<p>Dang, I must have been rarin’ to go for a walk. 41 degrees, mostly dry roads. Sunny blue sky. 2.3 mile hilly walk. I set the fastest average pace ever, 15:52 per mile. And, the man in the iPod says I walked my fastest mile ever, too: 15:37.</p>
<p>Highlight of the walk was the iPod shuffle giving me the live Symphathy for the Devil from the Stones’ live album recorded in 1969, when they were at the top of their game. That powered me up and down the steep hill to the river.</p>
<p>The path to the footbridge by the old mill is now clear of snow, but ankle deep in mud. Won’t be too long before I can walk over the bridge and up the monster hill to the state park again.</p>
<p>idad, thank you for your suggestion.</p>
<p>I like the Y-T-W-L sequence. I had a PT tell me the same thing. We have a bench so I think I’m going to start incorporating them. I have small 1-3 lb weights too.</p>
<p>I slightly hurt my shoulder about 10 years ago - it’s fine now - it just tends to get a bit tight in the back (I don’t know what that muscle is… deltoid?) the day after doing repetitive things like for example throwing a football back and forth for quite awhile (I’m quite the female quarterback… perfect spiral every time… I just pay the price for it the next day! 
) I think if i do some more of those letter exercises they will help tremendously. I’ve started to do something like that before but I always get out of the habit. I need to stick with it.</p>
<p>Nice walk, idad! I got some new Brooks shoes to wear-test (i.e. free) which is cool. We are having yucky weather again- cold rain- so may have to resort to dreadmill after work tomorrow. Have Ash Wednesday church in the morning. Did Hot Yoga today at lunch. There was a guy older than me in a speedo. NOT pretty!</p>
<p>It felt great to be back in the weight room today! Took it mostly easy, but I still think I’m going to be sore tomorrow. It’s been a month since I’ve done anything but light cardio. Trainer had me do something he called Cuban Presses. I thought it sounded like a nice pork sandwich might be involved, but no such luck.</p>
<p>[YouTube</a> - Dumbbell Cuban Press](<a href=“Dumbbell Cuban Press - YouTube”>Dumbbell Cuban Press - YouTube) The guy in the video is doing them a little fast, and pressing all the way up. They’re much more evil if you press only 3/4 of the way up.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I was eating my salad, but for some reason I think I just lost my appetite! What are people thinking?</p>
<p>My Brooks shoes have stayed in the barn lately. We have so much snow melt, mud, salt, and sand on the roads, that I’ve been wearing trail shoes. Better traction in the muck and I don’t care if they get muddy. Not as comfy, but the SuperFeet insoles are the ticket for me. My foot issues seem to be a thing of the past.</p>
<p>All the squats and stuff I’ve been doing is apparent walking up the hills. I barely even notice that I’m walking uphill now. The downside is that walking probably won’t really be effective interval training for me now. The upside is that I need the easier recovery days, so that’s fine.</p>
<p>Yay Chintzy. I bet it was nice to be back at the gym. Probably feel good to be a little sore, too!</p>
<p>Older guy in a speedo swimming laps = fine by me. Older guy in a speedo doing hot yoga = :eek: :eek: :eek:</p>
<p>Fortunately he was behind me and not in front of me, if you know what I mean.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It really is a disturbing image.</p>
<p>So partner and I went at it again tonight.</p>
<p>Warm Up
10 minutes on the elliptical–> hill workout
2 trips of Monster Walks each direction with the blue miniband
5 minutes on the treadmill</p>
<p>Approximately 32 minutes for my warm up tonight Average HR 144BPM, Max HR 187BPM.</p>
<p>Workout:
For time, rounds of:
–Kettlebell swings, 35#
–Push Ups
–Single Arm Dumbbell Snatch, 30#</p>
<p>Rounds went like this:
Reps of 28, 24, 20, 16, 12, 8, and 4.</p>
<p>Time: 24:04 Average HR 179BPM, Max HR 196BPM.</p>
<p>Killer workout, but you know what… about 5 minutes after finishing I was ready to do more! Felt good :)</p>
<p>Hops Scout: </p>
<p>You are an animal!</p>
<p>idad, you can come join me anytime ;)</p>
<p>Seriously, though, you should give one of these workouts a try. Modify it a little bit if you think what I throw out there is too much, but go all out with one. I like a lot of your workouts, but do you ever do them for time?</p>
<p>Almost everyworkout I do is time based with an interval timer or iPod soundtrack – usually work for “x” seconds, rest for “x” seconds. The final phase of iPod nazi and Spartacus are both designed to provide insufficient rest between exercises. In the case of iPod nazi – no rest between exercises in a superset. The first two phases of NROL4A are rep based, but with a timer for the rest periods between exercises. I hit the interval timer for 60 seconds between exercises, although I don’t always start right at the bell. The primary emphasis of this phase is to do the exercises strongly, so started the next one while still gassed isn’t really the plan for this particular phases.</p>
<p>Phase III of NROL4A is strictly time based: do as many reps of a superset as you can do in 10 minutes. I’ll have to figure out a strategy for doing that. That’ll be a phase where a scale back the weight a bit and go for a faster pace, more like Spartacus.</p>
<hr>
