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Today I did 45 minutes on treadmill and day four of ab and squat challenge :)
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Treadmill 45 Minutes and day 5 of squat ab challenge. Tomorrow is 1 hour zumba.
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Oh, I longed for my warm and comfy bed once I left it this morning!
T33, random program, level 8 Stats: 215 cal, 1.83 mi, 35:00 min Interval: 1 @ 90 sec @ 5.3 mph I finished with my upper body and ab work. I didn't get to work on the chest fly machine though, which is what I usually finish on when doing my upper body. It's close to the ladies room, so I do it and then I'm outta there normally but today there was this guy just sitting on it, looking a bit dazed, so I figured it might be a while and I didn't want to wait. |
35 min. Stairmaster / 25 min. back strengthening, leg weights, and yoga
It was the peaceful time in my day. |
I walked from my house and back again twice!
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3 people sitting at the front desk and not one of them remembers to turn the fans on.
Luckily, they have me. :cheesy: T33, random program, level 7 Stats: 228 cal, 1.92 mi, 35:00 min Intervals: 4 @ 60 sec @ 5.3 mph Uneventful morning. |
I forgot to post this morning!
T33, random program, levels 7-8 Stats: 262 cal, 2.33 mi, 45:00 min Interval: 1 @ 60 @ 5.3 mph I followed that up with lower body and ab work. I didn't feel well this morning but these little workouts aren't negotiable so I went. I was glad that the treadmill went easy on me. I needed the break. It's supposed to be raining tomorrow morning. I was going to try to stay close to home and walk the neighborhood but that depends on how wet it is. I tend to feel like I'm going to slip on wet pavement, no matter which pair of shoes I have on. Not sure what is up with that, but there it is. |
Back to the gym this week. Sunday, treadmill, weights, machines until I felt burn. Today, swam 32 laps...a mile. Feel great
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On Monday I missed my zumba class. I was totally bummed. We were slammed at work and got off a hour late. I wasn't able to make it to the gym with having to be back to work so early. I am sure my ankle apperciated the break :). I also wasn't able to complete day six of the ab squat challenge, but I combined some of day six exercises with day seven to catch up. Tomorrow I will do the rest along with day 8 to get back on track. Gym tomorrow after work.
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I did stay home and walked for 45 minutes at a good clip. A minute or so of jogging thrown in there too.
It was raining but not pouring, so it was fine. |
yoga will be on my agenda today. I am feeling the results of not doing it :(
Sadly, I abandoned my challenges since I was at work for 3 days straight. I should resume cuz the squats alone were making me feel much stronger. And god knows I need the abwork. |
Treadmill for 1 hour
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I got sandwiched between 2 sweaty, hocking guys today. Well both were sweating, but only one kept doing that phlegmy hocking thing. Ugh.
Gross. My face is now synonymous with the fans. I got set up and saw that the fans weren't on so I went back to the front desk. The girl was doing something underneath the counter and the second she popped up and recognized me, she said, "FANS!" before I could say anything. :blink: T34, random program, level 8 Stats: 215 cal, 1.81 mi, 35:00 min Intervals: 2 @ 60 sec @ 5.3 mph |
PIYO is on the agenda!!!
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1 hour zumba
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Swimming for 30-45 minutes was starting to feel easier, so I added a challenge-keeping my legs straight and kicking hard against the water. I could barely do 30 minutes before they were crying :). Everything's tingly.
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Gentle quigong exercises in the morning is the limit of my capabilities at the moment. It helps wake my body up without taxing the lungs too much.
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I don't know who or what prompted the gym to lower the temp and turn the fans up but it felt good in there today!
T33, random program, levels 8 and 9 Stats: 218 cal, 1.86 mi, 35:00 min Intervals: 1 @ 90 sec and 1 @ 60 sec. Both @ 5.3 mph I was in a bit of a rush this morning. I'm still a little knotted up and I have a hefty amount of manual labor ahead of me today. I wish I'd gotten more time in. |
1 hour zumba and ab squat challenge.
