<p>Dad II- I guess I haven’t lost all my cardio stamina from laps this past summer and walking this fall. So the elliptical seems ‘easy’ for me. The weights are way more difficult especially upper body.
I DO have to guard against my natural tendency to overdo at first and flame out quickly.
This can’t be a sprint for me this time.</p>
<p>I was right. That was NOT fun. The bear definitely got me on the burpees and swings today. I came THIS close to quitting after the second set, but a little heart rate recovery and I saddled up for the third set. 108 swings (40 pounds) and 54 burpees.</p>
<p>My dumb kitty. He was used to walking around in the rafters when I worked out in the unfinished basement at my old place. This place has really flimsy suspended ceiling tiles in the basement. I’ve got one removed to bolt my chin up bar to a beam. The dumb cat jumped from a step ladder and got up in that opening. He proceeded to walk from row to row stepping on each ceiling tile as he worked across the basement ceiling, each one flexing precariously under his weight. Of course, the inevitable happened, he stepped on one, and it came crashing down, kitty doing his best [Major</a> Kong impersonation](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=ueuauKKjPZI#t=25s]Major”>Major Kong from Dr. Strangelove - YouTube) all the way down.</p>
<p>Just what I needed, when I’m bent over gasping for air after burpees.</p>
<p>Stretching and weights for me this evening. My cat joined me for core exercises. Fortunately, not in quite as dramatic a fashion as your kitty, iDad.</p>
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<p>Mine makes me pet him whenever I’m doing side plank! :)</p>
<p>That’s pretty standard here, too. Today, however, she decided to try something new – walking across my arms while I was doing the superman exercise. At least she didn’t lie down. That would have made it quite a bit more difficult.</p>
<p>did three sets of push-ups. The shoulder felt sore but not pain. </p>
<p>Ran 2.5 miles and walk about 1 more. Legs are tired from walking at high incline last night.</p>
<p>“Mine makes me pet him whenever I’m doing side plank!” - LOL, mine tries to roll on the floor right under my face as I’m doing pushups. </p>
<p>Ran for the first time this week, measly 3.6 treadmill miles. Bootcamp type of work plus ugly commute, 5:30 am until I was dropping like a dead fly. Thank goodness it is over!</p>
<p>Well, I didn’t get to do my Electric Run last night. Me and my mohawk are sad :(. It was raining off and on all day, so traffic was already a nightmare, and then it started pouring, so everybody kind of lost their desire to go. We ended up getting pizza instead. The bad part is now I have to go out this morning before work to get my scheduled 3 miles in. And on top of that, my shoulders are really sore from doing pushups yesterday, cause I had to change the way I was doing them thanks to Bunsen’s post!</p>
MOWC, if your husband is considering getting a rear wheel trainer, the 2 major players in that market are Cycleops, which makes your son’s Power Beam, and Kurt Kinetic. Can’t go wrong with either of them although there are differences.
Cycleops, in addition to its trainers, also makes Power Tap hubs, which measure wattage using a strain gauge built into the rear hub of a bike wheel that measures power at the rear wheel. It has become almost the industry standard for every day wattage/power training for serious competitive cyclists. What’s neat about Cyclops is that it has incorporated this technology into some of its indoor trainers such as your son’s Power Beam and Cycleops dedicated indoor cycles. The down side is that it’s expensive when you add in the Power Tap technology. In contrast though, other indoor rear wheel trainers and indoor cycles that give you wattage/power use calculated wattage based on other metrics such as cadence and resistance levels, not measured power. While some of these other systems can be fairly accurate, they can require frequent calibration and are not as accurate as measured power. (An exception is the Computrainer which is an industry standard for a fully computerized rear wheel trainer used by serious competitive cyclists and coaches and which costs about $1800.) The Kurt Kinetic offers a reasonably priced mini bike computer system that will calculate power based on the RPMs that the trainer is spinning and the calibrated resistance curve of the trainer itself. As I mentioned in my earlier post, I use the KK with a rear wheel on my bike that was built up with a Cycleops Power Tap hub. The wheel itself cost as much as an entry level high end road bike but gives me the ability to do wattage training both indoors and out on the road. Because of the cost, I would never recommend it unless someone is very serious about wattage training.
Assuming your husband would be interested in just a simple rear wheel trainer, here are my thoughts. First, a fluid trainer is the way to go. It is quiet and with the Cycleops and Kurt Kinetic, the resistance curves have been carefully calibrated to match the resistance a rider would experience riding a road bike outside. 20 mph outside should feel like 20 mph on the trainer. Good fluid trainers do this better at a reasonable price point than any other resistance system on rear wheel trainers. The wind/turbine type systems mentioned by BCEagle91 (which are still made today by all of the rear wheel trainer manufacturers) have resistance curves that do not match real world riding and are noisy.
