<p>Thanks, idad… I’ve had this for quite a while, and not going into the positions where I feel it hasn’t helped at all. It is not a tennis elbow kind of thing. It feels like it’s in the muscle, or maybe a tendon. I have no idea how to find out what it is, or how to cure it.</p>
<p>Yesterday…7.26 miles at 9:36…new long distance for me.
Followed up with 25 jumping jacks,50 pushups,25 squats, resistance band shoulder work and the 4 minute plank sequence. </p>
<p>Today I’m vegging out. Maybe a walk later.</p>
<p>Does 2 1/2 hours of blowing leaves, mowing leaves and pruning down plants and rose bushes count as cross training??? :). There was a lot of squatting getting to the base of those plants!!!</p>
<p>NYMOM:</p>
<p>That is so frustrating. I guess at some point you have to go to the doctor. Frustrating though, because they are probably going to say rest it, ice it, and take some ipuprofen, see if it gets better… </p>
<p>Looking at the downward dog, the other possibility is a lack of shoulder mobility/flexibility. When your arm is “overhead” in that yoga pose, tightness or lack of range of motion in shoulder could be pulling on the muscles that attach to the elbow at the other end. Same way that hip tightness can cause “knee pain”. That’s a pretty tough position for the shoulders.</p>
<p>It might be worth working on some shoulder mobility stuff:</p>
<p>[Scapula</a> Wall Slides - YouTube](<a href=“- YouTube”>- YouTube)</p>
<p>Butt, shoulders, elbows, and hands should stay against the wall. A lot of guys can’t even do these.</p>
Yardwork counts in my book. I don’t really miss it…
Second rest day for me. I’ve been on an every other day exercise, every other day wrestle with this lingering cold/sniffles. Trying to shake it off, once and for all. Plus, lots of football to watch.
<p>2.5 hours of raking and hauling leaves today, although I cheated a bit by using the lawnmower to vacuum up a lot of them. They were pretty wet too. Had to empty the bag about 50 times though.</p>
<p>One more round of raking, and then I will declare that next year I am hiring someone. :D</p>
<p>That’s a great stretch, idad. I can do it, keeping everything against the wall throughout the motion, but my shoulders and shoulder blades feel very tight. </p>
<p>Jill Miller has a great self assessment to evaluate whether you are able to do down dog with the shoulder in a good position:</p>
<p>[Downward</a> Dog & Dolphin Supinate Pose - Down Dog Assessment - Yoga Tune Up® Education - YouTube](<a href=“Downward Dog & Dolphin Supinate Pose | Yoga Tune Up - YouTube”>Downward Dog & Dolphin Supinate Pose | Yoga Tune Up - YouTube)</p>
<p>for those who can’t, she gives an alternative.</p>
<p>My DH got his exercise raking & hauling leaves. 
</p>
<p>We’ve had houseguests so haven’t made time for much exercise, other than lifting & carrying the grandson, who now weighs 35 lbs. And we had a long walk on our favorite hilly trail, which includes a parcours section. :)</p>
<p>The grandson does really well on parcours, where there are short defined goals. Long walks to nowhere, not so much. That’s when WE get our exercise carrying him!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Ha. About the same as a good-sized kettlebell. 
Of course, the kettlebell would probably be less squirmy and easier to carry!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Same for me. I can do it, but it’s never very comfortable. I try to do it pretty regularly. That’s the sort of stuff that is fantastic to keep from turning into a rusty ol’ tinman.</p>
<p>I wish there were a magic cure for your arm. Those sorts of things will drive you nuts. I had one a year ago – some kind of pulled muscle in my calf – that lingered for a while.</p>
<p>New workouts starting today. These could change as I do them.</p>
<p>Staying with pretty much the same warmup I’ve been doing for both workouts:</p>
<p>Warmup</p>
<p>Rear foot elevated hip flexor
Quadruped hip extension
Single leg hip lift
Quadruped thoracic rotation
Wall Slides
Squat to Stand
Ankle mobility
Band assisted leg lowering
Big X walk</p>
<p>Walking lunges
Ladder Icky Shuffle forward
Ladder Ali Shuffle
Ladder One leg hop</p>
<hr>
<p>Then workout A will be:</p>
<p>Core
Farmers Walk
Plank Row
Side Plank row</p>
<p>Power
Med ball slam
Kettlebell swing</p>
<p>Strength (3 sets)
Single leg squat
Inverted row
Trap bar deadlift
Alternating Overhead DB press</p>
<hr>
<p>Then, alternating with workout B:</p>
<p>Core
ValSlide pushaways
Tabata plank (stability ball)
Tabata side plank</p>
<p>Power
Med ball slam
Box jumps</p>
<p>Strength (3 sets)
Goblet squat
3 pt row
Box step up
DB bench press</p>