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A super workout today!
It was time for me to do upper body training but I just couldn't get into the spirit of it. I ate peanut butter with my banana this morning in preparation of a circuit training workout and I brought BOTH of my workout gloves (important! last week I forgot one but brought a winter glove instead. doh!), so it should have been a no brainer but alas, it was not meant to be. I woke up and lounged in bed for a while first. I'm finding the longer I stay in bed after I wake up, the less my pain level....at least initially. That's one good bed! I did do an hour on the treadmill. I only started for 40 minutes and then there was an elderly gentleman that hopped on the treadmill next to me and he inspired me to keep going so I wound up doing the full hour plus cool down. This guy was so freakin' cute! He hopped on and started walking but then quickly graduated to jogging. He was jogging baby steps on his tip toes at 2.7 mph (I snuck a peek....and continued to do so as he increased his speed throughout the workout). He's a little guy, not much taller than me and much thinner than I am. He kept upping the speed and upping it and before long, he was at 8 mph. Dude! I don't run that. Speedy Gonzalez that guy is! That wasn't his top speed even! He got close to 10 mph but only did so when he had his hands on the bar. Safety first! I felt really inspired by him and during my few intervals, we paced one another. Until he blew me out of the water, that is. lol I felt great at the end of the workout and he was still going. He came in when I was around my 10 minute mark so he was probably doing an hour too. I seriously could not keep up with him if I tried (but I didn't, because I'm not stupid). T33, random program, levels 8, 9, 10 Stats: 422 cal, 3.49 mi, 65:00 min Intervals: 1 @ 60 sec @ 5.3 mph @ .5 incline, 2 @ 60 sec @ 5.3 mph @ 1.5 incline, 7 @ 90 sec @ 5.3 mph @ 1.5 incline I bumped my level every twenty minutes, so I had equal time at each one. |
Today and tomorrow morning between shifts I will do one hour on the treadmill and the ab squat challenge
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I started my day with yoga... I have to say, it was my best day yet. I feel more limber than I did just a few days ago. I can do some of the poses that I couldn't before. And transitioning from one pose to another is going more smoothly also.
I also resumed my 2 challenges: ab/squat and back today. I started from the beginning again just to be fair. I also did my weight/step workout to fill in the gaps. Not a bad day :) As an aside: it's true what they say about exercise and endorphins. I have been in a bit of a holiday funk (being here without my family...or anyone really) for the last few days, and this really helped clear my mind and grant me some perspective. I am a grateful girl... |
I walked a LOT today. I'll check my Fitbit stats in a bit but I bet it was at least 5 miles. :)
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A busy, busy day thus far, exercisers!
I saw Twinkle Toes but she wasn't working out yet or she'd finished. Not sure. She was dressed. I got right into it on the treadmill and then moved on to circuit training. T33, random program, level 9 Stats: 237 cal, 1.90 mi, 35:00 min Intervals: 1 @ 90 sec, 2 @ 60 sec. All @ 5.3 mph and .5 incline Since I didn't do any weight training at all yesterday, I decided to do it all today. yay :blink: This is what I did: seated leg press-90 lbs leg extension-35 lbs seated leg curl- 55 lbs chest press- 35 lbs fixed pulldown- 70 lbs seated row, both ways- 40 lbs shoulder press- 10 lbs biceps curl- 40 lbs tricep extension- 40 lbs ab crunch machine, both ways- 40 lbs glute- 50 lbs hip adduction- 130 lbs hip abduction- 130 lbs back extension- 75 lbs calf extension- 70 lbs fly- 55/50/40 lbs Usually I do the upper body one day and the lower body another and sometimes I throw in other machines that look interesting to me that particular day, like the abcoaster for the obliques or the Hammer Curl (another ab machine that hits both the top and bottom portion of the ab muscles). Today, I decided to punish myself for my laziness yesterday. Everyone's different and, for me, the shoulder press is very hard. Ever since my car accident years ago, it's been that way. I also have difficulty blow drying and flat ironing certain sections of my hair because of it and can't do it for very long, no matter how well it's going. I did 3 sets of 10 reps, except for the back extension and the calf extension. Those