<p>I actually used an AirDyne “arm” bike at the PT place I went to for my frozen shoulder. They tried everything on me to get my shoulder to loosen up. Then the owner of the place went out back in his storage shed and brought in the old AirDyne. He was a sweetie. Had it serviced just for me. Said he’d seen my kind of frozen shoulder once or twice and the only thing that would crack it was the arm bike. It worked like a charm.</p>
<p>Bunsen, $4.5K for exercise equipment is beyond my comfort zone. Although, we talk endlessly about putting in an endless pool. That’s DH’s favorite form of exercise – swimming.</p>
<p>Check to see if a bicycle trainer stand or rollers can be used with it for indoor use.</p>
<p>Hill-wise, there was a video of someone doing the Markleville Death Ride on one.</p>
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<p>Rowing’s upper body muscle use is mainly back, not arms. The back muscles (including the same ones used for pullups) are much bigger than the arm muscles, and can last a lot longer doing cardio exercise.</p>
<p>sewhappy, price was the reason we did not buy the Octane elliptical which DH liked. We already spent major $$ on a treadmill, which, thank goodness, gets a lot of action this year because of the nasty weather! But the elliptical bike looks super cool. How would one transport it - it does not look like it fits a standard hitch mounted bike rack (would not be a problem for us - it will fit into the bed of our truck).</p>
<p>The specs on the 8-speed one say that hills of 20-30% are no problem. Hmmm… Our trail is pertty flat…</p>
<p>Yes, but you connect your arms and hands to the handle. Many don’t have arm endurance to continually fold the arm - it isn’t that they need a lot of strength to do it - it’s that they don’t have the endurance in those muscles.</p>
<p>A quick 26 minute session on the Airdyne. Five minute warmup. Six 90 second intervals. Easy pedalling in between until my heart rate fell back to 65% of max.</p>
<p>Average heart rate 74%. Max heart rate 91%. This is something like my fourth time with this particular little workout. It’s getting a little bit easier. Between my 90 second intervals on the Airdyne and my 2 minute jogging intervals, I’ve been hitting this length interval hard over the last couple of weeks.</p>
<p>5 mile run though moderately slower than yesterday. I had a few sore areas in my legs today (different spots in the legs). I was keeping an eye on the weather maps and the damage in Springfield (MA) - tornadoes touched down and caused some damage. They were scheduled to roll our way a few hours ago. Tornado watch is extended to 11:00 PM for us though it appears that everything has already left our immediate area. With the watch in place, I didn’t bother to go to the other Y for the AirDyne.</p>
<p>I’m going to bring the new plates in from the car and set the dumbbells up.</p>
<p>I was careful not to buy too many. I injured my back carrying my first weight set up to my apartment about 30 years ago and the injury comes back when my back or stomach are weak. Keeping up with pushups and situps keeps the injury away. The injury can last for several weeks when triggered and it’s a severe nuisance. Fortunately it hasn’t been around for many years.</p>
<p>Situps are far more likely to be contributing to a back injury than keeping it away! As Stuart McGill so convincingly explains it: We only have “x” number of flexes in the lumbar spinal discs before they are worn out. Using up our lifetime allotment of lumbar flexes on an exercise that accomplishes so little, when the conseqences of lumber disc herniation can be so negatively life-changing, isn’t a great investment. I don’t know of any top trainers who are still having clients do situps.</p>
<p>Speaking of not doing sit ups, I gave in to temptation and bought iPod nazi’s 12 week core workout program. Looks like a lot of fun. He does the first two workouts in his back yard with a yoga mat, a stability ball, and a lawn chair.</p>
<p>It’s basically a series of 20 minute core/glute workouts. I’m going to use them in conjunction with either 20 minutes of strength training or 20 minutes of intervals. For example, I’ll just do one of these instead of the core supersets from NROL4A (it’s a lot of the same stuff), then follow it up with four weight lifting exercises.</p>
<p>The videos are simply real time recordings of iPod nazi doing the complete workout, start to finish, timing everything for you, and constantly giving pointers on how to do the exercises, what to focus on, etc. Kinda funny to see him winded and starting to grunt almost loud enough to get a lunkhead siren at Planet Fitness. Now, I don’t feel so bad thinking about all the times his workouts have left me gasping for air.</p>
<p>The first workout starts with plank and side plank and birddog and hip lifts. Week 2 gets to some pretty serious core stuff.</p>
<p>I’ll watch each video and then listen to the MP3 version for actually doing the workout.</p>
