Fallen off the wagon this weekend but back to business tomorrow!
@MichaelNKat good advice, my concern at 61 is not injuring my " bakers cyst wonky knee" ( have been to rehab for this one) and shoulders just because they are always vulnerable.
I did a Pilates, " with bands"beginner lesson yesterday, and liked it lots, felt effective, challenging.
Are bands ok? Any more dangerous than weights?
I splurged and had my first session with a trainer this weekend. Loved it. Even though I go to the gym daily, there is much to learn from a specialist.
@SouthJerseyChessMom, free weights present certain challenges and risks that bands do not because weights involve moving mass through space and there are various risk associated with bad form and technique that don’t exist with bands where the resistance is progressive over the range of motion and comes from the elasticity and not the effect of gravity on a moving mass. The forces are different and the ways in which you can get into trouble with free weights are greater. That being said, even with bands, learning correct form is important. You are still using external resistance to load your muscles and joints and while the risk of injury with bands is a lot less, you want to learn correct form to avoid postural mistakes and compensations caused by muscular and strength imbalances.
So for example, whether using free weights or bands, when doing curls you want to brace your core to support your lumbar spine and want to avoid flexing and extending your torso as you contract your biceps against the resistance. You want to keep you shoulders down and back instead of allowing them to shrug up or protracted forward (something which over time can cause injury or pain in anterior (front) capsule of your shoulder complex. When doing squats, you want to learn how to properly hinge at the hips as you sit back and lower your butt, while bracing your core, and how to drive through your glutes so as to maintain stability in your lumbar spine and avoid making the squat quad-centric which can put added stress on your knees. When doing pulling exercises like rowing, you again want to know how to brace your core, keep your shoulders depressed and retracted and how to activate your scapular muscles to engage in the exercise movement. While risk of injury due to not doing these types of things correctly is less with bands than with fee weights, you still don’t want to develop bad form and habits that stick with you as you progress with resistance training. And for those who are really beginners at exercising and don’t have a baseline of strength and flexibility, injuries can occur from bad form even when just using bands due to repetitive motion against external resistance.
Pilates is a great system of exercise and doing mat Pilates with resistance bands is a great way to get many of the benefits of using a Reformer. Pilates, as a system, is based on very precise and often subtle postural alignment and movement patterns. Form is critical to achieving the benefits. I’ve been involved in the fitness game in one form or another for 47 years and have a pretty good background and sense of body alignment and form. I do not do Pilates frequently and on those occasions when I take a Pilates class, I’m amazed at the adjustments I’m coached to make to assure that I am doing the movements with correct form and focus. If the Pilates you did was on your own using a DVD, you could probably benefit greatly by taking a couple of private mat sessions with a good instructor.
^ excellent overview, and special thanks @MichaelNKat
Yeeks, so much to learn,about safety!!. Thanks will investigate safe positions, and good advice about trainer.
Whole 30 day three- discovery how delicious roasted sliced sweet potatoes are !
Don’t worry @MichaelNKat - I was just wondering about this ‘technique’. Believe me, I am not jumping into any severe thing. I am only a few pounds over my next ‘plateau’ level down, so being conscientious of what I am eating and cutting out a lot of things dietary, smaller portions, I am on a very slow roll, but going the right direction.
I also still have one training session left that I hope to schedule once I become more active and get some input from the trainer on things I can do to slowly do more every day. I need to be careful with left arm/shoulder - not with injury, just because there is arthritic soreness - body bone scan actually showed up more deterioration on the other side…
Glad you mentioned the rowing machine. That is one machine I do like.
Correct form, focus, safety. Big with me.
Michael,
What exercises do you recommend for quads/lower legs that are not hard on the knees? I’d like to build up more strength around my knees so they are well supported and have less work to do, if you know what I mean.
Forgot to mention, I do use knee strap thingys when I work out, but my knees still hurt.
I am trying to get a grandfathered deal, or some continuation of the deal with our hospital’s wellness center - two centers near me, both with wonderful pool facilities, which is what I use there - although can do classes (included with my membership) and also personal trainer if I want to pay for that. Have it paid through 2016, so I should be going/using. Used the dietitian who I knew was great from my friend - and know what I have to do there.
Have modified diet today and clear liquid tomorrow for Wed procedure.
Motivated to avoid purchasing things at grocery store for H and me that are not conducive to weight loss. We are going to win!
@SOSConcern, I wasn’t entirely clear; the rowing I was referring to was dumbbell or barbell rows. On a rowing machine, the technique is very much different because there is a flex and extension of tour torso that is part of the stroke and release.
