<p>^^My H would lose weight if there weren’t so many good restaurants in Manhattan!</p>
<p>Oh well…</p>
<p>Reason #631 why weight training is good for you–being strong enough to get in and out of bed after surgery. Or on and off the toilet, up the stairs, you name it. I can isolate and use the muscles that aren’t sore to compensate for the areas that are hurting. Everything went really well yesterday and I am resting comfortably at home now.</p>
<p>Chintzy: Glad to hear it went well. From where did they remove the excess skin?</p>
<p>We’re waiting for the before and after pictures.</p>
<p>chintzy:</p>
<p>Glad to hear that you survived and are travelling the road to recovery! I don’t care how good you feel, no burpees today, OK?</p>
<hr>
<p>They are holding down the fort for you on the burpees. Here’s a Zuzana BodyRocker fan doing five snowy burpees in the Ukraine. We’ll save some for you for when you get all healed up…</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.bodyrock.tv/2011/02/09/bodyrocker-roman-burpees-in-ukraine/[/url]”>http://www.bodyrock.tv/2011/02/09/bodyrocker-roman-burpees-in-ukraine/</a></p>
<p>Hats off to you people who deal with snow all winter! Even with my fancy new shovel, the novelty wore off quite quickly! It’s HARD dealing with that heavy white stuff, and I was trying hard not to slip on my 45 degree sloping driveway (well, maybe not quite that much…) while I did it. Ugh. This was after a 7 mile dreadmill run.</p>
<p>OK, I need some help on free weights issue. My OT is working with me on improving overall arm strength post-surgery, and I’m using pitiful weights (2-3 lbs) but they’re ok because by the time I’m done with 2 sets of 8 the muscles are quivering. Sad, eh?</p>
<p>Anyway, the OT is stressing that I need to focus the time on the eccentric part of the motion --so relatively fast moving my forearm up in an arc to my shoulder as part of the biceps curl, and then s-l-o-w-l-y returning it to neutral. I do fine with that as long as she’s with me, but I’m finding when I do them on my own that I’m losing count of total reps when I’m also trying to count out the eccentric portion of the curl. (Further evidence of my inability to walk and chew gum simultaneously, I guess.) Any suggestions?</p>
<p>I’d suggest using an audio recorder to do the counting for you. Basically say the number aloud yourself one-one, one-two, one-three, one-four, one-five, …, two-one, two-two, etc. If you want to get a little fancier, you could do a video of yourself with counting so that you can see where your arm should be while you’re doing the exercise.</p>
<p>chintzy- Yay! Glad it went well and I hope you bounce back quickly.</p>
<p>chintzy: I’m glad all went well with the surgery. I was amazed after wrist surgery at how incredibly important it was that I could get out of bed and up from chairs even without one arm working. I hope your recuperation proceeds apace – I suspect you’ll be very, very gratified when everything has had a chance to heal. (Have they told you about the silicone scar gel pad yet? I’m not sure when you’ll be able to use it – I’m sure it is after stitches come out, but it is amazing. My OT gave me some for my wrist. Not only did it help the scar flatten out and get less red, it also reduced the buildup under the scar. The new scar now looks way less significant than a surgical scar I earned twenty years ago. I had to wear it with a fingerless compression glove – I looked just a bit like a debutante. Or a very bad Michael Jackson impersonator. The other useful thing I learned this go-round was scar desensitization, and do I ever wish I’d know about that after my C-section. You’re still early days yet, but keep it in mind. )</p>
<p>chintzy - way to go! Speedy healing to you.</p>
<p>Hi All! Back from my Mexico trip. Haven’t weighed in yet but I did walk…a lot! My clothes still fit so that’s a good sign! 