<p>I’ve been following along on all the posts here. At the moment I’m “between gyms” – I let my membership expire here in CT since we’re moving. (Closed on our Cambridge, MA condo on Tuesday.) There’s still finish work to be done, so we’re not physically moving right away. Plus H (who can work anywhere with internet and a convenient airport) wants to spend as much time as possible at the beach. I’ll re-join the gym there next week. My weekend activity was major cleaning at the beach, which had been closed up all winter. (I’d much rather go to the gym than scrub the kitchen floor on my hands and knees!)</p>
<p>Going back several pages of posts to the sports bra discussion – ladies, check out Title Nine for a great selection: [Sports</a> bras, yoga clothing, womens sportswear, athletic apparel - Title Nine](<a href=“http://www.titlenine.com/]Sports”>http://www.titlenine.com/)</p>
<p>Moving to Cambridge sounds very nice. There are so many people that can be seen running along the Charles River - it’s probably infectious. I imagine that there are a ton of gyms in Cambridge.</p>
<p>On the sports bras (iDad- you can skip this…) I’ve been in Title 9 stores and get the catalogue. Same problem as the other women-oriented athletic retailers…bulk of the product (pun intended) for larger chests. That’s the new market, obviously. Very few choices for those who need something but not big heavy padded contraptions. Those get HOT. I stick with Gracie’s Gear, but there aren’t many colors. I run in just the sports bra (and skirt/shorts) for much of the summer.</p>
<p>^^^ Agree, MOWC – I don’t need the “larger size” either; just thought T9 had a good selection for those that do. I’m always on the lookout for one that zips up the front to make it easier to get off! When I get all sweaty, the “pull over your head” style requires the jaws of life to get off! I’ve found a couple zip styles, but the zipper isn’t always that strong/secure – which can create a whole set of issues …</p>
<p>^Additional advantage of swimming, no sport bra needed, just 2 very old stretched swimsuits worn together will do the trick. Have huge bag of them from D’s competitive swimming years. Also my own old “vacation” swimsuits will do. Very high quality competitive swimsuits are completely gone after few weeks of 1.5 hrs every day swimming in chemically enhanced pool water. No use to buy new ones at all. Just started swimming, feels soo good, boost of energy from cold water. Muscles are sore, I love “feeling” results. As bad swimmer as I am, apparently better results than my daily weight training and 4 mile walking…</p>
<p>However, I buy all ‘sport’ clothes for D. at TJ Max (D. does not have time, she would specify brand and size. ). Top brands are cheaper there. Just bought many few weeks ago, D. took them to trip abroad to very hot region of the world. Worked for her.</p>
<p>Yesterday was day 2 of running in my new shoes and my knee felt no pain. I’m wondering if the shoes were the main problem all along. The old ones were a high stability shoe, which the guy at the running store said I didn’t need. The new ones are neutral.</p>
<p>Running in beefed up stability shoes when you don’t need the correction CAN lead to injury!</p>
<p>CBBB- My worst sports bra moments (unfortunately, this has happened a couple of times) were trying to quickly change my clothes in the car to run after work and getting totally tangled up in the bra with it somewhere between my eyes and chest. Hunkered down in the front seat of my car trying to correct the situation… When I was a newer runner in Dallas and before safety was such an issue, we would change into running clothes WHILE driving to the lake to run. Sometimes I got there with something on backwards. Shoes were the hardest part…</p>
<p>Shoes definitely make a huge difference for me, especially at my weight. If I take out a pair and don’t like it for running or tennis, it goes into the casual pile and I grab another pair. My current running shoes have about 350 miles on them. They are actually cross-trainers so they’re heavy but they have held up well. I plan to replace them at 400 and use them for casual wear.</p>
<p>Re: sports bras. For some reason, the goofier the name, the better it works for me. Bfore losing weight, I ran in bras made by Shock Absorber. No kidding. They make amazingly supportive bras without padding. Padding is a cheap design gimmick that actually does nothing for support. I still use my old bras for running at home, but I bought a few nicer ones for trail running (I wear a Nike Dri-fit loose tank over my running bra). This is my current favorite (with similarly goofy name):</p>
<p>^^ Anything by lululemon is awesome. I hit the Dallas store up last weekend. H likes their men’s stuff, too. (BCEagle and iDad- don’t even look. You won’t like the prices…)</p>
When I was a newer runner in Dallas and before safety was such an issue, we would change into running clothes WHILE driving to the lake to run. Sometimes I got there with something on backwards. Shoes were the hardest part…</p>