Category: fitness

I’ve been throwing in some self-indulgence after a workout lately.  My gym has a good whirlpool, so after a hard workout, I soak for awhile.

I should probably be doing it for no other reason than soreness prevention, but I’m really doing it because it feels good.  I don’t always have time after a workout.  On days when I’m teaching computer classes, especially if I’m also opening at the gym, I’ve barely enough time to get in a short workout on the weights. Forget a good swim and a soak.

I kind of wish that the end of the day would be a good time to work out.  With my schedule and basic personal rhythm, morning workouts tend to get done.  I’ll blow off an evening workout.  But the wonderful relaxation I feel after a hard swim and a good soak in the hot tub would definitely be conducive to a good night’s sleep.

Thing is, if I work out in the mornings, I’m considerably lesslikely to blow off the workout, which is more or less why I do it.

Question for the female swimmers, how in hell do you keep a decent manicure?  I’m finding that for the most part, my nails are softer and polish peels right off.  I’m not talking long daggers here, but nicely-filed shortish fingernails.

The expression BMI gets thrown out a lot lately, but it seems to me that very few people — either health professionals talking about weight, or people who talk about the fact that skinny is a lousy metric of health understand very well.

BMI means Body Mass Index. It’s a height/weight ratio. That’s it.  It doesn’t measure what the weight is composed of (muscle, bone, adipose tissue, water bloating or anything).  It’s just what you get when you step on a scale.  Most adult male athletes would be considered overweight or obese by BMI standards.  Clearly this is a measurement that leaves much to be desired.

It was developed somewhere between 1830 and 1850 by Adolphe Quetelet, a Belgian scientist who was trying to develop a discipline known as Social Physics. This was basically the study of Man by means of statistical measurements.  Because many of his theories were not well thought of by his peers, the discipline of sociology supplanted it not long afterwards.

Quetelet did work in the public health sector, where his formula of BMI was applied to issues of health of the day.  Thing is, these measurements were used to establish an average based on the 1840-1850 set of measurements he took.  “Average” was then taken as a baseline for “acceptably healthy”.

Friends, barring cancer, almost anyone reading this is far healthier than the average person of the 19th century.  Our mothers were better nourished while we were gestating.  Our medical care — even if it was sub-standard, was better than was even available then.    Losing a child has gone from something routine that most mothers faced to something unusual and unexpected.  I have a friend who’d be facing death in childbirth in the next few weeks if it weren’t for obstetrical advances.

I wanna chuck the BMI for one reason: It’s bad science. It’s a statistical measurement based on environmental conditions that no longer exist compared to conditions we no longer find desirable.  We’ve got better ways to measure health now.  Let’s use ’em.

There are a lot of reasons swimming is not the world most popular form of cardio.  It’s expensive (hell, I got a part time job at a gym just so I could use the facilities instead of having to pay out of pocket for them!), it’s time-consuming (you won’t get a good swim in for under an hour, what with the getting to the gym, changing, showering, etc.), and it’s difficult.

Yes, difficult.   If you come to me bragging about how your father tossed you in the water when you were five and now you’re like a fish, I’ll laugh at you.  You probably don’t have the technique down to swim laps comfortably or effectively.

That last seems to be the biggest sticking point.  I’m trying to think of cardio that’s more technique-based than swimming and frankly I can’t!  Though I’m sure a Helpful Reader will point one out.

No-one would say that I’m a poor swimmer – prolly not even those Total Immersion folks.  But there are still techniques I don’t have down, even averaging three miles a week.

I’ve decided I’m spending the summer becoming fluid with bilateral breathing.  When doing the crawl[1] I usually breathe on every fourth stroke.  That’s always breathing to the right for me.  It’s lousy technique.  And it occurs to me that if I’m swimming a mile a week[2] with bad technique, then I’m practicing bad swimming.

So now I’m forcing myself to breathe every third stroke and switch sides every single time.  I’m clumsy as hell in the water right now and feeling like a dork for waiting as long as I have to force myself to use proper technique.  As a martial artist, I should know better.

Martial artists are usually cautioned in one way or another not to train their non-dominant side to be stupid.   You’re constantly drilling so you can lead equally well with your dominant or non-dominant limbs.