I did 3 sets of 15. I also did an extra set on the hip adduction and abduction machines. Don't get excited about the 130 lbs. It's not really 130lbs. When I transferred from an older gym to that one, I thought their hip machines were broken because my old weight was between 50-70 lbs. The older gym had more 'true' weighted machines. Nowadays a lot of the machines do the work for you, so the 130 lbs really feels like it's about half that. I pushed myself on the fixed pulldown and really felt it right afterwards. I could have done more weight on the glute machine but it's the one that's like a kickback and every movement on my right side causes twinges in my thigh and back of my leg, which signals that the sciatica is not happy so I tend to baby myself on that machine. I prefer the glute machines that you lay down on that are kind of like a hamstring curl. Those felt like they did more for me when I used them. Again, that was at my old gym which is the same company but they are all franchised out and have different specific machines even if the general grouping is the same (upper body, lower body, ab, cardio, etc). The fly was my last machine and I was fading fast. My first set was 55 lbs and the last was 40 lbs and even then, my arms were shaking and I couldn't quite make the handles meet in front of me. I really don't think I could have done more without sacrificing safety so I'm happy with that. How was your Sunday workout? |
Hey Gemme, great write-up :)
I haven't been posting for the last couple of weeks because I'm paying the price for doing the wrong thing. I had a situation where my yard dude didn't show for a month. November. In leaf country. I was feeling great because I've been getting some spine goodies done and it's been forever since I've been able to do that sort of thing so I went for it and raked/bagged leaves, lots of them. I knew I had been told no lifting or housework for a week and it had only been three days BUT, I was super careful and set up some clever ways of doing things so that I wouldn't be lifting much weight but that meant a lot more bending and twisting. I told myself that the first sign of discomfort and I wold stop and would have, but it never hurt. I even stopped and saved some for later. Spectacularly bad idea on my part. The next couple of days were...Hmm, interesting. So, the hip that has been threatening to do something ugly for the last year and a half did. All my fault, but I have been relegated to walks along a trail (with a cane, temporarily) and waiting for tomorrow and my appointment with a hip guy. Not all bad, the river area is hitting eagle watching season and I've been enjoying it and learning a lot. I've even got a birdwatching mentor now, I just found out his name is Tom but I've been thinking of him as "Eagle Eye" so I'll stick with that here. It's sort of amazing to me that two body parts made of pretty much the same things, producing symptoms that can be attributed to either somehow require an entirely separate system of specialists, clinics, images, etc; because they are two inches away from each other. :blink: As soon as I get a consult I'll see what is prudent to do gym-wise and promise to actually obey Drs orders. :blush: Anywho, even though it's raining, I plan on suiting up in a couple of hours and going down to see what mother nature has in store for me :cheesy: |
I'm back, and on break so there will be many activities to make up for lost time. This semester was a killer (to be followed by another, i'm sure) so I haven't been as active as I normally am. My back has been reminding me of this. Yoga, first thing in the morning to remedy this lapse!
Other than that there has been some snowboarding this week, and my gf and I went snowshoeing this morning. Did a nice 6 mile hike with the dogs, now on to some laziness by the fire. |
Yesterday: 30 minutes stair master, followed by 30 minutes leg and back strengthening with weights. While on the stair master I lost my nextflix connection so I was trying to figure that out while at the same time... going up "stairs." I'm always worried that being distracted by something will make me go slower, so I overcompensate and go faster. Hence, a little exercise induced asthma that thankfully went away mid-way through my weight routine. There are quite a variety of mistakes available to make when it comes to exercise :D
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I started out this morning with my weight/step routine (so I could justify watching a movie) and also did the ab/squat and back challenges.