Here’s how I would contrast the Cycleops Fluid 2 and Kurt Kinetic Road Machine rear wheel trainers which are the comparable models of fluid trainers from each company. The Cycleops has a more elegant, user friendly mounting system for the rear wheel. Once the initial adjustment is made to fit the wheel to the trainer, mounting and unmounting the bike requires just a simple flip of a cam lever. The KK requires going through the entire adjustment process each time. While the resistance curves on both have been calibrated to the road, some riders feel that the resistance curve on the Cycleops accelerates too quickly. Both units, though, will generate in excess of 1300 watts of resistance which is more than any mortal will ever need. The KK comes with a 6 1/2 pound flywheel attached to the roller while the Fluid 2 has a 3 1/2 pound flywheel. The Cycleops Fluid Pro model has, I believe, a heavier flywheel but the KK also offers the option of bolting a supplemental 12 pound flywheel over the standard flywheel giving a total of 18 1/2 pounds. The heavier the flywheel, the more inertia there is to overcome and the smoother the ride. I use the additional flywheel on mine and love it. The most fundamental fifference between the 2 of them, however, is in the design of the resistance unit. The Cycleops, like all fluid units other than the KK, has a roller with a drive shaft that enters the fluid unit and turns the impeller to generate resistance. It depends on a system of seals to prevent fluid leakage. First generation Cycleops had problems with leakage as the units heated up or became worn over time. Cycleops has since fixed that issue and leaks in their current 3rd generation trainers are not frequent and are covered by the warranty. The Kurt Kinetic takes a much different approach. Its roller is attached to a drive shaft that terminates at a flywheel that contains 6 embedded super magnets. The impeller in the fluid chamber is attached to a similar flywheel that contains 6 super magnets of opposite polarity. Instead of the drive shaft entering the fluid chamber, magnetic coupling is used to connect the drive shaft to the impeller. The fluid chamber is totally sealed and isolated from the drive mechanism and there is zero opportunity for leaks due to the drive shaft. All of this is contained in a heavy duty metal housing with 81 cooling fins that dissipate heat generated by riding. The super magnets used are ridiculously powerful and there is no slippage at all in the coupling system. This system makes the KK unique from all other fluid units on the market and in conjunction with the differences in the resistance curves and heavier flywheel is what caused me to buy the KK instead of the Cycleops. If your husband decided to get a fluid trainer (and at the $350 price point, a fluid trainer is all I would seriously consider), he would probably be happy with either. Add in a couple of Spinerval training cds and off he could go pedaling (and training) no where fast.
<p>Thanks, Michael. Good info. I passed it on to him.</p>
<p>Painful 5K- husband (after a week of training) dropped 2 minutes from his Turkey Trot time and beat me by 10 seconds. He was 3rd in his age group and I won mine. (28:58) I am sure not fast these days. Beautiful day- sunny, calm, picture perfect small town course. I did manage to beat the Chik Fil A cow, which would have really disturbed me if I hadn’t!</p>
<p>I got a lot of sleep last night and this morning. Woke up too early with too many things to get done and I didn’t feel like running yesterday evening. We have a freezing rain advisory around 5:00 PM so we’ll have to get to the Y early today.</p>
<p>I got the bear tonight. Excellent New Rules of Lifting workout. Nothing really earthshaking, just good solid effort on 12 rep sets. Saw heart rates above 85% of my max on several exercises including single leg squats and the reverse lunge with DB overhead press combo exercise. </p>
<p>Did all 12 reps on both sets of the pushups with hands in the Jungle Gym straps. That one is all about using the lats and the core to stabilize the hand grips.</p>
<p>Even got all 12 reps of the barbell front squats – an exercise that kills me because the position of the bar is so awkward.</p>
<p>I’m starting to think that the single leg squat is the ultimate leg exercise. I’m doing it with just bodyweight (just a 8 pound medicine ball as a counterweight) and I saw heart rates of 88% of my max after 12 reps. Thighs were burning.</p>
<p>I’m thinking a superset of chin ups and single leg squats would pretty much be the cat’s meow of geezer strength training. Both of them are long term projects.</p>
<p>Soundtrack for today’s workout was the 70 song collection of Dylan covers. Now, I’ve got to go to wiki and figure out who all these folk are.</p>
<p>Weights and weight machines at the Y - felt very good at the Y. I had to run a few errands outside and had to scrape the ice off the windshield and generally be out and about in the cold, snow, freezing drizzle.</p>
<p>Winter is here.</p>
<p>Though we’ll get a reprieve tomorrow.</p>
<p>Started my 5k a day program. Goal is some combination of 3.1 miles everyday. Walk, run, interval work, eliptical, bike, row, versaclimber, etc, I have had good results with it in the past.</p>
<p>Weights today were pushups, db incline, seated chest press machine, barbell curls, ez bar curls and chinups. 2 sets of each . Did my core work also.</p>
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<p>Definitely! I was doing my TRX lunges the other night with bodyweight and had my front foot on a 4" box. That’s some work!</p>
<p>Ten bur pees, sumo squat, nine bur pees, two squats, etc…quick addition to whatever you are doing. I’m training for tough mudder. Not training specifically for it, though I am doing tough mudder, but looking at the obsticals and really upping my game without getting too muscley. Tm is all about the try.</p>
<p>gottago:</p>
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<p>That sounds brutal. I’ll have to try it! 
I generally don’t like to pair something that requires good form (like squats) with burpees. I’m too gassed after the burpees.</p>
<p>hops:</p>
<p>I never want to do another front foot elevated squat as long as I live, although I guess I’ll have to when I do New Rules of Lifting for Abs again. The additional range of motion with the front foot up makes for some very sore legs, in my experience!</p>
<p>The squats are sumo, so one or too imperfect ones won’t kill you. And the squats are to catch your breath. Do it down to ten and you will not believe how good it feels.</p>
<p>Funny, squats never seem to help me catch my breath. :)</p>
<p>A sneak preview for you on what’s coming up on my blog over the next few weeks:</p>
<p>In my latest attempt at some humor, and a chance to educate, I bring you my newest series that will be starting soon. This series “Hips: One Four Letter Word You Must Use” will take you through my thoughts over the last several months on the importance of the hips in exercise, fitness, rehabilitation, and sports enhancement. It truly is a topic that I have grasped full-on and really believe that if our hips are weak, we WILL get injured. And most often it is not our hips that get injured in this process! Please join me in this journey as we will explore the hip complex and its importance to the rest of our body!</p>