Info We Already Knew

Yeah, we already knew this: intensity counts more than mileage, so while walking is better than sitting, a pleasant stroll will be less beneficial than sprinting up the stairs every now and then. And here's something that seems obvious, but isn't: exercise is more important than weight loss for longer life. Now some might argue that this promotes a "fat but healthy" mentality, while others firmly believe that overweight is never healthy. 

How many folks have undergone bariatric surgery with the goal of achieving better mobility and health? It's not foolproof and many have still succumbed to heart failure and other fatal ailments. (Have you watched My 600 lb Life?) But exercise could kill you if you're not properly prepared. Or injure you when you least expect it, as when a disc ruptures or even just leaks a bit and compresses a nerve.

I'm recovered from my weeks of sciatic pain, but I'm in no hurry to resume a full workout routine. I do keep adding bits back, mindful of inadvertently tipping the balance toward sustained bodily insult. Yes, I'm stubborn but I'm not stupid (I hope). The elliptical program works fine today. Maybe I'll try Intervals tomorrow. Or 4 x 4 Norwegian. The second sets of Crunches and Dead Bugs are also okay. 

The only movement that gives me pause are the Air Squats, and not where I'd expect. Not in the knees, glutes or back, but rather, in the slight labral tear in my right shoulder when I squat down and my arms raise up simultaneously. I could try doing the squats with my arms bent and my hands clasped against my chest instead. Unconventional, but similar to doing a goblet squat without holding any weight? 

Again, the Lateral Shoulder Raises only get heavy after rep 12. I worried that my arms are  too tired. After shaking myself out at the Stretch Cage, I grab the top bars and proceed to squeeze out 15 reps. That felt good. Yes, I'm hoping for more. Eventually.

30 Sept 2021
Brisk Fasted Thursday

Precor elliptical
Program 1
Time: 30 min + 5 min cd (5464)
Distance: 2.80
Cal: 309
HR: 197-143, 82

Crunches 60 x2
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs x 2
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 15x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose 10s
Cobra Pose 30s
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga

DB Lateral Raises
10 lbs x 15 reps x 3

HGPU 15
 

Unexpected Weather

The preferred elliptical was misbehaving, refusing to load programs yet telling me to pedal faster. I used the one that doesn't register heart rate. (I should probably start doing cardio on some of the other machines.) I still feel sluggish, even more so today because it's hours earlier and I haven't had the benefit of caffeine in any form. It's just before 7 am and I'd like to be back home by 9ish to take the dogs to the park. I time the abbreviated core and stretch routine and it runs 20 minutes even though I've skipped several movements. 

After push-ups come air squats. I do those before the brief mat stretch and eye yoga exercise. That way, I won't be panting when I leave the Aerobics Room. The Floppy Girl makes a quick foray into the room but leaves without doing anything. She gives me a funny side glance as I pass her while she's on a shoulder machine. Is it because she saw me doing push-ups and air squats? (Yes, I admit that I added air squats because I'm terrified of becoming one of those old folks who squat down and find they can't get back up because their muscles have atrophied! And since I can't lift heavy, well...) I don't feel sore from yesterday's exertions, so obviously, I just need to build up stamina. The sky has darkened considerably by the time I drive home and I wonder if it's a passing disturbance or something more.

Rain, thunder and the occasional flash of lightning didn't deter the dogs from wanting a sodden romp. After a quick workout and brief foray to the supermarket to pick up snacks for tonight's Boy Scout Troop Court of Honor, I obliged and loaded them into the car. Even though I wore raincoat and rubbers, I spent most of my time inside the shed at the top of the dog park hill. Dogs didn't care to be indoors and spent their 20 minutes racing through wet leaves and between trees. The high tree canopy kept us safer than being in an open field. Luckily, they didn't argue with me when I leashed them and headed back to the car. Twenty minutes is a lot less than they're used to but they seemed satisfied to be out of the driving rain.

28 Sept 2021
Dead Precor Tuesday

Precor elliptical
Program 3
Time: 30 min + 5 min cd (5590)
Distance: 2.83
Cal: 314
HR: n/a

Crunches 60 x 2
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
Elbow Plank 60s
   Skip Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 15x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
   Skip Child’s Pose 10s
   Skip Cobra Pose 30s
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga

It's Not Always About the Steps

I felt sluggish today, probably because I hadn't really gotten enough sleep but still had to get my son off to school in the morning. When I felt like this last week, I crawled back into bed afterward. Today I have things to do, specifically, compiling and assembling the various printouts of reports and merit badges for each Scout in our Troop. Tomorrow is our first Court of Honor for the season and boys will be awarded the badges and ranks earned over the summer. We'll also provide snacks and games. So, no time to nap before taking pups to the park to play. I also eat my oatmeal because if I wait until after I get back from the park, then I'm too full to exercise properly.

