<p>Good for you, NMIIN. Heck, I’m ready to hit the shower at the 30 minute mark! Actually, yesterday, I was collapsed in a heap on the floor at the 30 minute mark.</p>
<p>I think I must be one of those people made for cardio/endurance and not speed.
Those endorphins kick in and I have to force myself to stop and go home. Who would have thought that I would become a gym junkie! Planning on working out tomorrow morning with H. Should be interesting to say the least!</p>
<p>Not me. At 45 minutes, I’m done. Even walking, I’m ready to pack it in once I get over 45 minutes. I’ve gone longer, but I’m just bored at that point. 30 minutes is my limit on the Airdyne. I’ve started to base all my interval workouts around a 30 minute time frame, including warm up and cool down.</p>
<p>My circuit workouts are running 45 to 55 minutes these days. Any longer and I feel like they will never end.</p>
<p>That’s the nice thing about competitive sports like basketball, hockey, tennis, and table-tennis. Tactics and strategy are involved so your mind gets a workout too and it isn’t boring because there’s someone else that’s trying to knock you out of your game-plan.</p>
<p>That said, the most that I’ve run in time is about 90 minutes. I just need lots of tunes on my iPod and I’m generally good to go.</p>
<p>Still slogging along in the pool. I’ve switched from the rec pool to the lap pool. So far, I’ve had the lap pool to myself, not just my lane but the pool. Every so often one other person will be swimming laps. Overlooking the pool I can see people crammed in cheek to jowl on all the treadmills and so on. I just couldn’t do it…sweat on the dreadmill while that lovely pool shimmered just beyond the glass? No way.</p>
<p>So, now I’m mixing up my work outs between doing jogging in the deep end or laps while holding a kick board plus I always do exercises/streches in the shallow end. I noticed that the answer to that “does it hurt” question was always “yes” the day after a workout until I was basically just floating in the pool. So now I am faithfully going to the pool every other day and that has cut down on the back pain. I have a “dry land” stretch routine I’ve cobbled together for my non-pool days. My pug really likes to “help” me!</p>
<p>I did a quick 30 minutes on the Airdyne before cooking dinner out in the snow. 16 all-out sprints, 10 seconds fast, 50 seconds slow. Set a new personal best of 106 rpm on the damned thing on my first interval, but ran out of gas and could only manage 95 rpm on most of them.</p>
<p>All out sprints on the Airdyne are sick. I don’t think there’s anything else that can gas you like that in 10 seconds.</p>
<p>I had some heel pain after playing tennis yesterday. It’s on the inside and back going up a few inches. It’s not PF - I know what that feels like. I looked by Achilles Tendonitis and it doesn’t feel like that. It reminds me of a sprained ankle but it’s nowhere near as bad as a sprained ankle in terms of pain. I noticed that my shoes was loose (one of the tie loops was untied) during playing but I didn’t tighten it - probably should have. I might have slightly rolled it.</p>
<p>I ran a few miles this afternoon and it felt fine while running - maybe even better before running. This usually means that the heat generated by exercise made it feel better. So I’m hoping it’s just a strain of a tendon or ligament and that it fixes itself up after three days. I still plan on running tomorrow. Somewhat buried in work and I’ll be in the office tomorrow.</p>
<p>These run-on almost-injuries are a nuisance. The arm is much better. The knees are better but not 100%. I was probably favoring my right knee yesterday.</p>
<p>I’ve really noticed a limited range of motion in my oft-sprained ankle. It limits me on split squats on one side. Probably from scar tissue. I’ve been doing some mobility exercises to increase range of motion and get a little more limber.</p>
<p>I’m hoping to get a little Christmas Eve Spartacus in tomorrow, but we’ll have to see how it goes. I might be taking a couple of days off.</p>
<p>Definitely took tonight off on the eat less front. Huge filet mignons (from the Hilltop butcher shop) and roasted asparagus that I cooked out in the snow. And, an '83 Caymus Vineyards Cabernet from down in the cellar that need to be consumed. Yum.</p>
<p>Tomorrow is fresh lobster that I’ll steam ala Julia Child and then saute with lemon juice and butter. Brocolli and blue cheese salad with that, I think. </p>
<p>I was hopin’ to lose a pound this week, but I’m guessin’ that might not happen.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Funny you should mention this. Almost two weeks ago, I was doing split squats with my trainer and for the life of me, I was having a very difficult time balancing with my left foot forward. It just kept wobbling and wobbling. Switched feet and had no problems at all with my right foot forward… it was as planted as it could be. So my trainer noticed how unstable my left foot was doing these split squats and we sat there wondering why it would be doing this. Then he asked me which foot I had sprained back at the end of October, and sure enough it was the left foot. But it was the exact same exercise as idad, with the same result. So right before I left, we started working on strengthening the ankle with some balance work. The gym at our last hotel did not have anything to help with balance work, and I have not visited the gym at our new location yet, but am going in the morning. I did peek in and saw they have at least a bosu ball, so I’m hoping that means they have some other similar equipment that I can work with. When I can think of it, I just try to stand on my left foot with the right foot either resting on my left knee (stork style), or just hanging out to my side. Am also hoping some of the walking I’ve been doing in the sand will help work the muscles in the ankle as they’re constantly trying to compensate for the shift in support.</p>
<p>I guess it’s to be expected that when old people talk about exercising, they also have to talk about their aches and pains.</p>
<p>(No offense intended; I include myself in this group!)</p>
<p>I surprised myself this week: I had several restaurant meals and a few Christmas goodies baked by people in my office – both very out of the norm for me – but when I weighed myself this AM, I was still at my normal weight. Hooray, hooray. We’ll see what damage I can do over the long weekend.</p>
