<p>^^, Oh i mean i can do it. It’s that it tires me out. I try to do that with all my exercises. I try to work for for my reps, and put all my power in them. I try not to do things easy. Plus, i got enought rest/food now that it’s summer. I recover within a day from these workouts. </p>
<p>Like my friend always says: “The harder it is in the gym, the easier it is in the game”.</p>
<p>@InterestingDaD, Oh trust me i don’t like squatting, but they’re one of the best lifts you can do, so i usually just take a deep breath and just do them. </p>
<p>It’s really paying off thought, Squats are really helping me with my muscular endurance, and i feel like i can run a tad bit faster now.</p>
<p>Interesting how I was plateau-ing for several months – not in terms of weight loss, which is not at all my goal, but in terms of effort and, as a result, feeling sore after a workout. I’m back to being more intense during my workout and I’m feeling it a bit the next day. Love that feeling.</p>
<p>For core, I’ve been using a stability ball in various ways, but the one that’s a real challenge and that I feel the next day is to lie on the ball on my side, brace my body by putting the bottoms of my feet against the wall, and then lifting my upper body so the obliques get a workout. Keeping my hands behind my head makes it more challenging. </p>
<p>Like this: [stability</a> ball side crunches 6pack Ab Exercise Videos - Ask Personal Trainers - Best abs Exercise Nutrition Workouts video Fitness Information & Advice](<a href=“askthetrainer.us”>askthetrainer.us)</p>
<p>I admire all those on this thread who seem to understand the subtleties of their spine and hip sockets so well. I also worked on my core a few years ago with a trainer and ended up with a lot of back pain. When I took on weights for upper body, I ended up with a frozen shoulder. I need a very gentle approach to all this stuff. Walking is easy for me. Can walk forever at a good pace. Yoga is also a pretty good fit for me. Exercise balls and weights have led to trouble.</p>
<p>For once I traveled in the right weather direction. Mid 90s at home but I had low to mid 50s, low humidity for my run this morning. Not flat but no huge hills. 8.5 miles. Saw lots of deer including about 4 babies. Hamstrings/butt did pretty well but the weakness in them makes the run feel hard. I neednto get the glutes back firing better, I think. Briely considered an icy dip in the lake post run, but decided to wait until later.</p>
<p>Sounds like around here - it was quite chilly here last night - we left the windows open and I was freezing this morning- grabbed a sweatshirt. Tonight’s low is supposed to be in the 40s.</p>
<p>Watching the French Open right now while doing a little lifting. Maybe today is the day for the AirDyne.</p>
<p>Well, ouch. I did military presses using a weight bar, and lateral raises using dumbells, and for two days I’ve had a LOT of soreness at the insertional point for the biceps tendon on both shoulders. Aargh. I have tried to be so careful given that I have had shoulder bursitis/rotator cuff issues, and now a new part of my shoulders hurts. Reached for a pillow further up on the bed and actually yowled. </p>
<p>I’m finding arms somewhat frustrating. Everything else is strengthening rather reliably, but the arms just haven’t shown the same kinds of gains, and now this. </p>
<p>I tried pushups (on a Smith rack – not up to the floor yet) and they don’t seem to hurt that shoulder area. </p>
<p>Why don’t you show your friends what the cutting edge athletic trainers are doing with their teams these days.</p>
<p>Teach them the split squat. It focuses all the weight on one leg at a time. Less load on the back for the same (or better) training effect on each leg.</p>
<p>The main reason that Mike Boyle’s stuff resonates so strongly with me is that he makes avoiding injury the top priority of his training methods. I really pay attention to that because, at my age, injuring myself while exercising is going bring my fitness efforts to a screeching halt. Plus, there are no guarantees that we will bounce back quickly.</p>
<p>The weightlifting crowd hates him because he calls out so much of their accepted approach as needlessly dangerous.</p>
<p>Shoulders are tough. Very common to experience pain or limited range of motion.</p>
<p>Lateral raises have always made me sore. iPod nazi had me doing them. Mike Boyle does not use them at all. Too much injury, too little gain.</p>
<p>On the military press, you might be better off with dumbbells. Overhead pressing is more likely to hurt than pressing forward (like in a pushup or bench press). And, rotating the hands palm-foward to hold a bar is more likely to hurt than holding two dumbbells with palms facing each other (neutral grip). Overhead barbell stuff is a notorious shoulder pain/injury producer, as are chinups and pullups (same positions, opposite force).</p>
<p>The other thing to consciously think about with any shoulder exercise is pulling the shoulder blades down and in. Or, as Zuzanna puts it, “Keep your shoulders away from your ears”. Avoiding the tendency to shrug the shoulders up engages the big muscles of the upper back and keeps the shoulders in stronger position. It’s really important with chin ups, which is similar shoulder position to the overhead press.</p>
<p>Certain joint injuries really limit your ability to exercise. I’ve had my share of injuries and lots of practice working around them though I’ve never had a shoulder injury. When I have injuries, I tend to spend a little more time doing isolation exercises to work on other areas while waiting for the joint to recover.</p>
