I hate swimming indoors, too. I prefer swimming in the rain to swimming in an indoor pool, even.
Favorite method of compression after heavy work-out is to spend time in a cool pool- walking, running, stroking, whatever. No post-work-out pain or inflammation after that!
<p>I love swimming in the rain, since there are very few people in a pool, the best time. I am way past any kind of post-work-out pains, they just do not happen any more, well only for short time after I switch from swimming back to gym in a fall, the saddest time of the year.<br>
What works for post-work-out pain according to swim coaches is hot tub. I do not know…</p>
<p>idad…If that is a benefit I’ll take it! 
I don’t feel anything in the glutes/hips when I do them as I am concentrating so hard on tightening/using my abs to stay in place or roll in out to maintain balance. I can’t be on my stomach on the ball as I have an injury in the mid back area along with the low back and it still hurts to move without that area supported. That is where I had the trigger point injections. The Pt said this is a very odd place to have an injury. Crazy! I have always been a stomach sleeper and I just can’t get comfortable sleeping on my side. One of my goals is to return to sleeping on my stomach! I am not supposed to do lat pulldowns but I can do the pullback rows. I need to do some more research on what I can do. When I was released from PT the advice was “if there is pain, don’t do it”.</p>
That’s Mike Boyle’s advice for everyone, injured or not, when it comes to exercise.
<hr>
Sound like you are probably “extension-intolerant”, meaning that arching your back backwards hurts. That’s when happens when you sleep on your stomach, especially with your head elevated on a pillow. Something like a [prone</a> cobra](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv3OdfmYrJ8]prone”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iv3OdfmYrJ8) would probably hurt like hell! Pretty common. If you have a disk bulging to the rear, bending the spine backwards is going to press on the disk and cause pain.
Ideally, you would like to strengthen the abs. Their function is to prevent the back from arching backwards. The problem is that the failure point (where you get tired) in a lot of the abs exercises (like plank) is sagging into back extension. I’m guessing that McGill would suggest short exercises, maybe just holding for a few seconds at a time, more often. This will let you build strength without the long plank holds that will cause pain. It’s all about using your “pain-free capacity” (whatever that is) to strengthen the core.
Hips are important because they are supposed to hinge. When they don’t hinge, the lower back has to bend to compensate.
<hr>
I’m mildly extension intolerant. I don’t do well sleeping on my stomach and I can feel tightness in extension at the point of exhaustion/failure in a lot of exercises.
McGill loves the cat camel warmup – five reps in each direction, nice and easy, never pushing to the extreme in either direction, never forcing it. This feels great when my back is stiff. It’s the first thing he has disk injury people do before trying to do a few reps of bird dog or plank or side plank.
[Back</a> Exercise - Cat and Camel - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXRsjICsGnc]Back”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXRsjICsGnc)
If I were you, I would try that and then see if I could do just three reps per side of birddog to see if that hurts:
[Elite</a> Abs 2 - Bird Dog - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1kranTPgxI]Elite”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L1kranTPgxI)
<p>
</p>
<p>That makes sense. The tendency on lat pull downs is to arch the back, which is probably going to make you wince and say “Owwwwww”…</p>
<p>3.2 miles on the treadmill today. 1.5 run, .25 walk, 1 mile run, walk .1, run the rest. It took a long time, lol! It’s going to be a slow 5k on Memorial Day.</p>
<p>The list of exercises cats prefer:
squats
planks
push-ups</p>
<p>I will add leg lifts. As soon as I lie down on my side my cat comes over, rolls onto her side, and takes a nice long stretch. She does not, however, switch sides when I do.</p>
<p>^She supports you! So cute…</p>
<p>Dynamic Warm Up: world’s greatest, plyo hand walk, etc</p>
<p>300 yard sprint - 2 minute rest- 300 yard sprint.