A spot inside my arm initially felt like an insect bite but is behaving more like poison ivy. I take a picture of it with my phone just so I can examine it better because it's difficult to get close enough at the proper angle to see. Topical itch creams aren't helping, not that this spot really itches. It's actually a tad painful, but not quite a blister. I just hope it resolves soon. Never mind that I have absolutely no idea how I might've come into contact with poison ivy considering I know what the plant looks like and any on our property is low to the ground. No, I've not been crawling around through the weeds either.

I read an article about how 10,000 steps might not be the proper fitness goal for everyone. Wait! When did the goal become 10,000 steps?! I thought it was 7,000. Ugh. As we all know, cardio intensity counts for a lot in achieving fitness. Hence the popularity of HIIT cardio routines. The most useful information I glean is that moving faster than 130 steps per minute is considered "vigorous" activity while 100-129 is "moderate." I don't even do my cool downs at 130--feels too slow! Most of the time I aim for anything greater than 150 strides per minute. Today my speed fluctuated between 149 and 178. And so did my heart rate but we all know how unreliable those Precor HR monitors are. 

I added back another set of Dead Bugs to my routine. I'll probably add back the bent-knee crunches as well. My sciatica isn't painful but it is still present. I can feel the vague ache in my foot when I do the Cat/Camel stretch. It's been more than 2 months since I held DBs in my hands so I start slow and light: 3 sets of lateral raises with just 10 lbs and 15 reps. The last 3 reps of the last set are hard! I'm hoping I can still do at least a dozen pull-ups. I must be tired because the hardest part of pull-ups today is keeping my body from swaying. It's not usually this hard! I manage 13 and that's not so bad.

27 Sept 2021
Sunny Monday

Precor elliptical
Program 2
Time: 30 min + 5 min cd
Distance: 2.78
Cal: 305
HR: 82, 182-134

Crunches legs straight up 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs x 2
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 15x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose 10s
Cobra Pose 30s
Push-Ups 25
Air Squats 25
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga

DB Lateral Raises
10 lbs x 15 reps x 3 sets

HGPU 13

Enough Steps?

"Health experts" recommend 10,000 steps a day for good health, or the equivalent of roughly 5 miles. I'm sure I'm not getting nearly that much considering that I live in an area where you need to drive to get anywhere. The dog park isn't that far, but the dearth of sidewalks or even a decent shoulder precludes such a venture, especially with two skittish pups who don't listen very well. En route to the park today, I came across road flares and then a puzzling two-car collision. Neither occupant appeared injured and both were out of their vehicles. 

A girl holding a small dog stood next to her black sedan with a big dent in the front passenger door. Her car was oddly perpendicular to the flow of traffic. A middle-aged man seemed more distraught and his car had more damage: the front driver fender. I'm trying to recreate the accident in my head, but find it difficult to picture how this happened. Luckily I get waved through and the dogs don't miss any park time, unlike one of their friends who got turned around because of all the emergency vehicles later blocking the road. When it's time to return home, the site is pristine except for the stub of extinguished road flares.

I don't walk around the dog park as much as I used to, mainly because there's a lot of wet leaves now on the steep hillside. Wet leaves are notoriously slippery and I don't need any more excuses for knees, ankles, hips and lower back. I feel okay today though. Yesterday, I had the worst stomach cramping all day and all I could blame was the instant oatmeal I ate with the addition of dried cherries. I've eaten this brand of oatmeal before. I've eaten these dried cherries before. Today, I have a bowl of regular (not instant) oatmeal with an egg, dried cherries and a splash of maple syrup. No tummy troubles. Weird.

Today, I actually check to see how many steps the elliptical thinks I've taken after 35 minutes. There is a website that will calculate steps to miles and vice versa depending on how tall you are, whether you are male or female, and how fast you are moving. Apparently, you take a lot more steps to accomplish two and a half miles if you are walking slowly compared to jogging quickly. The difference between a fast walk and a jog (5751 vs 5592) is a difference of 1 mph. 