@jym626, that’s a bit of a tough one since the most effective quad, hamstring and knee stabilization exercises will involve knee flexion and extension and therefore stresses on the knees. You can avoid that, however, by trying variations of single straight leg lifts laying on your back and on your stomach, using ankle weights and a stability ball to add to the challenge as you get stronger. If your knees can take it, you can do squats but limit your range of motion. Or you can try double and single leg squats adding in a stability challenge by doing them on a Bosu where you will not have as deep a range of motion. The stability challenge forces you to focus on contracting your Quads and glutes/hamstrings to maintain hip and knee stability and the single leg versions can be particularly effective. Single leg squats standing on a step bench can also present quite a challenge that doesn’t require a deep range of motion that might bother your knees.You can also try quad extensions and leg curls on a machine but I’m not real fond of them because of the different ergonomics of different machines and the potential sheer stress that quad extensions can put on your knees. Finally, you can try single leg leg presses on a leg press machine. which are often used as a rehab exercise for knees. Just don’t do dual leg leg presses; the stress put on your lumbar spine isn’t worth the benefit.
Thanks. I am not familiar with a Bosu. What is that? Also, given my history of (thankfully stable) osteopenia, weight bearing exercises are I believe recommended. Hmmm… we had ankle weights around here somewhere… Is there video you can link of the exercises you are recommending?
Today I was back on the treadmill (2.5 mi, no incline today, 31.5 minutes) and bike (10 min- I forget the resistance). Squats hurt the knees (have arthritis and chondromalacia patella), so those would be lower on my list.
If you take a small stability ball, cut in in half and put a hard bottom on it, you have a Bosu. You can do exercises on it with the inflated side up or own. If you go to the Bosu website there are probably videos of how to use it there and there are a ton of videos on YouTube. I’ll see if I can find videos of some of the other exercises.
OOh, THAT thing!! I never knew the name. Thanks . Our trainer had us stand on one and do exercises.
Am at the gym. Don’t want to be here. Want to go home. But don’t like to be home when the cleaning people are there. So I am at the gym. Don’t want to be at the gym.
The right amount of exercise.
Found out my great plan with the health center went up in price, but still a good deal for me. Now I will feel like I need to go more than a few times a month to ‘break even’ on amount per visit.
Today was 35 min bike followed by training session. It was good. Eating totally on track yesterday and today, had too much wine over the weekend.
What intrigues me is this: MyFitnessPal has assigned me the amount of calories to lose one pound a week. But when I plug in exercise, it gives me more calories for the day. I remember being on WW and indeed exercise got you more points for the week. But, obviously, it’s better to not use the extra calories. But, also nice to know that I can go for a kick behind workout on Saturday or Sunday and “earn” some leeway in eating, if needed.
What a difference tracking every bite makes, huh? I zeroed in on something I was being totally bad with right away doing that and that was peanut butter. Of course, I should have known better::::::waving hello::::::::yes, that is being a dummy.
Nice article, SOSConcern. Thanks.
Tracking is helpful. Tonight I was hungry. Ate an avocado. Not lo cal, but healthier than other options.
Took a barefoot two mile beach walk before my PT today. Didn’t cost a thing and I got seashells as a bonus. But did not eat healthily after. I know exactly what I’m eating unfortunately. Tomorrow I will learn if my ankle PT helps my bowling; can’t really get worse so should get better! And by better I mean breaking 50 LOL.
@jym626 You must be feeling so much better since you’ve started working out. Can you feel the difference?
@VaBluebird, the free version of MyFitnessPal has you set your activity level which will impact on your daily calorie allotment. This gives you a ballpark number but you can overwrite it and enter in a “custom” number. It takes some trial and error to dial it in. When you actually exercise and enter it, your daily calorie goal doesn’t change but your remaining calories for the day will be adjusted by the calorie count for the exercise. My suggestion would be that you ignore this and instead focus on customizing your daily calorie allotment so that you are achieving your desired weight loss. I suggest this for a couple of reasons. First, the calories burned by exercising are frequently overstated and often very overstated. In my own field testing, comparing MyFitnessPal exercise calories against known reliable numbers generated by other methods, I have found that mfp overstates calories burned by cycling often by 30-50%! Moreover, the daily calorie allotments you are given by most of these programs are ballpark numbers and often need to be tweaked to give a person a truly individualized calorie goal that will achieve desired weight loss. So if you eat back your exercise calories, there’s a good likelihood that you will be eating too much to lose weight at the rate you want and could even end up gaining weight, causing you to become very frustrated and throwing up your hands.
What I suggest you do instead is set up MyFitnessPal based on your daily activity level and a reasonable amount you want to lose each week. Try to stick to the daily calorie allotment you are given without taking into account added calories from entering your exercise. Over time, manually adjust your daily allotment to yield the weight loss rate you have set as your goal. This way, any calories you burn exercising will just enhance your outcomes and you will not end up overeating.