<p>^^^ So what’s with the “shrugs” that I see some of the muscle-bound guys doing?? I never understood why you’d want to/have to do those things. For me, when I do backs and shoulders, those muscles in the back of my neck/upper shoulders come along for the ride and get taken care of.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, most of the strength training “dogma” grew out of bodybuilding – a “beauty” [sic] competition that focused exclusively on a particular aesthetic look (big muscles) that had nothing to do with fitness, athleticism, or performance:</p>
<p>Thus, many of these exercises evolved to accomplish nothing except make specific muscles visibly bigger. For example, that’s where the whole concept of working individual muscles came from – and, hench, the weight machine craze.</p>
<p>The shame of it is that many kids think this kind of strength training has some functional benefit. And, even from a purely aesthetic perspective, they fail to realize that “the look” is largely a function of anabolic steroids.</p>
<p>Compounding the problem is the other side of the coin – the powerlifting competitors. Again, the focus is not on fitness or functional athelticisim, but on simply lifting a bigger weight. The techniques and equipment has evolved to post bigger numbers and the result is a lot of people actually underming good fitness programs in the pursuit of big numbers. This crowd, for example, would reject any kid of squat except the back squat used in powerlifting competitions, even though the back squat is the version of the squat most likely to cause back injuries.</p>
<p>There’s a guy at my CT gym – my age; I think he might even be the dad of one of my kids’ classmates – who comes in Sunday mornings, wearing a weight belt, and does squats to lift very heavy barbells. Of course, during th 45 minutes or so that I’m lifing heavy things over my head, he’s doing, oh – maybe 10 squats. Between squats, he wanders around, swinging his arms to, I suppose, “loosen up.” I keep thinking that if he got rid of the 40 or so pounds in his beer belly, he wouldn’t need the weight belt.</p>
<p>You’re right. For his goals, what he is doing is normal. Not gonna say it’s ideal for fitness, but for his specific goals he’s doing things the “right way.”</p>
I went with my son to the new YMCA (it’s about eight or nine minutes farther from our regular Y). He ran three miles on the track and I tried out the AirDyne. The first thing that I tried to do was to adjust it to my height. I tried to get the knob out but found that it screws in so I unscrewed the knob out of the seat post and pulled the seat up to find my setting by trial and error. Once I found my optimal seat height (I used to do a ton of cycling in Boston), I tried it out. Basically the arm handles were then too low for me to do comfortably. I think that that’s one problem with a design like the AirDyn - it isn’t quickly adjustable and the arm handles are fixed. I went over to a X-Rider and pushed a lever and adjusted it in a few seconds and used that for about five minutes.
I think that you can use the AirDyne without adjusting it - basically just cycle even though it isn’t efficient.
I then ran a mile on the track to see what it was like. I used an old pair of running shoes to see what the surface was like. Surprisingly, I didn’t have any leg issues. Son also said that he had no joint issues either so perhaps they’re using a cushioned surface.
The place is a dream to run in for an indoor track. The ventilation system is state of the art - it feels comfortable and the air feels clean. They use UV light and filters to keep the air clean. The roof is very high and they have ceiling fans. It was designed to be an incredibly energy efficient building.
After my run, I tried their assisted dip/pullup machine. It was much, much nicer than the machines at my regular Y. I also tried their “barbells”. They have a barbell rack but the barbells don’t have weight plates on them. The ends have rubber-coated something that’s fairly small. Quite convenient to use and the barbells are relatively small.
Another nice feature is that they have lockers in the area in-between the strength-training and aerobic machines. All of this is on the inside of the track. The nice thing about this format is for those that don’t need to change their clothes - you don’t have to go downstairs to the locker room to do that. You can run in, lock your stuff, workout, and then take off.
Son loves the place and I’m warming up to it. It will take a while to get used to the different strength equipment - it’s quite different in design from our regular stuff. A lot more in the way of using weight plates that you add to equipment instead of individual machines with their own weights.
One last thing: there were tons and tons and tons of people signing up on opening weekend. I’ve talked to people at work that signed up and they said that the place wasn’t crowded. Well, that was absolutely true today. The place was mostly empty. It amazes me that huge numbers of people join gyms and never use them. I guess that is why they are so relatively inexpensive for what you get.
<p>^^ BC, that’s a huge advantage to those of us who do use the gym!! The more sign-ups who don’t use it, the lower the cost for the rest of us, and the less crowded it is. What could be better?? :)</p>
</p>![http://www.fitstep.com/Advanced/Anatomy/Graphics/back-anatomy-lats-traps.gif[/url]](http://www.fitstep.com/Advanced/Anatomy/Graphics/back-anatomy-lats-traps.gif%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
![http://www.popstarsplus.com/images/ArnoldSchwarzeneggerPicture.jpg[/url]](http://www.popstarsplus.com/images/ArnoldSchwarzeneggerPicture.jpg%5B/url%5D){kind=link}