I'm apparently moving between a jog and a run at 5466 steps for 2.8 miles. I add the steps my phone tells me that I've logged so far today. (It doesn't know anything about the elliptical.) It says 4,017 steps or an additional 1.4 miles, which gets me closer to 10,000. I'm good with 9,483 steps but I can't do 2.8 miles on the elliptical every day, as much as I'd like to. I just can't do it. Maybe because I don't get enough sleep. Or maybe because there are so many other things to do... Crunches felt fine. I'm a tad sore in the shoulders, abs, and quads, which is puzzling. However, I did manage to finally move past a dozen pull-ups so I'm happy.

24 Sept 2021
Sunny Friday

Precor elliptical
Program 1
Time: 30 min (4658 Steps) + 5 min cd (5466)
Distance: 2.41 / 2.80
Cal: 309
HR: 77, 137-185

Crunches legs straight up 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 15x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose 10s
Cobra Pose 30s
Push-Ups 25
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga
Air Squats 25

HGPU 14

Equinox Autumn

I limped through the day yesterday because my hip twinged sporadically all day. I'm not certain but the inside of my left knee felt a bit tender on the elliptical for a few seconds and that might've been enough to cause the front hip issue. Again, I think it's where the sartorius muscle inserts, the sartorius being the longest muscle in the body. Its endpoint is at the tibia, just under the knee.

Today, it only twinged once this morning as I was getting up. It felt fine at the gym but I still went to the chiropractor later because sleeping on my side has thrown my jaw out of alignment. I have those sloppy ligaments and things slide out of place. My TMJ (temporomandibular joint) makes my mouth click if I open it too wide, which isn't very wide at all. I once had my jaw lock open and it was extremely painful to pop my mouth closed. The chiropractor made a few intense adjustments to my jaw with his thumbs, then gave me an exercise to practice: opening my lower jaw and skewing it to the left several times every few hours. This has helped lessen the intensity of the clicking in my head every time I open my mouth (like when I'm eating).

I got to the gym late and skipped hanging from the Smith because there were just too many HS kids in the weight room. Program 3 on the elliptical had me worried since most of the program is set with high inclines but pedaling backward didn't cause any lower back spasms. My knees were also okay and there were no further hip twinges. 

Adding a few crunches back to the routine had the surprising effect of making me aware of how sore my abs are. Otherwise I guess I'm oblivious to them! Still, I feel as if I could double the amount and not suffer any repercussions. But of course, I thought I could change the sheets on my son's captain's bed without any big whoop and instead suffered from such bad sciatica that I had to sleep on my face for 5 weeks. 

I do push-ups and wonder about keeping my head more perpendicular to the floor. When I look at the floor, the bangs on my face sweep the mat and eventually I feel increased pressure in my head. So I try looking forward but wind up hitting my stomach on the ground. Not what I'd intended. I'm not sure how to judge distance without actually looking at what you're aiming for.

At the Stretch Cage, I get past 12 reps but can only get my nose to the bar, not my chin so I only count that as a half. Clawing my way back to more reps... as long as I don't give myself tendonitis I'm good!

22 Sept 2021
Autumn Wednesday

Precor elliptical
Program 3
Time: 30 min + 5 min cd
Distance: 2.79
Cal: 307
HR: 82, 132-167

Crunches knee-bent 30
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 15x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose 10s
Cobra Pose 30s
Push-Ups 25
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga
Air Squats 25

HGPU 12.5

ReCalculating

I decided to do Program 2 in the traditional manner: 7.5 minutes forward, 7.5 backward. Repeat. Cool down pedaling forward. I was prepared to change direction if the incline made my hamstrings or lower back spasm, but it was fine. I did slow down a bit so not the best mileage I've ever achieved but enough to make me feel refreshed. It's 8 am and I have enough time to do an abbreviated core and sciatica workout before showering. I need a few things at the grocery store and still have to take pups to the park!

The things I skip are movements I don't need to do every day, like two sets of cat/camel stretches, or air squats. Or pull-ups. I even bag push-ups because I can feel pressure in my head increase when I do them, and now I have a new floater in my left eye that's driving me to distraction. It's shaped like an outline of a football most of the time, with a tail sticking out at the 1 o'clock position. The top line is thicker. Sometimes the floater appears to be a circle with a head at 1 and a tiny tail at 7 o'clock. When I'm at my laptop, I catch a glimpse of a shape moving in the unlit hallway and I think it's one of the dogs, or a mouse. Ugh.