Quite frankly, I feel like I get more of a back workout from my step/weights routine. And from yoga. Mayhaps I need to increase the weights. The squats are doing their job though. I've done squats all along in one variation or another, but now I've noticed that the muscles by the outside of my knee (that go up the outside of the thigh) are much stronger now. More defined. As to the ab workout I posted, I added reverse crunches (same amount as regular crunches) and bicycles for good measure. I also love these situps you do with weights (5lbs for me) that is basically a fly with a leg extension, but I feel my chest AND abs....I am ever the multi-tasker! OH and suddenly I have no trouble keeping my feet on the floor while doing situps. Does that mean I've gotten stronger? Or just habituated?? I'm curious... |
Almost half an hour walk to start with. Today's my PT eval so I'm not sure exactly what else I'll be doine. I just know that it was freakin' early when I woke up today.
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No exercise thus far today, but I did forget to mention I took prolly a 1.5 mile walk with Jacques. I should do the same today; he enjoys it so much :)
Also, when I woke up today, I can definitely feel my tummy tightening from the sit ups I've been doing. It's such a good feeling to get stronger :) I thought about it yesterday and I think that's why yoga is getting easier. I have less tummy in the way and what's still there I'm in the habit of pulling in to breath and move. Just having stronger stomach muscles is making me more aware of my posture, which is probably why my lower back has not been hurting me of late. (It used to hurt EVERY morning. I was like a 90 year old woman hobbling around!) I have been gearing my workouts to strength training that will help me out with hiking/backpacking. I SO wish they would just come out with a workout for backpackers. I have sent many emails to Backpacker magazine (my bible) about this. With no results. So I do what I THINK I need...I suppose any personal trainer could help me define these goals... <<<thinking out loud a LOT today... Have a blessed day y'all :praying: |
I did my usual (but always different) step/weights today.
I also did my ab/squat challenge as well as the back challenge but with heavier weights today. (+2, each side total of 7lbs...do they MAKE 7lb weights?? I have tiny hands and it's very hard for me to hold a 5 and a 2 to make the 7!) <<<excellent math skills! I'm considering doing another workout. I had a goodie and it's weighing on my mind lol Oh and I did a lot of cleaning today. It counts. My mom has her own cleaning business, never exercises at ALL and eats the crappiest, fattiest food, drinks nothing but soda and coffee and still isn't even 100lbs! Last time she checked she wasn't even 90lbs. :| Yeah I totally missed out on that particular DNA...thanks mom. :rrose: |
Rainy day workout.
T33, random program, level 8 Stats: 215 cal, 1.80 mi, 35:00 min Intervals: 1 @ 60 sec @ 5.3 mph I had some focusing issues this morning. My line of vision: Smallville, Hozier on VH1 I think, football, CNN. In my ears: Krewella. |
I'm doing my yoga this morning no matter what!
I thought with all else I'm doing, it wasn't AS necessary. Well...this morning my cricky back told me otherwise. I forget what day I'm on for my challenges. Four I think. I really need to start marking them off. I will say this, squats are getting much easier. On top of the challenge ones, I also do plie type squats for inner thighs. Some with heel raises to get my calves involved. Does anyone else have a wicked hard time working their calves?? NOTHING makes them feel like I've exercised them. Not the highest mountain not the highest incline on the treadmill. I NEVER feel my calves the next day...unless I do the cardio salsa... :| I guess I should be glad that my calves are strong...as an aside...what else is new...someone once told me instead of doing just calf raises (which I do while waiting in lines ALL.THE.TIME) turn your feet in and do them (like pigeon toed) and out as well and you work different muscles in your calves. This may be a given, but...it never occurred to me! ALSO: I do something new and wonderful for my triceps. The name of the exercise is escaping me. Kickbacks? LOL where you hinge at the hips and extend your tricep behind you. I saw on a video where you change the position of your hand (3 different ways) and do a set of 10 each. (knuckles facing side, front and back basically) Ohhh and there are tons of exercise videos on youtube! I may be johnnycomelately to this, but I saw full length videos with Jillian and LOTS of yoga. As another complete aside...this Amazon Fire tv box thing...I'm excited about it mostly because you can get Daily Burn on your tv now. No more tiny little laptop screen! It's a happy day in exercise land :) (for me anyway...but I do tend to thrill easily) |
Calf raises can also be done on the very edge of your step. Line your toes up and let your heels drop slowly as low as you can and still maintain your balance. Rinse, lather, repeat.
