What Was Your Work Out Today?

Bikie-bikie-bike, 60'+3' CD, went into it late in the day and somewhat fatigued so had to give myself some pep talks in the second half to get the moderate 92W average, which was 72% Z3 and a simulated 24,328m/15.1mi. Still doing the AM lower body stretches.

drmwc wrote: »

Wednesday
Climbing. The gym was really crowded, I didn't really get going until it started to thin out about after around 90 minutes. I was good from then onwards.

Thursday
Work offered discounted gym membership, so I joined my local David Lloyd. I swam 750 metres. I then couldn't get into the sauna, as apparently my membership level was insufficient. My main reason for joining was the sauna, so, son, I am disappoint.

Friday
Climbing. Cracking session, sent hard stuff (by my low standards).

Saturday
I was supposed to dive Brighton, but the weather didn't cooperate. So I dived a quarry instead; it was chilly.

Sunday
12 mile walk, 500 metres swim, then I broke into the sauna.

I'm in awe of how you throw in a 12 mile walk on top of other exercises like it's no big deal.

Too bad about the sauna! That stinks.

@love2lift_85, rest days are undervalued, if you ask me. How often and what are going to differ individually, but they're important to progress. I've needed more of them them than I'd prefer recently, I have to admit.

For me, rowing team practice: Warm up moving around, some stretches, glute activation exercises.

Two rowing machine chunks: 16' of mostly stroke progression and pause drills, with full stroke rowing in between each set of pauses or steps of progression. Then we had a choice of a couple option; I picked the 4 x (1000m on, 3' off) with each 250m of each 1000m at an increasing stroke rate (20, 22, 24, 26 spm) and as usual rowed easy during the "off" segments, other than taking part of a minute to wipe sweat and drink some water. I did a couple minutes extra easy rowing for extra cool-down, too. We finished off with some more stretches as a group and individually.

Total of 8568m machine rowing, just under half Z2 but 15:46 (27%) Z4, too. On each of the four 1k pieces, I finished at a HR 3 to 11bpm above 220-age, not gasping and still able to talk after, so I feel pretty good about that. (11bpm above is 162bpm, which is around 90% of my real estimated HRmax, 85% HR reserve, so this isn't miraculous, but I still feel good about it. Seems like it suggests Winter workouts are keeping things tuned up despite the worrisome skull fracture/brain bleed interruption.)

Does chipping ice up to around 1" thick on the front walk with a heavy steel shovel for 20 minutes count as a workout? I did that, too. Would've done more - could've, should've - but I ran out of time before practice.

Morning yoga, focus meditation, super stretch… the winter days have me all creakity.

🧘🏼‍♀️

love2lift_85 wrote: »

Full body day today

BB bench press
Glute-focused back ext/DB
Cable lat pull down
DB lateral raises
DB bicep curl
Leg extensions
Leg curl
Hip adduction
Rear delt fly

Wanted to throw in some treadmill time but I ran out of time

Happy Sunday everyone

Heck yeah! Great work! 🔥👏💪

nossmf wrote: »

Treadmill - 1 hr, 3.1 mph, 12% incline

@tetonrivertim947 I cannot remember the last time I had a dedicated arm-only day...not sure I ever have, actually. When I first started lifting I read an article by a professional bodybuilder who said he never did arms, they already got enough work from doing chest/back/shoulders. His quote that stuck with me years later: "If you have the energy to do arm work, you have the energy to do more chest/back work."

I don't strictly follow that tenet...I do add a single bicep/tricep exercise at the end of upper body days. Sounds like a fun dream, to do that many arm exercises in a row. Not sure I'd be able to bend my elbow afterwards, though...

I hear ya I hear ya

I haven’t done a strictly arm day like this since December. I normally stick with the chest back and shoulders for sure. But every now and then I mix in one of these because it’s fun. It’s still resistance training so it’s still good for us.

AM
Yoga, dead hangs, wall handstands.
Shield Cast - 5x20r (100)
2x15lb

PM
Kettlebell Clean and Press
10x3r (30)
O2M (20m)
2x24k

Rest day today. Nasty weather. No reason to go anywhere. I did walk to the co-op just for a change of view. Main roads appeared just wet. My neighborhood is covered in slush. Freezing rain was in the forecast and is again, so I just did chores.

Yesterday was a nice hike in the area. I hadn't been in a month or two. Nice enough. Good views. The ground would normally be muddy this time of year. Since it's frozen, it wasn't muddy. Well, just a couple spots. Only a few spots with snow; that was before the storm. I'm sure it's covered up now.

Day before yesterday was a hike with a friend. We try to do something every week, but things have been getting in our way the last couple weeks. He is celebrating his first anniversary of being retired. He's still recovering. I get it.

Several days in a row before that were gym days or aquarium dive day. I still haven't been there when a lane is open in the pool. Maybe if/when they get the repairs done on the municipal pool, we'll get "our" pool back. Years and years of deferred maintenance ended up with the building being unsafe. All the employees are on furlough. That HAS to suck. I read that many of them have been very concerned about safety for years. Yuck.

After yesterday's hike, my wrist device told me I should take a rest day. Perfect timing. Also that was the reason I went out to hike yesterday; I knew I wouldn't get out today. Tomorrow might be a gym day; it will still be nasty outside, and I'll be ready for training.

As an aside (since this clearly isn't long enough yet), I got in touch with Garmin about maybe replacing the battery in my now six year old device. They said ain't gonna happen. I am looking to replace it soon - before an expedition when I'll need all the battery life I can get. Holy ocelot; they have added a whole kraptun of features in the last six years. I think it will be fun, and I can charge the cost against my budget for this expedition.

