Getting into shape

[Freed Roger]

Schneck is still not good. Starting to worry that it's something a little more serious than a tweaked muscle. It's hard to explain, but sometimes the pain can be pretty strong just sitting and then I can move my neck around and it goes away. So something is getting pinched or something. If I put my palm on my forehead and move the skin too and fro, I feel some pain in the back of my skull. Lifting my arms I feel pain in the back of my head. I feel general tightness down the trapezoid. May need to see a doc. Pushups are out, I tried doing a test today and 1 pushup and clearly that is aggravating it. This is the same side where I have a torn labrum and torn rotator cuff muscles, I'm sure it's related/contributing.

On the neck -as prescribed, I'm on a traction thing and doing some neck flexion type exercises. Last couple of days were a cluster and simply could not get them done. And I've regressed with the nerve pain because of it. these therapy things are way more effective than the meds and roids.

Since this occurred, I've done some experimenting on the chinup bar -I'm sure that it triggered my issues. I think chinups can be a safe-good exercise. It was my going to muscle exhaustion and straining for that last one on an exercise that involves the back-is bad news. Stop while you are ahead.

As someone that hadn't seen a doc in 9 years until earlier in the week, I'd recommend seeing the doc. My blissful ignorance towards the hereditary bad cholestoral level has come to a halt. statins for life.

Bulldog - that sounds awful. I feel like a real puss compared to that.

[jim]

I popped my pelvis out of place on the right side. They put it in place on Wed. I am still in pain. Going back Monday.

Ouch. And you had the back issues as well. Related?

[JCShutout]

Man, sorry for the rough luck FB. It just sucks to be on the DL.

So, I've been strength training for a tick under two months now and I was wondering how much you all workout. I know folks have probably said it 17 pages back or whatever, but I was just curious. I look through this thread once in awhile and the impression I get is that you all workout fairly nonstop.

I'm basically working on squats and pull ups one day and push ups and leg raises on a second day. (Building up to those exercises with easier starters) Eventually I'll start on bridges and handstand pushups on a third day when I've reached a certain point in the exercises I'm doing now. On each day I just do a light warm up and 2-3 sets of as many as I can do in perfect form, so if I even start to kip or strain away from proper form, I stop. Doesn't take long, but I log everything and I'm making strides.

2-3 times a week I do martial arts/cardio, though less OCD and more just having fun and enjoying it, though currently once a week I do a 2 hour intense training since I've got a couple tournaments coming up and want to have the stamina to go 12 rounds if necessary. That heavy cardio and sparring once a week actually gives me a lot of pep for the rest of the week instead of tiring me out. Maybe it just feels good to kick people.

That sounds like a lot, and maybe it is. How often do you all lift and workout?

[jim]

I workout 6-7x per week, 3 days I work on upper body but I think that is too much and prob. why I hurt myself. Those were 3 max effort days - I would only do bench 1 day per week because of wrist and shoulder issues that it would flare up, but always a burnout. I work up to a final set of 4x235 and then when I finished that I would immediately go to a burnout set of 135. The other two days are a dumbell routine with lots of pushups - 250+ where the last set is a burnout. Again, too many and I'm cutting back because I think the pushups and bench are the sources of my neck issue.

Tue/Thur/Sat are cardio + core days. Cardio lately has been running intervals, I'm trying to improve my mile sprint time, so it's shorter stuff. Saturday my wife and I go for a 4 mile slow run together. I do 20 minutes of core workout on those days.

Fri I add an hour spin class to the workout on top of the lifting, and then Sunday is a free day to do what I feel like. My wife and I are going to hit the spin class today since it's so cold. Friday and Saturday are long workouts - Friday at least 90 minutes if not 2 hours and Saturday is all morning because I end it by playing some basketball.

That's my deal, but it's changing some because like I said I've overdone the weight training. I need to back off, I'm in my 50's and I just can't hit it this hard. Right now I'm still lifting because I'm figuring out what I can do that won't aggrevate the neck thing. Unfortunately bench, incline, pushups, pullups ... not good. I can do curls, tricep pulls, chest machine and that's about it.

This is my winter routine, I do less in the summer because I'm fishing.

I workout nonstop basically, especially in the winter. I think I am more or less addicted at this point, and I can tell this because I just can't stop even with an injury. Yesterday for example - just wanted to test it - and did 50 pushups. Felt ok doing them, 10 minutes later I started getting this dull ache in my neck up into my head and was really uncomfortable.

[jim]

How is the GRB walking wounded today? I think I've finally WebMD'ed myself, a strained semispinalis capitis is my diagnosis:

http://thewellnessdigest.com/semispinal ... head-pain/

Reading it sounds like the pullups I was doing probably really pushed a small problem over the edge. It's interesting that it's so hard to identify. The pain doesn't really come from the muscle that is strained. The muscle that I feel is in the back of my skull, and until I WebMD'ed myself I didn't realize that muscle in the back of your skull is what makes you wrinkle your forehead. You would think a muscle in the front of your skull does that, but it's the back. And that makes sense now that when I put my palm over my forehead and press and then move the skin up and down, I feel soreness in the back of my head.