<p>Scar tissue can be broken up with massage. I don’t know if you can do that with the ankle though as there are a lot of bones in there making it hard to get to the scar tissue.</p>
<p>What I’ve heard on ankles is that repeated sprains make the ankle weaker over time and more prone to sprains.</p>
<p>pugmadkate…that’s why I bike everyday! My knee has no pain if I am faithful about biking. Take a day off and it starts to hurt!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yep. It’s not necessarily a strength issue, because the back foot takes very little weight in a split squat and almost none in a rear foot elevated split squat. My ankle doesn’t hurt, it just doesn’t bend enough.</p>
<p>Of course, there’s often a leg strength imbalance as well. I saw that as soon as I tried the rear foot elevated split squats or lateral squats. Balancing out these imbalances is a major reason for all the one-leg stuff like split squats. I’ve started trying to do more reps on left than on the right.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Mike Boyle has a theory from watching his athletes that the trend towards tightly wrapping ankles has contributed to more sprains. His theory is that you prevent the foot from rolling over by developing MORE ankle flexibility and mobility, not less. Previously sprained ankles tend to be stiff, unflexible, and therefore more prone to being sprained over and over. He has a series of three simple little ankle mobility exercises that are included in the warmup for every training session for his athletes – really just moving both ankles through the full range of motion.</p>
<p>Son wanted to go running on the track this morning so I took him to the YMCA and worked out on the weight machines for a bit. While there, I took a peek into an old converted squash court. It had those balls, half-balls, barbells, dumbbells, mats, hand weights and lots of other stuff for flexible workouts. I saw some people doing very active exercises with weights.</p>
<p>The soreness on the sides of my ankle are gone. The pain in the back is still intermittent. I’ll use the night splint tonight just in case it is PF. Even if it isn’t, the night splint will keep the foot immobile which might be beneficial.</p>
<p>In general, tennis players have very strong ankles. There are several slow-motion videos of Roger Federer’s footwork on the court and it is truly amazing to see the stresses on his ankles. Players that make it look easy do an amazing amount of footwork to make the rest of their game look easy. I imagine the idea of not using tape is to let the ankle get injured so that it doesn’t result in a more serious injury with leverage.</p>
<p>One of those slow-motion videos that I looked at had Roger wearing an ankle restraint that went up about a foot. That’s much more support than the typical ankle brace provides.</p>
<p>I’ve never used tape on my ankles but I have used bandages. I’d have a problem with using so much disposable material for working out. A lot of players do tape their ankles in professional tennis. I saw a lot of that at the US Open this past fall. I don’t know if it was due to injuries or if it was for preventive reasons. I did notice that the taping didn’t slow down the players on the court.</p>
<p>I can now see that I have been subconsciously favoring my oft-sprained ankle in ways that I didn’t even notice. I don’t allow it to flex the moment I feel any stiffness and that, in turn, has made it more and more stiff. It’s so apparent when you start doing these split squats and an ankle that is bearing little or no load is the limiting factor, even though it doesn’t hurt, just because it won’t bend.</p>
<p>The problem is that this sub-conscious favoring of an injury leads to pain or injury in the next joint up the chain, since each pair of joints. Favor an ankle and your knee might pay the price, and so forth up to the hip and lower back. I’m not at all sure that my stiff ankle and the occassional pain I have felt in the knee on that side walking up or down steep hills aren’t related, i.e. the failure of my ankle to bend enough to accomodate the hill puts stress on the knee.</p>
<p>Who knows? I’m just gonna keep doing these flexibilty drills and try to increase the range of motion. That’s something all of ol’ guys can use!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes. This style of exercise is becoming very popular. I think that most gyms have now started running classes as the Cosgroves do with group Spartacus workouts at their gym in California – set up as 10 stations with the group simply rotating from station to station for 60 seconds. </p>
<p>What it’s really doing is integrating strength training, core training, and interval aerobic traning in one package. The lines are blurred. I mean a burpee is certainly strength training (alternating between pushups and squat jumps), but it’s also hellacious aerobic and heart rate training. All in one.</p>
<p>There are several popular variations that are the rage: P90x videos, Crossfit, Bootcamps, and so forth.</p>
<p>Well, I did it. Christmas Eve Spartacus while the women watched a chick flick. Now, it’s off to steam lobster and sautee the meat in lemon juice and butter. Asparagus and a blue cheese salad on the side. I plan to work some booze into the plan one way or another. I think I have one more package to wrap. I don’t how that happened. I usually haven’t started.</p>
<p>Merrry Christmas everyone! Here’s to holiday cheer and skinny jeans!</p>
<p>Merry Christmas to all of you, too. I am in beautiful Colorado enjoying the snow. I am tempted to ski- trying to resist because I don’t want to hurt anything worse. We’ll see.</p>
<p>This morning I did a 4.2 mile low heart rate “run” and broke out my Yak Trax for the first time. They were amazing. I was on ice or snow pack the whole time, and they gave me great traction. That said, the altitude and climbs made me have to walk a lot to keep the HR in check. My average pace was absurd, but it was a gorgeous morning (althoug 8 degrees) and the peaks looked incredible. I do have access to a treadmill, but as long as I think I can safely be outside (not too much ice) I want to stay away from the indoor stuff.</p>
<p>Traditional Christmas Eve here: Chinese food for dinner.</p>