DiscusTank5 wrote: »

I'm in awe of how you throw in a 12 mile walk on top of other exercises like it's no big deal.

Too bad about the sauna! That stinks.

I gave the gym more money, and now I no longer need the daring commando raids to get into the sauna.

For walking, my vague hypothesis is that it's easier to do a lot of walking in most European cities than US ones. I have a holiday in San Diego a few years ago, and I didn't like it: it was the least pedestrian friendly place I've visited to date. There seemed to be 8 lane super-highways with no pavements anywhere. Also, 12 miles is sufficiently short that I don't need to prepare for it or take food and water. It's on the cusp: any further and I would need more planning.

Monday
Climbing. Everything felt hard, although I eventually found my way up most of the things I tried. So I guess it was ultimately reasonably successful.

Tuesday
Rest day

Wednesday
Climbing. A reasonable, but not outstanding session. This gym has a v5 that feels plausible; I got near the top but didn't have time to finish. (You start upside down in a cave. but a couple of big moves bring you onto a vertical wall.

Thursday
12 mile walk

Friday
Swim and sauna before breakfast. I did an ice bath, which oddly enough was chilly.

Good upper body day today.

BB bench press
Lat pull down
DB Lateral raise
Machine bicep curl
Rear delt fly
Machine shoulder press

I never feel sore after workouts. I'm also steadily and progressively overloading. I eat maintenence to surplus most days at this point.

I was pleased today. When I went to correct the movements that Garmin thought I was doing, I didn't have to look back at my notes. My current routine is now into memory I guess.

I had a rest day yesterday in part due to all the winter weather and in part because it was a good idea. I basically just repeated my last day in the gym; I didn't even make any new notes other than "Repeat 14 Feb."

I might go in tomorrow and spend a good bit of time on the ergometer. I want to get my rowing chops back before my next big river trip. The erg doesn't simulate rowing a RAFT. I'm not sure what a good set of motions for that might be, especially since a good portion of our raft rowing is PUSHING on the oars. When we need extra strength, we can spin the boat (even a fully loaded 18' gear raft) and PULL. There are some moves where you do that at the top, aim over your shoulder, and pull towards the safe eddy at the bottom. I bet seated cable rows would be good for the pull portion, and I bet I can set up something for pushing like maybe light weights on a chest press machine with lots of reps. Heck - bench press might work.

My routine these days is:

• Warm up
• "Deadlift" on a freemotion machine
• Goblet squat
• Alternating dumbbell lunge
• Chest press machine
• Row (machine)
• Fly machine
• Lat pull-down
• Hammer curl-to-pres
• Overhead cable triceps extension
• Lat raise (machine)
• Cool down
• Sauna

I have a few muscle groups that I need to figure out how to work, perhaps on days when I'm not doing everything else. I have some ideas.

@drmwc -- agree that most U.S. cities aren't as walker friendly as they could be. A recent issue of Outside magazine highlighted the two week "coast to coast" walk across England first popularized by Wainwright. I'd love to do that some day. And seeing the Lake District would be an incredible bonus.

Today workout is a 2 mile run and 20 mins on the stationary bike. Then stretching and foam rolling.

Today is Biceps/Triceps:

3 sets 10 reps of each

Curls
Rope pull downs
Cable curls
Dips
Easy bar curls
Preacher curls
Reverse grip curls
Cable rope triceps extensions
Overhead triceps press

BB Day

Bench Press 3x10
BB Row 3x10
Incline Bench Press 3x10
Pullups 30 total reps
BB Shrugs 3x10
Standing BB OHP 3x10
Preacher Curl 3x10
Cable Pushdown 3x10
Cable Woodchoppers 2x10 <<alternating>> Cable Palloff Press 2x10 sec

Years back I injured both shoulders by being stupid on the bench press, avoided surgery, but forever after had limited range of motion. Fast forward a decade, I'm now teaching my son how to lift properly and safely, and of course he notes how my bench press stops with the bar several inches above my chest. He also made an observation which floored me, how the bar seemed lower on my warmup sets than on my working sets. Got me to thinking, self-analyzing my bar path, and I came to realize that over time I had unconsciously been creeping the bar higher on my sternum when the weights went up, since it felt more stable at my "limited" range.

So today I forced myself out of my comfort zone, intentionally moving the bar to hover lower on my sternum, and sought to lower the bar to make actual contact with my chest. Sure enough, I could get the bar to touch, where I had been convinced my range of motion would prevent it, and what's more there was zero discomfort. So for the rest of my bench press session I systematically increased the weight, fearing I would have to stop at a relatively light weight, like 30% of normal.

Completely floored me that I actually didn't start to have any issue until I got all the way up to 75%! And what's to say how much of that issue wasn't a combination of cumulative fatigue from all the sets leading up to it, plus the normal weakness of doing a familiar exercise in an unfamiliar way? My incline press similarly surprised me, working my way up to 62% of normal, not quite getting all the way down to my chest before encountering resistance to going any lower (an inch compared to six inches).

Bottom line is my work this past decade must have helped heal my shoulders more than I had realized, which is a great thing. The follow-on regret is how much more could've been done had I not convinced myself of a permanent limitation and instead kept working at it. But that's the past, it can't be changed. What I can do going forward is continue to work with this "true" bench press motion, systematically work my weights back up again. Who knows, maybe working through this larger range of motion will force parts of my chest previously ignored to join the party, resulting in bigger appearance, bigger strength, or both.

Who says you can't teach an old lifter new tricks? (Or for the cynic, it's never too late to stop lying to yourself.)