Take care of yourself

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Well, that explains a lot. It sounds like you survived your workout. That's good.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Just a couple questions for the good folks here.

1) My right shoulder is shot straight to hell after two surgeries from having piss-poor pitching mechanics. I have a system of keeping pain-free and for getting rid of any pain quickly when it does flare up. The problem is that it won't let me go running at all b/c it can't handle the stress of the arm swing and the impact from running. Can I get some sort of shoulder brace to keep everything in place and loose?

2) My girlfriend wants to drastically alter her arms from being a little thick & undefined (her only "major" flaw in my opinion) to being solid and cut. I try to convince her that the best way to do that is by doing more pushups, but she hates those. Understandably, she's a little self-conscious at the gym, so what are some good exercises she could do to build up both her arms and confidence so she can get to the push-ups?

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Michael ... for your shoulder, strengthening is a better option than coddling.

http://familydoctor.org/online/famdocen/home/healthy/physical/injuries/265.html

No more than 5- to 7.5-lb dumbbells when you're considering rehab.

For your girlfriend, overall strength and fat loss will help her arms. No such as thing as spot reduction. All upper body exercises will engage the biceps and triceps ... get her to look at pullups (assisted or otherwise, wide-grip and close-grip) ... I love doing pushups ... dammit, they make me feel strong. And the variants I do make them fun for me (Indo board, switches, walkovers).

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I have the shoulder routine down pat. I've been doing it for a while that I use 10 lbs-weights or high-resistance surgical bands with six different exercises. I'm able to do heavy lifting, too. I finally have the ability to know when my shoulder has had enough and stop before I go past the point where I'm out of commission for a few days. I just miss being able to go outside to run. My thinking was that some sort of a brace or sleeve would keep the shoulder in place and absorb a little of the shock from every stride.

Lift Day 1 is all about the light weights and high reps and Lift Day 2 is a mix of the lighter exercises plus a few moderate-weight lifts. Lift Day 3 starts with two sets of three exercises from Day 1 followed by heavy lifting. Bench (and decline), rows, pull-ups, standing rows, arnold press, squats, dead-lifts, calves and traveling lunges. I mix-and-match every four weeks and try to keep it between 60-75 minutes long. After every lift, I do 10-15 minutes of abs and 20-30 minutes of cardio. Add in three days of purely abs & cardio and that's my workout plan.

Now about the lady...
Her biggest concern is packing on muscle. She doesn't want to go beyond a certain weight and feels doing some of the exercises will do that. I keep telling her that she should throw out the idea of gauging her fitness by the scale and eye-ball it. Plus, now she just suffered a broken toe, so there goes any chance of her doing cardio. She was going great, too, putting in at least four 60-minute cardio sessions a week, followed by 20 minutes of abs adn 10 of stretching.

So, along with pushups, pullups/lat pull-downs, rows and arm bikes, what can she do to exercise while allowing her toe to heal?

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I quote Lou Schuler, author of many articles for Men's Health, New Rules of Lifting and New Rules of Lifting for Women:

"Women are naturally deprived of the amounts of testosterone that would make muscle-building a more straightforward pursuit ... Your body won't allow it."

"In no studies I've seen have women's measurements increased more than a fraction of an inch due to muscle gain, and in many studies everything that was measured decreased."

'Bulking up' for women is largely a myth. I say 'largely' because some women have higher amounts of testosterone or powerlift or, hell, inject synthetic hormones for the purpose of getting bigger.

My guess is, your girl won't get bigger. She stands to lower her body-fat percentage and have shapelier muscles. In my eyes, that's sexy as hell and I love the way my shoulders and arms look when I'm at my leanest.

She can do lat pulldowns, rows, etc ... if she's a beginner, I would recommend she pick up Schuler's NROL for Women. It's a great introduction and there's a lot of information in it ... from theory to practical to recipes and nutrition advice.

