<p>Yeah, 16:30 a mile is near world-record pace for my ol’ (formerly) fat guy walks. I’ve only averaged faster than that on four walks since I started using this Nike/iPod contraption back in September. I’m no blur, but I’m picking ‘em up and puttin’ ‘em down pretty good for an ol’ (formerly) fat guy.</p>
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<p>I’m now in between sizes. 36s are loose and baggy, 34’s just a tad of “muffin top”. In the old days, no sweat, I’d loose five pounds in three weeks so start shoppin’ for the smaller size. Now, the changes are much slower. </p>
<p>Dockers khakis run big and I’ve got a bunch of 36s going back. I’m a 34 in those, already. Dress pants tend to run a little smaller. Six in one; half dozen in the other – perfectly in between sizes. Time to start watching for Marshall’s bargains in 34s. </p>
<p>I’m flabbergasted. I haven’t worn 34 pants since I was in my 20s.</p>
<p>Yay chintzy! I am positive your quick recovery is due to your fitness improvements! Are you pleased with the skin loss so far? When can you get back to your regular workouts?</p>
<p>idad…Good for you! Another new gadget to keep you motivated and moving on! I think I will pick up some of the furniture slides and try them out. D2 would love them! She has been working out everyday at the university gym. Will be something different for the two of us!</p>
<p>Ran 2.5 miles today and did weights. Moved up to 120 on the bench press. It did not feel difficult. I also added a new office exercise (I sometimes do this at the Y). We have a combo machine made by Hoist. It’s very tall and you can use it for pullups (wide or narrow), dips, and as a Roman Chair. A Roman Chair is like a chair without a seat. You support yourself with your arm on seat-rests. The usual exercise is to support yourself with your arms and then lift your knees, either to your chest or so that they are horizontal. The lower legs are vertical. </p>
<p>The exercise that I like to do is to make an L with your body. That is your whole leg is horizontal. This is similar to the exercise that Olympic gymnasts do on the rungs. Your abs or front thighs can turn to jello very quickly. I was able to hold about ten seconds. When I’m in good shape (about 12 years ago) I could hold it for about 35 seconds. I think that the exercise would be hard to simulate without a specific device.</p>
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<p>iPod nazi does chin ups in that position in one of his workouts. Body in that position, pulling himself up and down with his arms (neutral grip pull ups). That is some serious hard-core strength to weight ratio.</p>
<p>NorthMinn, I am delighted with the results so far! They don’t weigh the skin, which was a huge disappointment to me (what can I say, I like to quantify things). The PA did say “We took a lot of skin. A lot.” Tons of fluid rushed in, so I actually weigh more right now than I did the day I went in for surgery. They warned me that would happen, so I’m not flipping out. The compression garment I wear 24/7 is helping smooth things out.</p>
<p>I can start lifting the second week in March.</p>
<p>Well, that is certainly not going to help with being sore. Another NROL4A workout today. I did put the mini-band walks into the warmup. Walking forward and back with a band above my knees and then a set of Big X band lateral walks with a mini band around my ankles and a pair of resistance bands from each foot to the opposite hand.</p>
<p>Toughies today:</p>
<p>**Split squats **with two 25 pound dumbells, four sets, sixteen squats per set. I can do them and do them with good depth and pretty good form, but they work the legs hard and get the heart rate way up.</p>
<p>Partial bench dumbbell presses. Head and shoulders on the stability ball. I went with one 30 lb DB and one 35 lb DB. Bench press both of them all the way up, then hold one fully extended while doing 8 bench presses with the other arm. Then, hold that one all the way up and do 8 on the other arm. Four sets, eight per arm, per set. I alternated the heavy weight, one set in the left arm, the next in the right arm. The lighter one felt a lot lighter after the heavy one!</p>
<p>One of the core exercises today was the Valslide pushups – pushup postiion sliding one arm forward and back, then the other arm. I had to break it into two sets to get 12 per arm. Killer ab exercise.</p>
<p>I tried on suit jackets today at Kohl’s. My waist is getting smaller, but my shoulders and chest are not. Maybe this weight lifting stuff has something to do with that!</p>
<p>Workouts whould not be a torture. If you do not have fun, must not be for you, try something else. It sould be something that you are looking forward to do and miss when you do not have a chance. There is nothing worth doing without fun unless it is some very temporary passing thing. We do not want exercise routine to be temporary thing, right?</p>
<p>chintzy - we are all so happy for you! This is just awesome. I can’t begin to imagine how great you are going to feel when you lose the extra fluid!! </p>
<p>Miami- if you are referring to IDad - not to worry, he loves those torture routines!!!</p>
<p>chintzy- absolutely wonderful!</p>
<p>MiamiDAP- I disagree. Some workouts ARE going to be torture. Not all, but some. That torture leads to a feeling of accomplishment and lets you know that YOU CAN DO IT. Sometimes you don’t know in advance when it’s going to be torture. I’ve had 20 mile marathon training runs that went smoothly, and some that were a death march. Depends on a lot of things. I DO agree that the goal is long term exercising and fitness/health. It is NOT going to be fun everyday. I do not think it is “fun” to get up at 5 or 5:30am and go out in the dark to run- especially at my current ability level. But I DO like the feeling of accomplishment and what it is doing for me- both mentally and physically. Fun? Nope. The fun comes when I get to stand around post-race and drink beer (or gatorade) with my friends and compare war stories and collect my age group award (well, that USED to be the case…).</p>
<p>MomofWildChild,