Because we use calves every day, unless you really do some damage......like running up and down stairs for a really long time......you're not going to feel the 'burn' that you do with other muscles. Calf muscles are like the tongue of the leg. Strong and silent unless brutalized. |
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Kickback. |
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SPEAKING OF WHICH! I found workouts geared towards backpackers on youtube...of course. Youtube has everything.. I don't think these are trainers per say. I think they are backpackers that figured out what they needed for conditioning to prep for a thru hike. Sadly, everyone suggests the stairmaster...my nemesis. I just find them HUGELY boring....the stairway to nowhere. At least on the elliptical I can escape my mind and I'm cross country skiing or running somewhere pretty. I can not imagine heaps of stairs going anywhere nice. Except maybe Machu Picchu. I guess I need to suck it up, throw on a pack and take the stairs....it will never be as much fun as hiking though. Even my imagination can only do so much... |
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But yes, carrying a weighted pack is a good idea for conditioning. And will REALLY help me with my reality check of what I NEED to take hiking/backpacking and what I don't. :) PS: I have always felt that machines were not as good as the real thing...I don't feel the same way after a hike as I do walking on a treadmill. It's as if the machine helps too much. It feels like your not really propelling your weight and fighting gravity in the same way. I'm SO glad I can save myself the stairmaster misery! Thanks :koolaid: |
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Think about the terrain you will be on and if possible find something similar but less severe. Do as much as you can with a pack on with what you anticipate to be the weight you will be carrying, and work up to it over a few weeks if you have that much time pre-trip. This has the added bonus of making you decide half of that stuff is unnecessary :). Strength training so that you can manage the pack would be the standard suite of core and leg work with good stretching important. Remember carrying the pack is the easy part, taking it off and putting it on is when you are most likely to strain something. The other thing is elevation, I don't know if your plans include it, but if you are going to be doing that it is really important to work your cardio system. If a 1000 foot elevation gain over one mile or less doesn't pull your legs out from under you, doing it at altitude will. When I lived at sea level and was all kinds of fit and active just making it to the trailhead at around seven thousand feet would suck all of the wind out of me (and my ego). That of course was at the bottom :blink: Stair, or equivalent, would be spot on training if you will be above the timberline because when most of those trails were built, unless you are boondocking it, there will be stairs cut into the stone and you will literally be climbing stairs at altitude. If you don't want to do that at the gym, find a tall building and run the stairs there, usually some sort of view and sense of accomplishment at the top. :) Using a HR monitor for exertion training is great. I found an article at fitclimb.com about this that includes some specific training schedules for cardio for hiking and a list of good relevant strength exercises. Have a peek. :curtain: Have fun with it and let us know, if you are comfortable doing so, what hike you are going to do when you decide. It would be fun to follow along when you get to do it. :cheesy: |
Excellent advice for something I'll never do, but definitely let us know how your training goes, Cinn!
I like machines. I'll hold things down in the gym while you take on dirty nature. :) Today's workout: T33, random program, level 9 Stats: 310 cal, 2.48 mi, 45:00 min Intervals: 1 @ 90 sec @ 5.3 mph, 3 @ 60 sec @ 5.3 mph It wasn't as crowded as I thought it would be. I guess the afternoon, right before they close, it will pick up. Someone smelled like smoke and I think it was the lady that came up on the machine next to me about 12 minutes after I started. The smell kept wafting around but it was definitely a strong smoker smell. Nauseating for me, so I wasn't as comfortable as I would have liked to be but my neck's been giving me trouble the past couple of days so that wasn't fun either. I'm falling apart. :blink: |
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