Sprint was indoors, despite beautiful weather, and the 300 yards were 10 x 30 yards on the turf, so lots of quick turns, which tended to slow you down. Took about 1:20, but HR had just barely come down for round two.</p>
<p>2 Minutes each station, with a short rest between stations. 3 Rounds:</p>
<p>KB swings (16kg)
butterfly situps
manmakers with 15 lb. dumbbells
Body weight slides (stretched out, valslides under the feet, wrist grab thingies to hold on to. Propelling yourself backwards over the turf. Don’t know what they are called, but they were a killer core and shoulder workout, because you were essentially in a plank position the entire time)</p>
<p>Then did a 1 hour walk.</p>
<p>Thanks iddad for some good news. I love prone cobra and supermans etc. and only sleep on my stomach, so I am not “extension-intolerant”. Yay!! I am hoping that you can tell me that this has some kind of great, hidden benefit? ;)</p>
<p>My lower body flexibility is so terrible (touching my toes? fuggedaboutit!), despite regular stretching.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Propelling forwards, they are called alligator walks (in NROL for Abs). Just staying stationary and moving backwards and forwards, they are called “body saws”. Either way, they are absolutely brutal. NMINN definitely doesn’t want to try these, because they’ll drop you into back extension faster than you can say, “my abs are on fire”.</p>
<p>Some people can’t arch backwards without pain. Others can’t bend forward without pain. Still others can’t handle compression – sit in a chair, grab the chair seat sides with both hands and pull yourself down. That’s will make some folk wince. Everyone’s a little different. It seems like one of the keys to back rehab is identifying what exactly causes pain and then learning what core strengthening you can do and how much of it you can do without pain. For example, NMINN would like to strengthen the abs and obliques that prevent arching the back under load, or even in simple day to day activities.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s hip hinge! Or lack thereof. Something that plagues almost all of us. I’m finally starting to see some results from a steady diet of hip activation drills. The problem is that most of us don’t have the hip flexibility to even do the hip flexibility drills well enough that they are even worth doing!</p>
<p>Well, fortunately I am able to execute a decent hip hinge on my kettle bell swings and deadlifts, as well as squats. But anything that requires straight legs – toe touches, leg lifts, or heaven forbid, splits, is not happening.</p>
<p>Alas, no future as a ballerina or can-can girl…</p>
I have been doing this simple little exercise in my warmup for a month or two, now. It seems to be making a difference.
[Active</a> Straight Leg Raise Correction.m4v - YouTube](<a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nIN0Gem5l3o#t=173s]Active”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=nIN0Gem5l3o#t=173s)
<p>Burpee fusion for me. The usual. Three six minute sets. Total of 108 swings (40 lbs) and 54 burpees with pushups. I’m getting real honest to god air on the squat jumps now. </p>
<p>The usual in terms of panting like a dog by the end, too. These Cosgrove style “metabolic” intervals will flat kick your butt.</p>
<p>All part of my self-imposed anti-running kick.</p>
<p>interesting video. I do both of the stretches currently, both laying down and standing, but I only do one leg at a time. I’ve never seen the variation with the second leg coming up. Will have to try it. Thanks</p>
<p>Today’s numbers:</p>
<p>Cals 1470
Fat 97g
Carbs 12 g
Fiber 2 g
Protein 125 g
Sugars 6 g</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The second leg is actually the one that’s working. I use a resistance band on the first leg, but anything would work.</p>
<p>This is part of a 7 exercise warm-up/corrective sequence that Boyle has been using. Each exercise is specifically targeted at improving one of the 7 tests on the Functional Movement Screen (FMS).</p>
<p>Tight hamstrings seem to be the limiting factor in this one.</p>
<p>I actually did the FMS a while ago and did pretty well, except for the, you guessed it, parts involving tight hamstrings.</p>
<p>6.5 miles, 3.5 @ 8:31, 3.0 @ 9:30. Some stretching and free weights before work and some hamstring stretches on the Smith Machine (it’s easy to lower or raise the bar). Doing two shorter runs per day is definitely easier than one long run but I’m sure glad that I loaded up on clothes late last year and early this year. I’m going through a lot of tech clothes this week and it’s only Tuesday.</p>
<p>I have the book Movement on my kindle. I was trying to read it for quite some time, but it’s thick! Definitely not an easy read… I’m about halfway through it and I was reading 2-3 pages a day minimum for about 5 weeks! I need to get back to it. I want to eventually take the FMS and the SFMA (the clinician version) in the future…</p>