Of course, floaters are common with aging eyes but can be a sign of something more serious, like retinal detachment. My brother suffered from that, and the symptom was the sudden appearance of a massive floater. He's never been able to rid himself of that floater either although there are websites that suggest antioxidants, taurine, exercise to increase blood flow, and in severe cases, a vitrectomy which removes the vitreous fluid from the eye (and replaces it with a different solution) in the hopes that the protein strands causing the defect will break into smaller pieces and be less bothersome.

I'll do push-ups and pull-ups tomorrow, but it might be a long time before I decide to move any DBs. I have an eye doc appointment in a few weeks to discuss my last Visual Field test, and the fact that the tech couldn't get a decent picture of my retinas (when was the last time that machine was serviced?) and kept asking me if I had either macular degeneration of diabetes. Uh, no to both. I'll have to mention this new floater as well...

21 Sept 2021
New Week Tuesday

Precor elliptical
Program 2
Time: 30 min + 5 min cd
Distance: 2.80
Cal: 308
HR: 140-178, 81

Stretch from Smith Machine 10s x 2

Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 10x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga

With Both Feet In

I took the plunge today and pedaled Program 1 with some minor modifications: at the steepest incline (13 when 0 is flat ground), I pedaled forward. Which meant that instead of switching from forward to backward to forward to backward every 7.5 minutes, I pedaled forward for 15 minutes and then backward for 14. The last minute of the program rises from incline 7 to 11 and I didn't want to chance a lower back spasm so I pedaled forward there and for the 5 minute "cool down."

I didn't quite make 2.8+ miles but it was close. Also not as if I spent the entire weekend being sedentary, although it did take us a ridiculously long time to drive into the city, mostly because the GPS software insisted on taking us through a tortuous and traffic-laden route on the East side. Once there, we walked around, sat for 45 minutes while enjoying a meal, and then stood in line and throughout the entire concert. Because Irving Plaza is a standing only venue unless you splurged and got VIP seats in the upper balcony. Some people did. 

We didn't so from 8 until midnight, we were on our feet. Those of us who were really feeling the music got to stomp and otherwise dance in place because it was shoulder to shoulder crowded. Some people wore masks (we did) and some didn't but everyone had to show proof of vaccination in order to gain entry to the venue. It's a recent but well-advertised NYC reg so a bit surprising when people showed up on line without their paperwork. They weren't allowed inside. My husband joked the next day that it felt like "Leg Day" because he was sore. I admit that I felt it when I squatted down with the dogs but I wouldn't call it "Leg Day" but that's because I still remember nearly crying trying to get down the subway stairs after working out at Better Bodies NYC when I was in my 20s.

I might add crunches back to the routine. My sciatica is so much better, but never totally gone. I can sleep on my back or side but there are still some seats that are too high and too hard for me to tolerate for any length of time. The car, however, is fine now. Yaaay! Today, the cat/camel doesn't make my foot hurt. Another Yaaay! I head to the Stretch Cage but a large girl beat me to it. She spends a few minutes stretching and I'm bored waiting so I get on the step mill for 5 minutes. It's been nearly 5 weeks! I only do 5 minutes and that's enough to make me feel sweaty all over again. I don't really want to be panting when I step up to the Stretch Cage! I manage to squeeze out a dozen pull-ups so I'm happy. 

When I get home, I find a "helpful" newsletter in my mailbox for senior citizens living in my county. Ugh. After I flip through it and determine there's zero useful info, I toss it into the recycled newsprint pile. I'll probably use it as "brown matter" for the compost bin. The only good thing about being over 60 so far is that my annual residence fee ($6) for the park is waived. Whoopee!

20 Sept 2021
New Week Monday

Precor elliptical
Program 1
Time: 30 min + 5 min cd
Distance: 2.78
Cal: 306
HR: 129-182

Stretch from Smith Machine 10s x 2

   Skip Crunches 60
Piriformis/Hip/Pencil Stretch
60 Dead Bugs
Elbow Plank 60s
Quick Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 10x
Fire Hydrants 25 x 2
Cobra Pose 30s
Bird Dogs 60s x 2
Child’s Pose
Cat/Camel stretch 12x
Push-Ups 25
Mild Mat stretch w 3 Eye Yoga
Air Squats 25

ClimbMill
5 min
Spd 6 (55 steps per minute)
Cal 39
Steps 270

HGPU 12