I was referring to life style/every day fun. If marathon running is your life style and you have fun, then you found what you like! Also, keep in mind that being outside in DAY LIGHT is very beneficial. Sometime we cannot control it because we are at work in a winter time. But we try to change timing or our daily outside walk depending on the season so that we get the most benefits from day light. I know about getting up at 5am, I am up around 5:30 or earlier to go to work. It is my choice, I do not sleep much anyway and then I get out at 3:30pm and can go for a walk in day light. I would be afraid to fall running in a dark. We miss our walks, it has been slippery, darn! I am very good at falling and cannot walk at normal speed of 4miles/hour when it is slippery. Well, gym is always there, but it is inside. So, I have been on half of my routine for few days. My H. also misses our walks. Best wishes on your next marathon! I wish I could run, sounds like fun!</p>
<p>As we say in my elite running forum, “Running is stupid!” :)</p>
<p>There are aspects of competitive sports where you have to go through tough workouts and competitions and they can feel like torture - but where you have a larger goal of winning a tournament, having a good season record, etc. Basically where there is a larger goal at play and you sacrifice in the short run.</p>
<p>Big workout today: walking to my office with my computer backpack, workout bag and tennis bag.</p>
<p>Don’t get me wrong. These *New Rules of Lifting for Abs *workouts are a lot of fun. A veritable blast!</p>
<p>Part of what makes them so much fun is that the are so cleverly diabolical. Everyone who does them looks at the workouts on paper and thinks, “these don’t look so hard” and then discovers the little twists – the unbalanced loads, the torso hanging off the weight bench, etc.</p>
<p>I actually find them less grueling than the final phase of the iPod nazi workouts or Spartacus. Both of those require you to press on with the next exercise while gasping for air. As an ex-smoker, that pace is really tough for me. The exercises are difficult in these NROL4A workouts, but the pacing allows you to catch your breath between exercises.</p>
<p>The intensity comes from the fact that I’m really trying to push my limits on the weights I’m using. That’s “fun” in its own way. I’ve laid the foundation over the past year, starting with bench pressing 5 pound red dumbbells, and it’s simply the right time in the journey to get a little stronger. And this particular phase of the program is designed to increase strength. Phase I emphasized balance with some challenging moves, 12 rep sets, and lighter weights. This phase has simpler exercises, 8 rep sets, and you are supposed to use weights that require straining to complete the lift on the 7th and 8th reps. It’s not like I’m lifting crazy heavy weights, but I’m trying to push it and go up to the next heavier weight sooner rather than later. That’s what you have to do to get stronger.</p>
<p>I am “wimping out” a bit on the lifts that potentially load up my back. I’m not lifting as much as a could on the deadlift or the bent-over dumbbell rows. I’m lifting enough to build up my lower back muscles, but not so much that I can’t maintain a neutral spine. I’m not looking to hurt myself!</p>
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<p>I think that wimping out is a safer way to go for older folks.</p>
<p>I’m frequently in different circumstances when I work out. Sometimes I’m refreshed and ready, sometimes I’m tired from not enough sleep. In the latter case, it’s better not to push as one issue or error can result in injury. An injury in a younger person will probably heal a lot faster.</p>
<p>Interestingly enough, when I was younger, I used to buy cars with small engines and had to rev them up to get enough power. In my older years, I buy cars with larger engines that run at lower RPMs. The cars with larger engines and lower RPMs have had fewer problems than the cars with smaller engines and higher RPMs. I assume that friction and heat is higher at higher RPMs which damages stuff in the engine bay.</p>
<p>I was so sore when I woke up this morning that I briefly thought of falling back to sleep. My quads and lower back/glutes are really uncomfortable! Anyway I headed in to the gym, got on my bike and pedaled away. Moved on to pushups, weight machines and then coreball swings. I barely made it through the swings as my arms were rubbery. I have been back to tracking every calorie. Will need to up some more calories as I was exhausted! Just ate my favorite breakfast sandwich and am feeling so much better.</p>
<p>edit: guess my engine needed some fuel! ;)</p>
<p>I’m also running into a limiting factor of just not being able to get the dumbbells in place. For example, to do this partial bench press on the stability ball, I’ve got to sit on the stability ball, reach down and pick up a 35 lb DB and a 30 lb DB off the floor, bring them up to waist height, and then curl them up to my shoulders to get positioned to roll out into a bench press position. Curling that 35 pounder from the floor up to my shoulder and then being able to get it safely back to the floor is right at my limit right now. So the weights I use are pretty much self-limited by the weights I can maneuver into place and put back down. I’m you think about it, that’s a perfectly logical limit if your goal is functional strength for day to day activities.</p>
<p>I won 7-5, 6-1 but I thought that I was going to lose the first set. I was down 1-4 at one point. In general, regular weightlifting + tennis once a week don’t go well together. The problem is that you have to adjust your strokes to your strength and power level and that can take a while to do. I was able to generate more power on the serve but it took a while to adjust the timing to make use of that power. I was hitting a lot of hard serves but they were hitting the top of the net.</p>
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<p>In the fitness room at the local YMCA, they have a bunch of metal tables with a shelf at 50% of the height of the tables. The top of the table is somewhat high up. I’ve wondered what these tables are used for - perhaps they are used for holding barbells for the chest press. They could be dragged over to a station and used to store barbells.</p>
<p>BTW, you need a fair amount of wrist and arm strength to manipulate 30-35 pound dumbbells. I play around with barbells that are twice that weight but the muscles are different for barbells. I sometimes play with 75 pound barbells but that’s only in a very controlled environment. In general, I don’t play with anything over 20 pounds for fear of triggering arm problems. One of these days I’ll go up to a whopping 22.5 pounds.</p>
<p>I just got my workout in for tonight. 3x3 Hang Cleans and Push Presses. 3x10 lat pulldowns. Had to get in and get out tonight…</p>