Take care of yourself

Rusty, I would suggest consulting a doctor before you think about doing anything back-related. If there are no underlying physical issues, then consult someone like a sports physiologist for exercises that can help you strengthen your back and core without pain or injury. Easier to do, of course, if you have insurance and a good primary care physician.

Joe

 

I've finished the Gary Taubes book, "Why We Get Fat" and I'm prepared to set sail on the low-carb thing.

Any thoughts?

 

Second adjustment today. I have another one on Friday. At $47 a pop for about 15 minutes of care, I hope to hell I meet our deductible soon.

HH, I love fruit too much to go low-carb. And Oreos. And chips. And hot, fresh French bread, dear god, bread, with olive oil and hot pepper flakes and fennel and cinnamon and Kosher salt. Dear god, bread.

 

Interesting workout for PT today. After warmup drills, here's what we did....

25 wide-arm pushups
50 crunches
25 close-arm pushups
30 situps
15 diamond pushups
50 crunches

But wait, there's more. Eight rounds of the following....

10 hand-release pushups
10 air squats (hips below knee level)
10 burpees
100 meter sprint

I did the 8 rounds in something like 24:40. Let's just say my butt was dragging by the end, but I didn't quit, which does mean something.....

 

That's a tough workout, Joseph. Good job.

 

Thanks. I think the NCO got the second part from a CrossFit or Spartan Race Workout of the Day or something. It was quite the butt-kicker. I'd like to start doing something like those WOD's on a regular basis, but fear of failure (muscle and otherwise) keeps me from trying, so I just stick to my pushups, situps and squats. I know I shouldn't let fear of failure worry me, but for some reason I do.

 

80 burpees alone makes that a hell of a workout.

Tried to power through CrossFit Cameron yesterday ...

But my legs were absolutely shot by the time I could try the wallball 2fers. The walking lunge steps, box jumps and (TRIPLE UNDERS?) killed my knees, go figure. I'm a big dude. Subbed 75 single-unders for the triples because I can't even do a damn double under without tripping on the rope. My body's all sorts of sore today, so I think I'm just going to take it easy and knock out 40 minutes of cardio on the elliptical and the bike. I'll save the hang power cleans for tomorrow.

 

About two weeks on a lower-carb eating plan, and I'm rather pleased.

I don't spend much time dwelling on what I can't or shouldn't eat and more time focusing on planning my day to put myself in position to make better choices.

What's telling, for me, is that it has simplified my eating habits. The other day I had six of seven specific things to eat during the day - bacon and eggs for breakfast, two smoked chicken wings for lunch, some roast beef and cheese as a snack, salad with some rare tuna for dinner. No chips, no cookies, no french fries, none of that crap

I'm not worrying about the scales right now - that often programmed me with some bad habits. But I do have to be real careful to eat heartily in the morning or I can kinda get bonked the afternoon.

Only thing I really really miss so far are PopTarts. Man, I love PopTarts.

 

Another crazy day for me. At PT this morning, we did some running and stretching to warn up and then did what was called a 'Half Murph'. It consisted of an 800-meter run, then 50 pushups (5 sets of 10), 100 situps (5 sets of 20) and 150 squats (10 sets of 15) and finishing with 800 meters back to the start point. A full Murph is apparently a mile, 150 pushups, 200 situps and 300 squats and another mile. After work, I did 1.2 miles around a football field, 3 miles on the track and 2 rounds of 20 squats, 35 pushups and 35 situps. I think I have well and truly earned my rest.

 

First time I did "Murph" several years ago, I damn near puked. Took me more than an hour. In the full "Murph" as proscribed by CrossFit, it's 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 squats, partitioned any way you like. I did mine "Cindy" style, i.e., 5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 squats over and over again, 20 rounds in all. Then I ran — and by "ran" I mean jogged and walked — another mile. Fuck me.

 

That's an interesting workout. The pushups and sit-ups wouldn't be a problem. I could knock those out in 5-6 sets total, but 100 pullups sounds horrifying.