"TLFC" exercise and accountability support!

Workout: Cardio - Incline treadmill walk - 1hr (785 calories)

Food: Dinner last night was spicy peanut chicken on rice

Workout: Cardio - Incline treadmill walk - 1hr (785 calories)

Food: Dinner last night was sauteed summer sausage with steamed veggies

Sports: The Broncos made the playoffs last season, and are favored to do so again. Both the Nuggets and Avs are in the playoffs right now. When oh when will the Rockies ever return to actual relevant status? (I'm a lifelong Dodgers fan due to family, which trumps the Rockies simply due to location, but still…)

Workout: Cardio - Incline treadmill walk - 1hr (785 calories)

Food: Dinner last night was grilled chicken with corn on the cob

Strength: Upper Body, DB Day

DB Bench Press <<superset>> 1A DB Row 3x10
Incline Cable Fly 3x10
1A Pulldown 3x10
DB Shrugs 3x10
DB Arnold Press 3x10
DB Hammer Curl <<superset>> Lying DB Extend 3x10
Cable Woodchopper 2x10 «alternate with» Palloff Press 2x10s

Food: Dinner last night was homemade fried chicken

@DiscusTank5 If you have blisters from the rowing machine handle, I wonder if you might be over-gripping. That's not the only possibility, but it's a somewhat common one. I know it's a machine, not a boat, but the colorful metaphorical advice of one of my rowing coaches applies here: Don't squeeze so hard that handle-juice comes out the ends. Fingers just need to be hooks over the top of the handle, with the thumb lightly underneath. There is such a thing as rowing gloves, but some technique change should render them unnecessary for machine rowing IMO . . . whether that change is avoiding over-gripping or something else.

Another possibility is to consider what the elbows are doing in the arms phase of the drive. They should be coming past the body in a relaxed natural position, not necessarily tightly close to the rib cage, and the upper shoulders should be relaxed as well, not coming up toward the ears. Keeping any/all of that too tight may increase risk of fingers rubbing on the handles in unhelpful ways.

I'm so happy for you that your tests are showing NED: That. Is. Great. I'm sorry about the hernia and limitations/discomfort that flow from that, but the NED report is a big deal.

Congratulations on the steady weight loss, too.

Strength: Leg Day

Squats 4x10
Deadlifts 5x5
Seated Calf Extend 2x10, 2x20
Leg Extension 2x12
Leg Curl 2x12
Cable Crunch 2x10 <<superset>> Machine Low Back Extend 2x10 <<superset>> Plank 2x90s

Food: Last night was Little Caesar's pizza

@DiscusTank5 - If that's a Concept 2 or similar, it's not resistance.

Guess what: The US national team members - Olympic rowers - generally set their Concept 2 damper mid-range for routine workouts. They're pretty strong, right? 😉 I usually set at 3-4, other than for some special drills. The strong NCAA div I university women's team here usually sets in the 4-5 range, judging from how the machines are set initially when my team works out in their facility.

Setting higher is not how to get a more intense workout on this type of machine. It's unlike some other cardio machines in that respect. The more force a person puts into the flywheel, the more resistance on the next stroke, pretty much. The machine's user creates intensity through strength and good technique. The damper setting, loosely, is like boat feel. When I row a heavier, wider recreational single, the boat feels heavier, not surprisingly. When I row my racing single, that feels lighter. Other classes of boats also feel different.

Here are a some relevant articles from Concept 2:

https://www.concept2.com/training/articles/damper-setting

https://www.concept2.com/blog/debunking-the-myths-damper-setting-stroke-rate-and-intensity

https://www.concept2.com/blog/the-damper-and-drag-of-olympians

When I try to work on power, I'm more likely to keep my usual damper setting, but work on getting more meters per stroke. I can get a pretty intense workout at that 3-4 setting, even at low spm (upper teens to mid 20s) doing that - certainly into sustained HR zone 4 (of a 5 zone scheme). One way of working at machine rowing is to work on technique and power at lower spm ratings, then increase spm rating and try to hold similar power per stroke (such as meters per stroke) to reach race pace. Another way to look at it is to look at your watts (or 500m split) at a high stroke rating, then try to keep the watts (or pace) up as you reduce spm.

I'm speaking in terms of damper setting, but drag factor is the actual important variable. Damper setting increases or decreases drag factor, but you can only see drag factor through an option in the monitor. One of the other things that influences drag factor is how much crud has accumulated in the flywheel through lack of periodic disassembly/cleaning. Gym machines often are funky for that reason. One of our club members helped the local Y's maintenance guy clean flywheels there. The drag factor for any given damper setting increased very, very perceptibly. The club member who did that said he wished he could be a fly on the wall next time someone who usually set on 10 got on and tried 10 again. 😉😆

Strength: Upper Body, BB Day

Bench Press 5x5
BB Row 5x5
Incline Bench Press 3x10
Pullups 3xAMRAP
BB Shrugs 3x10
Seated BB OHP 3x10
Preacher Curl 4x10,15,20,25
Cable Pushdown 4x10,15,20,25
Cable Woodchopper 2x10 «alternate with» Palloff Press 2x10s

Analysis: Happy International Bench Press Day! (Also known as every single Monday throughout the year.) Lifters were really out in force today at my gym, with one guy doing sets of 10 using 315 (I can't even do that once), and another guy (only slightly bigger than me) lifting 405 for doubles. Then there was me, nowhere near those numbers. What can you do but be motivated and humbled at the same time? I was slightly less impressed by the 405 guy an hour later, as I was finishing up my entire routine and he was still on the same bench press station, doing one set every five minutes, hogging a bench for over an hour on a Monday. Made me think he was something of a one-trick pony.

Food: Dinner last brown sugar ham with all the trimmings (mashed potatoes, brown sugar carrots, sweet potatoes, etc).