OT: Fitness

[Canoehead]

On the advice of my doctor I changed up what I eat and I"m now following the DASH program. Lost 20 pounds since July, blood pressure is now in the safe zone without the need for meds, and I just feel better in general. I also hike alot!

 

Cheers,

Canoe

[GovernorSilver]

Lesson learned this week - do not any heavy/intense strength training on your back (eg. deadlift or standing bent-over row) after having just spent 20 min. shoveling snow.

[MAJUSCULE]

Shovelling snow is no joke, especially the heavy wet stuff. People trigger heart attacks all the time.

[Stokely]

Bent-over rows get me too close to "I feel like I'm going to hurt my back." I've heard them also called "good mornings" or at least that is something similar. Deadlifts also, although at the gym I used a special bar that lets my legs be "inside" the weights, instead of behind the bar--saves your shins, but also lets you simply stand straight up without the lean forward. You can also do them with dumbbells...a real ***-kicker is a compound move where you do a deadlift with a couple dumbbells, continue the movement up to a military press. Basically an olympic-style exercise but with dumbbells, either inside your feet or outside for a slightly different impact.

 

I've gotten to where I avoid those muscle-isolating machines and go for more of the full-body exercises with free weights...makes you balance for one thing.

 

Now just need to wait for Omicron to subside before I hit the gym again.

[GovernorSilver]

I have a previous history with back injury - deadlift accident, back spasms, etc.

 

I should have skipped the set of bent-over row on the Isochain, which is a bar-and-chain isometric device with force sensor and timer. Fortunately, my back just felt really sore, although I did have to be more careful than usual when I went grocery shopping, and brace my abs to protect the back as I was carrying grocery bags. The back hasn't felt as bad as when I had the deadlift accident or the back spasm, which resulted in lying on the floor unable to get up for like 10 minutes.

 

In this Isochain program, the bent-over row was the pulling exercise. I'll replace it with reverse drag curl, a pulling exercise that load the biceps and upper back while leaving the lower back alone.. Lower body is covered by Zercher lunge already.

 

I have heard of some people working their legs with single-leg exercises (eg. pistol squat, split squat) and hamstrings (eg. Nordic curl or hamstring curl) without doing any deadlifting, then testing their deadlift and finding their deadlift poundage went up without direct training in the deadlift. I am fine with training the legs with various single-leg squatting/lunging exercises, the hamstrings with hamstring curls, hip extensions, etc. and never doing the deadlift ever again.

[Justin Havu]

I will say this about being off my anti-anxiety meds for a while--I feel like I have more energy than I ever did over the years that I was taking that garbage. Can't wait till spring when I can finally get outside for a run or a bike ride.

[Stokely]

See, as someone who has lived in Florida almost my whole life--and Nashville the only other place, hardly a winter wonderland--I naively think that if I move up north I'll be able to cross country ski and snowshoe all winter for exercise

 

I love the cold, dislike a lot of things about Florida and am strongly considering moving north when my youngest leaves home. Last week we had to turn our AC on again, it was 85 and humid for days. I want to try it before it's "too late", maybe it will suck. The one big factor is that now that I'm working from home, I don't ever intend to have a commute again, so that would be handy in place where winter driving sucks.

 

I do vividly recall walking VERY carefully down a rural road with my kids, in Wisconsin in January, looking for a good place to sled...and *WHOOOOOP* despite my extreme care I hit a patch of ice and did a Wile E Coyote hang in midair trick, I achieved parallelism with the ground and then crashed directly on my ribs. It seemed like it took 10 seconds but there was nothing I could do about it, not being a cat. OW.

[Joe Muscara]

We're considering a stationary bike for my wife as she's had some foot problems and hasn't even been walking like she used to with me.

 

I'd be interested to know which bike you end up with. Mine is a Nautilus U616 upright. Not a spin bike, as I wanted to be able to change resistance levels from the control panel. It's super quiet, which allows me to pedal anytime, day or night, without disturbing my downstairs neighbor. Lol!

I think she's looking at a Schwinn. Which I keep calling a Schwing!

[Threadslayer]

On 1/5/2022 at 10:23 AM, Stokely said:

If you have the room for it--or feel comfortable going to a place that has one--try a battle rope. I was pretty skeptical when I picked one up, thinking "this light thing? How can I get a workout with this?"

 

Once I looked up a few of the exercises you can do with one and tried them, I almost had a heart attack. It's a butt-kicker and kind of a good thing, you don't have to do it for that long

 

 

+1 for battle ropes. I just finished my second week of quick daily morning workouts in my garage, and I am sold. I got the 30 ft, 1.5 inch diameter ropes and they fit in one side of my 2 car garage no problem. Great cardio, aerobic and core exercise. I also feel it in my glutes and hamstrings because most of the exercises are performed in a partial squat.

[xKnuckles]

I tried running during the lockdown last year, but although I enjoyed it, I started getting twinges in my knee - which I have never experienced before - so decided to quit while I was ahead.

