a muscle or breathing differently. She literally could read a book without fear. In fact, she almost failed high school gym class and didn't graduate because at that time in southern California she was required by the state to swim a certain distance underwater. She could hold her breath long enough, she could move her arms and legs properly, but she couldn't get her body to stay below the water surface, it kept bobbing back up. She literally had to have her gym teacher press down on the small of her back to keep her below the water surface while she propelled herself horizontally the required distance. And it's not just because of body fat...in high school, she was a very trim lady.1 -
Did an outdoor pool swim yesterday focused on form. Started with some warmup drills (kick, pull) then 10 easy paced 100's plus cool down. 1600yds total. I don't have much endurance yet, but there is enough time to build it before my first race in June.
Recovery paced ride this morning, 21 miles at a 16mph pace. Florida is flat as a pancake, so it was easy spinning through some pretty neighborhoods to the beach and back. Plan to swim again this afternoon.
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Yesterday I was planning to go to the gym, but after I got back from walking downtown to get mail, a friend wanted to go for a walk so I went for another one. Only about 7.5 miles walking, but it was good to see wildflowers starting to poke their little heads out of the ground. No flowers yet, but we for sure saw big stands of larkspur and what we're sure were shoots from False Solomon's Seal among others. More of the Indian Plum were blooming. I might sneak off to the gym today.
As far as swimming - I was trying to improve my swimming by "book learning" when I get back into it before COVID shut things down. I still focus on form when I'm swimming with mask and fins, trying to push my chest down into the water as that's where my buoyancy is. I work on an efficient entry of my hand into the water, then a pull close to my body to help propel me. Just little things like that. Then, every now and then, I'll take off the mask and snorkel and swim a few laps with just goggles. I bet I will improve slowly. When I win the lottery, maybe I'll spring for some individual lessons.
I actually like my face underwater with a snorkel. In fact, it's one of the things I started to notice when something changed and I started to really enjoy the pool versus thinking it was SO boring. If I swim even for just a half hour, I put my face in the water and don't take it out of the water until I'm done. It's an almost meditative state where I am isolated except my friend the black line. My only distraction was using the lane marker floats as an abacus to count laps. Now I let my Garmin device count for me, so I can ~try~ to get zen-like and ignore it, but more likely I'm always checking the darn thing. I even changed the data screens so "LENGTHS" is in bigger numbers I can actually see without glasses, at least with my mask. I am contemplating getting another set of goggles that aren't tinted; I can't see much out of them indoors. It's what the store had when I bought them.
Another thing, I think, that got me more interested in swimming indoors is that my gym has a salt water pool. It's so much more pleasant than a pool that has to use chlorine directly to sanitize the water. The experience for me as a swimmer is SO much nicer. There's a lot less chlorine, and no chloramine. When I tried to swim in grad school and a few other times since, I always hated the smell, and it was so hard to get it off even with soap and shampoo. I now wear a swim cap to keep it a little more away from my hair, and the salt water pool also helps that a whole bunch.6 -
I’ve walked miles this week after a 3 day trip to London where I walked everywhere, I’ve done 2 Bodyfx dance workouts, an Abs workout and Rhythm Fit weights workouts, and today I spent 50 mins trying to master the steps in a Samba routine… i much prefer lifting hand weights to dancing! 💪🏻💪🏻
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Did a 5km run on the treadmill followed by a arms workout. Total time including warm up was around an hour and ten minutes.5
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I went climbing for 3 hours. It was good fun. It was a gym I hadn't been to for a while. I was in pretty good form, getting a few v4s (this gym grades relatively tough.)
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Few minutes of random stretch-y, foam-roll-y, mobility kind of exercises before breakfast . . . whatever felt good to places that seemed tight.
Afternoon, machine row, 2 x (2k + 2' row in/out and CD). Back more in the zone of relative power/spm ratio that I usually machine row, 2:24.1 and 2:20.9 pace on the 2ks, both 21spm. A little more vigorous, too: 50% of the total duration was Z4, and the last 5' was all at/above 220-age, 153 to 159bpm - no actual Z5, though. (Overall, HR average 143, peak 159). I could feel the shoulder a few times in there, but no actual pain still.
After a snack (and Garmin re-charge!), 60' stationary bike (98W this time, not pushing it), plus 3' CD (81W). This was mostly Z3, HR average 129, peak 143.
PT exercises planned before bed. (I did do a set before bed last night, as promised, too.)
Rest day tomorrow, except will do PT again . . . maybe some stretching.3 -
Elliptical HIIT setting 150 minutes just over 10 miles.2
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Time to get back to logging my workouts here. I was down with Covid for a couple of weeks, but I am recovered and back it now.
Good workout this morning. Lower body, core and cadio.
Stretched
36 minutes on the spin bike, avg/max heart rate: 132/163
26 minutes on the treadmill, avg/max heart rate: 126/139
46 minutes lifting weights
- Wide Stance Leg Press: 12@210, 10@390, 8@480, 6@570, Drop set: 3@660, 6@480, 8@300, 10@210
- Crunches: 20, 20, 20, 20
- Body Weight Box Squats: 10, 10, 10, 10
- Barbell Romanian Deadlifts: 12@95, 10@145, 8@185, Drop set: 6@225, 6@185, 8@145
- Weight Side Bends, each side: 10@40, 10@40, 10@40, 10@40
Stretched
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Thought today would be harder to wake up, as the first early morning after daylight savings time, but it proved to be no big deal. Banged out an hour on the elliptical, hills. Only two weeks before I get to pick up a weight once more that isn't rehab! Those early lifting sessions will be short as I work on waking my muscles back up to the idea of lifting, so that first month will probably have both lifts AND cardio same day, so need to decide how my shorter cardio will go (half hour instead of the hour I've grown accustomed to doing).2
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In the context of a salt water pool, I'm not sure it's significant. It's not salty like the sea; it's about 10% of the salinity of ocean water. It also reduces over time as the NaCl is separated into Na and Cl ions to get the appropriate chlorination level. I am curious though how much affect there is in a salt water swimming pool.
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Today I went back to the gym to add to my running routine. I worked back, biceps and abs. It's a great start. I am working out 6 days per week right now, alternating run days with gym. I want to see how much I can transform between now and May 12th.4
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Went out for a tempo ride this morning. I rode a similar route to my last longer effort, to take advantage of ocean views on Jupiter Island and avoid traffic as much as possible. My first 30 miles were in the “sweet spot/tempo” output at a 165w/17.6mph average. The tempo pace was interrupted after that due to a bridge closure, heavy traffic and high winds. Ended up with 50 miles at a 16.6mph average pace. Overall I’m happy with the rides this week. Feels great to be out of my pain cave and outside. Bike rental ends tomorrow, so a few swim/run days before a long weekend of fishing and recovery in Key Largo.
As an aside, we met former NY Jets QB Joe Namath at his restaurant last night. Had a nice chat with him after dinner. I took the picture - my wife, BIL, SIL and Joe are in the photo
we
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On my first day back at the gym, I took it easy by doing some general weight training and cardio. I like to push myself, but this time I have to pace myself and not overdo it. Slowly... towards the goal 😉4
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Haha! We were smiling because he was wearing black knee high compression socks! Last time my brother in law saw him, Joe was wearing flesh colored ones. 0
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