<p>So as a joke I purchased a 1 pound kettlebell. Can you believe they actually make one of those??</p>
<p>Wow. I’d have to buy one of those, too. Use it as a fridge magnet or something. My wife got a 2 lb pastel DB for rehab wrist exercises after she broke her wrist and got plates and screws.</p>
<p>Kinda crazy to do strength training with something that weighs less than a Starbucks coffee…</p>
<p>Did 50 minutes on the elliptical today. I used the interval program function and got my HR up. Took Sunday off. </p>
<p>In my yoga class we did a whole bunch of yoga poses using the wall–it was a wonderful stretch. While I was doing them I didn’t think so, but afterwards I felt great.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Our Occupational Therapist said she could actually use it so I gave it to her. I just bought it as a joke But actually I have 1,2,3 pound dumbbells at the high school for rehab purposes. I think they’re pink, purple, and yellow ;)</p>
<p>I used to do a fair amount of running on the Des Plaines River Trail near OHare Airport in Chicago back in the 90s because I was there on business a lot. I wanted to re-create that this morning since we were up there for a wedding last night. Well, getting to the trail from the hotel was about .8 mile and it was absolutely terrifying. I knew it wasn’t good back in the day, but traffic seems to be worse and there is almost nowhere to be along the road. I kept stepping off the gutter lane into weeds when huge lines of cars would barrel towards me. The trail was lovely (not paved and covered with leaves, so I had to watch my footing), but the to and from was not good. 5.2 done. Hadn’t turned cold yet- that’s coming tonight. 44 and gloomy.</p>
<p>Wow, MOWC… looking at the map, that almost looks like one of those “you can’t get there from here…” journeys. It’s getting dark here at 4:30 now. I hope all the joggers have their reflective clothes ready.</p>
<p>Do you like dirt trail running?</p>
<hr>
<p>hops,</p>
<p>I found a photo of a [1</a> pound kettlebell](<a href=“http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41U48VFDIBL.jpg]1”>http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41U48VFDIBL.jpg). It’s so cute!</p>
![http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41U48VFDIBL.jpg]1](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/41U48VFDIBL.jpg%5D1){kind=link}
<hr>
<p>I woke up to the strangest College Confidential reader private message this morning. Scolding me for using the term “iPod nazi” because it’s anti-semitic. I’m inclined to say, “take it up with Jerry Seinfeld…”</p>
<p>I also got scolded for using the the words “pork” and “Christmas” because they are offensive, too, and I should remove them from my vocabulary…</p>
<p>Sheesh…</p>
<p>Oh brother. We used to call one of the fitness instructors the spin Nazi!</p>
<p>This trail is a wide dirt path- not single track or anything. It’s really nice. I remember loving it back in the 90s since it was shaded and pretty and nicer than my courses in Dallas. The problem today- which wasn’t a huge problem but just required a little care in lifting up my feet- was all the leaf cover. It was pretty but covered up the few rocks and stumps that are on the path. We were at the Westin and it isn’t far from where you access the path (corner of Higgins and E. River Rd(Dee Rd) but Higgins is not runnable, it turns out. I saw 1 deer and 2 humans, which is pretty cool for being in the shadow of OHare!</p>
<p>No spin for you. One year!</p>
<hr>
<p>Ouch. Just looked at the street view of Higgins. Yikes. No shoulders and four lane of traffic with guard rails. And, I’m sure the cars are moving along at pretty good clip. I would not enjoy walking or jogging on that road!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Are you serious? God, what is WITH people??!</p>
<p>Woof. The guy who wrote up my new workout kicked my butt. Oh, wait… that was me. </p>
<p>Pretty tough strength sets, especially considering that two of the four exercises were bodyweight only. Ten rep sets.</p>
<p>The single leg squats, standing on the weight bench, were all I could handle. Saw a heart rate of 85% of the first two sets.</p>
<p>Inverted rows on the jungle gym with my feet on a Reebok step, so I was parallel to the ground at the bottom. 10 reps is my limit.</p>
<p>Hex bar deadlifts with 140 pounds. Those are a holdover, but up to 10 reps from 8 per set. Saw a heart rate of 84% of my max on one set.</p>
<p>Alternating DB overhead press. Start with two 30lb DBs at my shoulders, press one up and back down, press the other up and back down. That’s one rep. Eight reps was OK. 10 reps was hard.</p>
<p>Bar-b-q [meat] for dinner with a side of Cat Cora’s spicy slaw. :)</p>