As for your shoulder, I've long had shoulder issues, particularly following a badly torn rotator cuff. I've found that when running, I have to focus on the form of my upper body, holding my arms tight in and not letting them flop all around like some runners do. If I let my form slip, my shoulder gets fatigued very quickly.

Otherwise, I'm not sure what to tell you. I'm not one to advise relying on a brace, because that can create a reliance on the brace, further weakening the muscle and its stabilizers.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

After being exhausted Friday from too little sleep and feeling a little gastrointestinally compromised yesterday, I finally did the "Murph" workout today. I should have eaten more than the bowl of cereal I had before the workout. Like some protein or carbs or a stick of fucking butter -- anything, really. Because "Murph" kicked my ever-loving ass.

My goal was 50 minutes total for the two miles, 100 pullups, 200 pushups and 300 squats. I ran the first mile in 7:10. So far, so good. But I had no idea how running that mile would punk me in the other three. Holy shit.

I did rounds of 5 pullups, 10 pushups and 15 squats (the last time I did that workout to see how many rounds I could do in 20 minutes, I hit 12). After seven rounds, I felt like I was going to puke. I came thisclose to quitting. I got to 10 rounds and wanted to cut the workout in half. At 33 total minutes in, there was no way in hell I was going to hit my time goal.

I pushed on, slow, slower. Finally, 59:28 in, I finished the 100, 200 and 300. But I still had the last mile to run. I started at 7.0 mph. And then went down to 4.0 walking speed. I did that a couple of times. At about 0.4 mile in, I went to 6.0 mph, then I increased as I went along until I finally was at 8.0 mph at the end. Grand total for that mile: 9:30. Fuck.

Total time for the whole thing, 71:29. Big fuck. The inside of my right elbow is shot. My hands are claws with thick calluses. My back aches. I weighed 168.5 when I got to the gym. After the workout, I weighed 167.25. I hope I can sleep well tonight.

Every time I think I've done the single hardest workout, along comes something else that forces me to re-evaluate that conclusion. I'm dead.

Joe

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I got back from vacation a few days ago and realized that have hit the proverbial wall in going to the gym four times a week. I've done the bike thing, done the walking thing and now I'm onto swimming. My plan is that I'm going to scale back on the gym for the next few weeks - not abandoning it completely but rather swim one day a week and go to the gym the other three days (or 2/2).

Has anyone else gotten burned out on a certain workout routine? And how have you made the transition?

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Are you doing any resistance training, cougar?

With respect to weight training, you do have to switch up your program every six to eight weeks, unless you're doing an undulating or varied periodization.

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Today
Shoulder press x 1 each: 70, 80, 90, 95, 100, 105, miss 110, 105.
Push press x 3 each: 70, 80, 90, 95, 100 105, 110 (x 2).
Press clean x 5 each: 70, 75, 80, 85, 90, 95, 105, 115 (x 1).

Obviously, I need to start heavier. And thank god no pullups.

Joe

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Italian_Stallion ... I'm crossthreading but do you have a medicine ball? Or have access to one?

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

I don't have one. But I did look at an ad insert for The Sports Authority. I looked to see if they had one on sale. I have no idea how much one would cost.

I checked out a few sites on ab stuff. One says to go with bicycle crunches. Someone suggested side bends. Today, I did 100 crunches on my exercise ball. So I'd love to have an ab workout. I don't know what to incorporate. All of the above sound fine, but I don't want to overdo it by picking too many different exercises.

Also, I did squats today. I guess I'll do leg curls tomorrow. I just didnt' have time for it today. Anyway, I've been holding dumb bells for my squats. I think I'm ready for more weight, and I'm considering the barbell. Is there a good way to do this without a squat rack? i.e. Is it too dangerous? I was thinking of throwing on about 80 pounds and trying it. My intention was to also use my exercise ball to lean against. What do you think?

 

Re: Take care of yourself (LiveSTRONG)

Will send post something later. Must go scorekeep for my boys.

Do you have a rack for the bar?