My knee gave me some discomfort as there was no bike and H said I was limping a little but overall I think it went better than I was expecting. Had my wonderful egg white breakfast sandwich today and loved it! Tonight I will get back on track with some grilled chicken and roasted veggies. I really missed eating that! Tomorrow I will hit the gym and see how my endurance has held up.</p>
<p>Take care chintzy! Sending {{{HUGS}}} !</p>
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<p>I wouldn’t worry about being too scientific with it. Just crank up the iPod and forget the counting part. Just try to push the weights up quickly (or go up in a push up or pull up) while exhaling. Then, lower the weights (or go back down for the next push up or pull up) more slowly while inhaling. It will become second nature pretty quickly.</p>
<p>Part of it may be that the light weights aren’t giving you a lot of feedback in the same way that this becomes kind of second nature when you dig into weights that are really a struggle. For example, when you are near your limit with pushups or a pullup, you just aren’t going to get up unless you commit to doing it quickly. It’s actually kind of hard to lift light weights well, but of course you have to when rehabbing a wrist or knee. I’m sure they are working on range of motion issues.</p>
<p>The “eccentric” part of the lift (lowering the weight) is apparently what creates a lot of the soreness aftewards. I’ve read that some of the popular “circuit” franchises (like Curves) use machines designed to take the eccentric part out, removing the post-workout soreness (and much of the benefit). Olympic lifters just throw the barbell down after the lift and skip the eccentric part completely.</p>
<p>NMINN:</p>
<p>Glad you are back. We need more tales from the gym.</p>
<p>Thanks for the kind words, everyone. VeryHappy–most of the skin came from my abdomen, but the doctor went all the way around.</p>
<p>BCEagle–the surgeon does actually take before and after pictures, which will be available for viewing about 500 years after my death!</p>
<p>Welcome back, NorthMinn!</p>
<p>Well I took a walk for my off day. I got a late start so it was only 1.5 miles, but given how chilly it was, I was glad I didn’t have time for a longer one! Last year at this time I was taking much longer walks regularly. I want that weather back! There are still too many people with patches of icy sidewalks. Did I burn extra calories because I was tramping around in my Sorels? ;)</p>
<p>Chintzy glad you are back. Sometimes I think it would be nice if someone could remove all the stretched out skin I got from pregnancy number two.</p>
<p>You know, mathmom, they do that surgery – it’s called a tummy tuck.</p>
<p>^I just can’t see getting surgery when I don’t need it. Especially since I scar horribly most of the time and I’m allergic to the adhesive that gets used on bandaids.</p>
<p>I did chintzy’s burpees for her. A little cardio workout. Each set:</p>
<p>**5 dumbbell swings with right arm
5 dumbbell swings with left arm
5 burpees</p>
<p>Rest 60 seconds.**</p>
<p>I did ten sets, one starting every two minutes for a total of 20 minutes. With a warmup, I averaged 70% heartrate and a max of 95%.</p>
<p>I was working hard on the swings after watching Dan John’s video on kettle bell swings. I can tell I’m going to be feeling it.</p>
<hr>
<p>I warmed up with his hip hinge deadlift stretch. This is fantastic. Stand up with your backside facing a wall, feet a couple inches out from the fall, about shoulder width apart. Head and shoulders up, weight on your heels, knees just slightlly bent.</p>
<p>a) Bend at the hips and push your butt back until it touches the wall. Then, stand back up.</p>
<p>b) Move your feet about two inches further from the wall and do it again. Keep a straight back, head up, just hinge at the hips and push your butt back until it touches the wall. Stand back up.</p>
<p>c) Move another two inches out from the wall and do it again. Don’t allow your whole body to flop back, keep your weight on your heels, just push your butt back. </p>
<p>At some point, you are going to get to a point where your hamstrings are* on fire *from stretching to push your hips back. That’s the deadlift position. From there, you would just push the hips foward to lift a weight.</p>
<p>Us ol’ guys need this stretching warmup really badly. We all have tight, inflexible hips. Runners, too.</p>
<p>Thank you for all the info on heart rate. I’m going to stick to just going by how I feel for now. Needing a heart monitor can be one of my goals.</p>