<p>I don’t do as much “super high intensity 'til I’m getting close to hurling stuff” as I used to. Thankfully, a lot of the Airdyne intervals and things like Spartacus that used to do that do me are now a little more in my comfort zone as I’ve gotten more fit. Plus, to be honest, I really don’t enjoy that. It’s probably a price I pay for being a 38 year smoker, but that sort of stuff is really unpleasant for me. I did it to get to where I am now, but I much prefer to do workouts that keep me cycling between high heart rates (90%+) and recovery heart rates (70%+). I would like to try some declining rep sets. I’ve seen that recommended as a method to increase pull up reps, but I’m doing so many reps a week of pulling and pushing in NROL4A that I’m struggling to recover as it is. So that may have to wait 'til I’m done with this program.</p>
<p>I’m not sure there’s a big fitness benefit to sustained training at very high heart rates. From what I can tell, the benefit comes from hitting high heart rates to start with and then recovering to go again.</p>
<p>Interesting article about elite marathoners and heart damage in the Times today.</p>
<p>The great Dr. was very impressed with the fact that I am running 25 miles a week on one leg, essentially. That’s why I’m slow even though I’m in good shape. I still have incredible weakness and lack of function in my left leg, which is coming from a never problem in my back. The hamstring and all the way down is just not firing. There are a few things I can do, the first of which is a series of 3 epidural steroid injections (again). Ugh. I hope it helps, because the next thing is some sort of electrical stimulation of the upper hamstring and another one of those EMG nerve tests.
The place where I have to go for this round of injections is VERY inconvenient and can only be done at 8am Friday mornings. Lovely. PLUS- you are required to have a driver with me which means H gets to be completely inconvenienced, too, even though he will not actually have to drive me. I might never be OK, even with all this crap.
I plan to run 6 miles after work tonight. Got my ashes this morning.</p>
<p>MOWC…I am the driver today for H’s epidural injection in his neck. This is his second injection. First offered some relief so hoping the second will take care of it. He will drive himself there, I will meet him, I will drive him to do some shopping and then return him to his car when he can drive. Multi-purpose trip! ;)</p>
<p>Spent 90 minutes on the dreadmill today. Was a recovery day for me. My inner thighs and triceps are SORE from yesterday’s workout. I usually do tricep exercises with the cables/machines. Yesterday was with little dbells…it made a HUGE difference! I must be doing better with my form on the kettlebell swings and with the increase to 20 lbs to make the thighs as sore as they are. That’s progress!</p>
<p>MOWC:</p>
<p>I feel your pain on this never-ending injury you are enduring. I know it would practically kill you to even consider it, but with such a chronic over-use injury, I would have to give serious consideration to trying a different approach: say 1 month without any running. No treadmills, no heart rate running, no half-marathons. I know. I know. It’s a drastic measure, but maybe you could pick out some other organized workout plan and throw yourself into that with the same gusto. It would be even better if you could find something that would address the muscle imbalances of so many miles of running over the years. Desperate situations require desperate measures!</p>
<p>You’ve got access to multiple gyms and/or equipment availability. Pick something out and go to town on it the exact same way you would throw yourself into a new marathon training protocol. I don’t know. Ski jumping. Motocross. Bronco bull riding. Parachute jumping. iPod nazi’s new 12 week strength-training for runners program. New Rules of Lifting for Abs. </p>
<p>Who knows? You might find that your injury actually gets better which would be fantastic and it would let you then start running again to find the threshold of how much running your body can stand. Maybe it’s 19 miles a week, but not 20? You’re never going to know.</p>
<p>Mike Boyle tells the story of finally realizing that he had to stop power lifting because every time he got up to lifting 450 pounds, he got injured. Once is maybe a fluke, but the second or third time, he just had to accept that his body couldn’t handle it. It’s like a guy who slams his hand in a car door, spends six weeks in a cast, and says, “I can’t wait to get out of this cast so I can slam my hand in that car door again…” He says that, after training athletes for 30 years, two or more bouts of the same injury means that the injury is going to keep happening over and over as long as they keep doing the activity at the same levels. If running 20 miles a week causes shin splints and stress fractures, then that athlete is simply going to have to run less than 20 miles a week or live with the chronic injuries. If back squatting 300 pounds causes repeated lower back pain, they’ve gotta stop back squatting heavy loads. Whatever is associated with the recurring injury has to change.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t be surprised if your injury didn’t clear up if you really stopped for 30 days. It just sounds like a classic inflammation pressing on a nerve kind of situation and the ultimate cure has to be addressing the inflammation.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yeah. The kettlebell (dumbbell) swings do a number on me, too. They don’t feel that hard while you are doing them, but that is working some big muscles hard, especially when you start getting the thighs and butt involved.</p>