 

Instead I now do yoga & exercises every day. Since last summer I have also been training to do handstands!! I used to do lots of that sort of thing when I was young, but it feels quite difficult (and indeed, scary, now...) My progress is cautious and snail slow but it is immensely rewarding and fun. All the arm strengthening for it is good as I am terribly weak and struggle to lift my gear (and I have the lightest gear available...)

 

I also do lots of walking, cycling and swimming and enjoy climbing (although I haven't done any of that for a couple of years...)

Use it or lose it as they say. I love my muscles - feeble though they are - and hope to keep them forever.

[GovernorSilver]

I bought two Theraband Flexbars

 

I've had Golfer's Elbow since fall of 2020.  I've gradually recovered since then, doing eccentric wrist curls, forearm rotations with a hammer, etc. which are typical Golfer's Elbow rehab exercises, as well as doing joint mobility exercises.  I recovered enough to be able to do pull ups again, starting a month ago.

 

The Flexbars though are game changers for elbow rehab.  The hype is real.   The sensitivity of the elbow to pull ups and playing guitar decreased dramatically after just a couple of sets of 10 slow eccentric reps.

 

I got the green and blue ones.  

[Threadslayer]

I have a bit of golfer's elbow (medial epicondylitis) which reappears every so often and never seems to quite go away. What constitutes the "Tyler Twist" exercise they talk about? They show a couple of steps gripping the bottom of the bar with one hand and the top backhanded with the other, but they don't show what you actually do with it.

[GovernorSilver]

5 hours ago, Threadslayer said:

I have a bit of golfer's elbow (medial epicondylitis) which reappears every so often and never seems to quite go away. What constitutes the "Tyler Twist" exercise they talk about? They show a couple of steps gripping the bottom of the bar with one hand and the top backhanded with the other, but they don't show what you actually do with it.

 

I searched Youtube, found several videos, then went with this one as it looked like the most straightforward to me

 

 

[Threadslayer]

Thanks Gov! That was very informative.

[Threadslayer]

On 1/22/2022 at 10:36 AM, Threadslayer said:

+1 for battle ropes. I just finished my second week of quick daily morning workouts in my garage, and I am sold. I got the 30 ft, 1.5 inch diameter ropes and they fit in one side of my 2 car garage no problem. Great cardio, aerobic and core exercise. I also feel it in my glutes and hamstrings because most of the exercises are performed in a partial squat.

Update from the battlefront: I upgraded my battle ropes to 40 ft, 2 inch diameter and tried them out just now. BIG difference. Just kicked my ass, but in a good way I expect. After 11 months, the smaller rope was getting too easy, so here we go again.

[Outkaster]

That's good. Battle ropes are tough. 

[Stokely]

On 3/18/2022 at 1:41 PM, GovernorSilver said:

I bought two Theraband Flexbars

 

I've had Golfer's Elbow since fall of 2020.  I've gradually recovered since then, doing eccentric wrist curls, forearm rotations with a hammer, etc. which are typical Golfer's Elbow rehab exercises, as well as doing joint mobility exercises.  I recovered enough to be able to do pull ups again, starting a month ago.

 

The Flexbars though are game changers for elbow rehab.  The hype is real.   The sensitivity of the elbow to pull ups and playing guitar decreased dramatically after just a couple of sets of 10 slow eccentric reps.

 

I got the green and blue ones.  

I wonder if this is what I have.   I noticed something twinging in my left arm (both above and below my elbow) when doing any lifting resembling a curl.  I stopped doing curls and it seemed to get better but not completely...now it's worse and various exercises bring on the discomfort.  I've had other "serious" medical stuff to attend to so I haven't gotten to see anyone--and also because I know when I say "it hurts when I do curls and other weight exercises" the doc is likely to say "Well, stop doing those.  Walk for exercise.  Pay on your way out."

Edit: just a quick google suggest mine might be something else.  The main pain point is on the top of my arm (with palm down) both below and above the elbow.  Not really the inside or the outside as it were.  Probably need to have it looked at by a sports doc.

Battle ropes are serious exercise, I have to stop before I think I need to because soon afterward I'm going to be seriously gasping for breath.  You can do a number of variations of the regular alternating hands thing that work different areas.  I've also seen some where you kind of dash sideways back and forth while doing them.  I'm basically at the "don't have a heart attack" stage of using those right now. 

 

[GovernorSilver]

In the time that has passed, my forearm is not as sensitive to pulling with supinated palms as before, although I still don't feel comfortable doing chin-ups (pull-ups with supinated palms).  

 

I started doing a program by Geoff Neupert called Easy Muscle, which is marketed towards middle aged men and older.  I didn't pay much attention to exercise for hypertrophy (muscle growth), until I learned that we lose 3-8% of our muscle mass per decade of aging, starting at age 30.  Neupert has an excellent reputation among kettlebell enthusiasts as a coach.  There are 3 schedules to choose from.  I chose schedule C because I have a shoulder issue to makes overhead pressing with a kettlebell uncomfortable.  The exercise selection is very simple - 2-hand kettlebell swings on one day, and pull-ups and dips on the other day.