Remind me to stay away from CJ’s bootcamps! 1 minute intervals with 10 seconds rest is definitely not my cup of tea! It takes me 2 to 5 minutes to recover from a 1 minute Airdyne interval. In fact, I do 10 second intervals with 50 seconds in between to recover and those are hard.
What makes the Airdyne so hard is that whatever pace feels “easy” for the first little bit will quickly become way too hard. Using all the big muscles of the legs, arms, and upper back simultaneously makes it impossible to supply enough oxygen and, before you know it, the legs start burning and you will be bent over panting like a dog.
One minute intervals are brutal. Really, anything over 30 seconds on the Airdyne is almost always going to put you into an anaerobic zone where your muscles have run out of oxygen. Once that happens, it’s bad news. It’s a tough assignment to start out like gang busters, hit the wall, and then try to hang on by slowing down. 60 second intervals require learning what pace you can maintain, but it’s so hard to do because it just seems so easy at first!
<p>No, I must have missed it. Point me in right direction!</p>
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<p>It turned sunny this afternoon, upper 50s, breezy but not cold. So I went out for my usual 5K hilly walk/jog. I’ve got the Garmin programmed for manually starting a sprint interval whenever I feel like it and ending automatically when my heart rate exceeds 90% of max. That’s breathing good and hard, but not brutal (except for the first interval when it just takes forever to get up to 90%). If I get enough recovery before I go again, the next interval is longer. If I start the interval with my heart rate only down to 78% after climbing a hill, then the sprint interval is short. I’ve got the watch set to do as many as 24 intervals, which is way more than I need. So I can do as many or as few as I feel like on the 5K. Today, I did 13 intervals, totaling 1.15 miles, at an average pace of 8.1 minutes/mile on the running intervals. </p>
<p>It’s really nice because there’s no pacing. I can just run and when my heart rate hits 90%, I can just walk. I averaged 81% heart rate for the entire 44 minutes, but not bent over panting like a dog after the sprints. Pretty much what I’m looking for on a recovery day interval cardio session. I’m not looking to hammer myself day after day.</p>
<p>1 mile today besides the stuff I did early AM. I need sleep but I have work and taxes to do tonight. Also, Smith Machine and Free Weights but will do more tonight.</p>
<p>Well, this running thing isn’t workin’ out so well for me. Now, I’ve got soreness in the other achilles tendon. This time, right at the ankle. Just mild stiffness, limping a little bit, yadda, yadda, but I’m going to have to scale it back I guess. This time there was no moment when I injured it. Just sore immediately afterwards.</p>
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<p>World’s Worst Gym this afternoon (house showing). I laid off the stuff that would tweak my ankle, so no “power” stuff like squat jumps or DB snatches. Doubled up on two sets of core instead. Front plank while doing cable column rows with one hand, then the other. Side plank while doing cable column rows. Pallof Press (wow, I saw a heart rate of 80% during those – crazy for an exercise where you are literally standing there, not moving). And farmers walks back and forth across the gym with a 60lb DB. Good stuff.</p>
<p>Then I did strength supersets (three sets of each):</p>
<p>*Goblet squats
One-arm rows</p>
<p>Single leg deadlifts
Alternating DB bench press*</p>
<p>Nice solid workout. Ankle didn’t get in the way.</p>
I’ve ramped up the treadmill workout so I’m now doing three minutes at a fast walk and two minutes at a good trot. Been doing this for a few weeks now. Maybe one day before I die, I’ll be able to run for my full 30 minutes.
Yeah, right. Like that’s ever gonna happen. :rolleyes:
<p>I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I probably won’t ever get there.</p>
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<p>There’s a very fit older lady (gray hair, could be in her 60s) who is always walking hard on a big incline on the treadmills at Planet Fitness. I looked today as I walked by. She was booking along a 4.0 mph on a 10 degree incline. Props to her. That’s some serious walking. My tongue would be hanging out in pretty short order trying to keep up with her.</p>
<p>I get the biggest chuckle out of the workouts people do. There was a kid there tonight who spent at least an hour sitting on a weight bench doing “arm” exercises (shrugs, curls, of every imaginable flavor) that never involved moving the weight more than six inches. An hour!</p>
<p>I guess. There was another guy, big ol’ fat gut, who was doing the exercise where they stand under the cable tower, arms extended down in front of them with the cable rope in hand and “shrug” the rope down a few inches. Lord only knows what muscle group that’s working, but it clearly isn’t doing anything for belly fat.</p>
<p>And, then there was the guy who was doing lat pulldowns, but with about 200 pounds too much weight so he had to lean back at a 45 degree angle and pull down with his body weight, totally defeating the purpose of the exercise (I think they call it a lat pulldown for a reason – it’s supposed to work the lats!) Sometimes less is more…</p>
<p>I’m sure all these guys are probably laughin’ at the stuff I’m doing. No curls, no shrugs. Pallof presses and single leg DB deadlifts. What kind of lame-o workout is that! I was the only guy doing goblet squats (or squats of any kind). There was a woman doing DB deadlifts, props to her.</p>
<p>Lack of sleep, too much pollen and too busy a schedule this week have made the workouts short. I got most of the 2011 tax work done today. Will hopefully finish it tomorrow. Next week should be better.</p>
<p>These comments make me wonder: what is it that seems to make some people natural runners and others not? Are some people natural non-runners, such that no matter how dedicated to training they were, they could never, say, run a marathon?</p>
<p>Some people have more aerobic capacity, more fast twitch or slow twitch muscles and maybe just more endurance. However, anyone without a physical impairment can run 3 miles with a modest amount of training. The key is to SLOW DOWN. Once you make the 3, you train a little more and then it’s 6…</p>
<p>I’m sure genetics have a role. I was never a runner, even in high school. However, I think 38 years of smoking has played a not insignificant role.</p>
<p>I took pictures of a set of older racquets and will be putting them up for sale at a popular tennis site. Selling racquets is a pain in the neck (I’ve never done it before) but there is a healthy amount of liquidity in it. I sometimes give them away too - it looks like this time I will have to make a trip to UBS to ship them though.</p>
<p>I scheduled a match with someone that’s better than my usual weekly guy for Sunday so I should get a good workout on Friday and Sunday.</p>
She said her arms were sore the next day, but that was it ;)</p>