I did some lifting today, avoiding anything where I raised my hands over my head. I did some tricep work, some curls with very little weight, and decline press with not much weight. That amount of exercise seemed to make a very small difference, but not like the other day when I tried benching and ended up needed ibuprofen and ice to relieve the pain.

I now wonder about something else... I had LASIK 5 years ago and a few months ago my left eye started getting blurry. That was the eye they intentionally undercorrected to help with reading. At first I just figured it was the LASIK going bad, my wife had LASIK and both of her eyes have worsened so seemed logical. Now there is a little part of me wondering if the neck thing is related, because I"ve read this can cause blurred vision. Going to a eye doc Thurs so I can get this looked at, probably end up with a pair of glasses for TV watching and driving.

[jim]

My neck is still messed up. I think I'm looking at a long spell here without lifting to try to heal it up. I tried doing just a little bit on Monday and that was a big mistake.

Good news is my mile time has improved even more - 7:06 this morning. My son who runs in college gave me some pointers - I've added what he calls a "tempo run" to my routine. A tempo essentially is running as hard as you can for a distance greater than what you are aiming for. He was saying I should do 3 miles etc.. but that ain't happening. I just did 1.5 mile tempo run, where I'm just off the pace of my mile time. Tempo runs are the worst. He always complained about those days, and now I know why. But I do see the benefit, and I swear I felt the benefit this morning. I just had more in the tank the last 1/4 of a mile.

Protecting the old joints - I still only run 4x per week. Mon is short intervals - I do some 1/4 miles and then one 1/2 mile. Wed is that god damned tempo run, Fri is a timed mile, and then tomorrow is a "long" run which is 4 miles with my wife, nice and easy like.

I'll see how far this goes. I'm sure I can go under 7 by March, not sure how much under though.

Weight is 198.25.

[M1IRONMIKE]

My neck is still messed up. I think I'm looking at a long spell here without lifting to try to heal it up. I tried doing just a little bit on Monday and that was a big mistake.

Good news is my mile time has improved even more - 7:06 this morning. My son who runs in college gave me some pointers - I've added what he calls a "tempo run" to my routine. A tempo essentially is running as hard as you can for a distance greater than what you are aiming for. He was saying I should do 3 miles etc.. but that ain't happening. I just did 1.5 mile tempo run, where I'm just off the pace of my mile time. Tempo runs are the worst. He always complained about those days, and now I know why. But I do see the benefit, and I swear I felt the benefit this morning. I just had more in the tank the last 1/4 of a mile.

Protecting the old joints - I still only run 4x per week. Mon is short intervals - I do some 1/4 miles and then one 1/2 mile. Wed is that god damned tempo run, Fri is a timed mile, and then tomorrow is a "long" run which is 4 miles with my wife, nice and easy like.

I'll see how far this goes. I'm sure I can go under 7 by March, not sure how much under though.

Weight is 198.25.

hey jim.....i ran up to taco gringo on my way to work.....just sayn....i'm ready for mexico!!!!

[Freed Roger]

From this branch of the old walking wounded:

Neck nerve still messed up. getting better but it is absolutely a rehab project. Can't miss a day or I regress. The exercise - dips - that body weight stuff has always been easy for me, I used to do dips as a filler exercise, when some other gym area is tied up. carefully tried 1 the other night -shooting pain on the one side. If I tried it fully, I'd fall on my face.

finding out about high LDL cholestoral as result of doctor visit for above is fortunate overall, but in the short-term - the above, and catching cold - having trouble reading or trouble-shooting the way I feel.

Anyways, injuries and setbacks can be a blessing for old school ritualistic types that learned their methods in the "no pain no gain" era. If you try to do competitive stuff, running or whatever - I still think a dose of good pain and uncertainty is necessary so it's not foreign to you in the competition.

But for everyday working out -meh. Since my daughter isn't supposed to be using the main gym at her age, I hang by her on a bike for a half hour on the hill workout - staying mostly aerobic, with the few pushes. then she does her stuff on the track, and I just do what my intuition tells me is right for the day. No plan. Can hardly touch weights. So it's core, situps, I can kind of do leg lifts on roman chair without my nerve pain screaming. Jump rope. Box jumps. some lungy sort of thing called Hot Salsa.

Tested this methodology out last night. Ran for the first time in about 8 days last night (7miles) -which is probably the longest layoff from running I took in 3 years. Felt like I haven't lost much in speed, mostly just lost a bit on the endurance end.

Then after I did this, I listened to a podcast interviewing a guy that won a lot of triathalons - Brad Kearns. He seemed to preach an "intuitive" approach to training, rather than hammering out someone else's (or even your own ritualistic) program. Some days, he'd loosely plan a 50 mile bike ride, and cut it short at 10 because he felt off- likewise, on a good day he'd go go with it, and exceed the loose agenda. Good logic, he mentioned we are all genetically/physically different -so why should attempt training the same as others. Definitely learn/sample from others, but figure out what works for you.

JCshutout seems to be figuring it out. IronMike seems to be figuring it out.

Problem is when you have something else, like injury that throws off the read.

Good workout for my phalanges just now

[GeddyWrox]

When I first met JC, there was no way he coulda done a pull up. I'm seriously impressed man!

[jim]

I like the "loose" approach. Listen to you body and mind - what does it need? Maybe just a sancho that day (mike will get that).