When I go to Virginia Beach this summer, I want to try to swim from the pier at 14^th Street down to Rudee Inlet[3].  Open water swimmers really should be good a bi-lateral breathing so they can compensate comfortably for surf conditions, current and that sort of thing.

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[1] The stroke isn’t freestyle, it’s the crawl. Most people use that stroke in freestyle events because you want to use the fastest stroke possible in said event, and the crawl is fast.

[2] I break up my laps with three different strokes to use different muscle groups and try to avoid a rotator cuff injury.

[3] The challenge won’t be the distance.  I swim farther than that every workout.  It’s the fact it’s open water.  Very different from a pool!

I got my lazy ass into the pool for the first time in a week today.

After my gall bladder attack, I just didn’t feel motivated.  I even asked the doctor if working out was okay (secretly hoping for a “no” and an excuse not to).   He laughed and said that as long I was not in the middle of an attack I should be fine.

So, no excuses.  I swam.

They keep that pool too damn warm in the summer.  I know they do it because of the people in aqua fitness and aqua therapy rehabs that just cannot take the cold.  Dandy.  In the summer, competition pool coldness is fine with me.  Ah well.  I wouldn’t want it to be too cold for people that really need the water workout and the warmth, anyway.

I had oatmeal for breakfast in my new lowfat diet.  Since I’ve been having oatmeal for breakfast for the past few months, this was not exactly a huge change.  I’ve been using powdered milk as creamer instead of half-n-half.  I like half-n-half better, but I’ll be goddamned if I buy those stupid low-fat “products”.  I’m not bloody well going to buy low fat cheese.  I’m just eating nonfat yogurt and gonna be done with it.  It’s summer, the produce is good.  There’s plenty of real food I can eat — I love fish, turkey and chicken.  Salads are my friend.  Strawberries are almost in season.  I make a mean beans and rice.  I bet I can come up with a really tasty yogurt-based salad dressing, too.  I’m a great cook and don’t need to fall back on fake food.

Thank God I can still cook in wine.

This week seems to be Have Fun at Work Week here at Figart Consulting.

Got a couple of clients who have a quirky sense of humor.  God, it I love it when that happens.

Being a freelance writer is funny.  Sometimes you get these really interesting projects.  If you have a particular hobby horse, you sometimes get paid to ride it.  I always like that.  All my projects this week are stuff I actually have a real interest in.  This does happen more often than not, because if you’re really into something, your proposals start sounding all excited.  And let’s be frank, if you’re hiring a writer, having one that’s enthusiastic about your topic is always nice.  But sometimes you get some weird, or boring stuff.

Sometimes you have a project where when you start researching it starts to scare the living bajesus out of you.  I had one not too long ago.  It was Friday, Press Enter, The Happiness Patrol and 2001: A Space Odyssey all rolled into one.  I’ve uncurled from my little ball, though.

But not this week, thank goodness.  I’ve got a couple of ones where I’ve rushed home from the gym with an Oh boy!  I get to noodle about something I like and get paid for it!

Why, yes, I do love my job.

Lovely workout this morning. While I didn’t get in at 5:30, I did pretty much started my day with a workout, a shower and a nice walk.

Now that I’ve got pics of myself out there, I feel free to rant about something.

I work for the gym where I work out. It’s a nice. You know, friendly — a clean, well-lighted place.

One of the things that one runs across in the fitness industry[1] quite often is someone who wants to get more fit but is afraid they won’t “fit in” – too heavy, too old, too many disabilities…

Friends, the picture in my previous post was hardly that of a svelte gym bunny. And I don’t catch any shit from anyone. Ever[2].

My gym, having a good, warm pool is very popular among the elderly for aqua fitness. There are people who come in who need walkers.

But they come in.

If you want to join a gym and are worried about whether or not you’ll fit in?

Stop worrying. No-one really cares. Well, okay, some of the hard cores will approve of someone making a start on the fitness journey. Other than that, it’ll be mostly blissful indifference ‘cause they’re sweating too hard to worry about it. But a lot of the fear is in your mind. Seriously.

It took me a long time to get the guts to go into the weight room. I was doing my dumbbell workouts, and I was seeing a lot of success with them. I was happy with my progress, but wanted to go ahead and start using the weight room at the gym where I had a pool membership. But I was scared – scared of being mistreated, scared of being made to feel I didn’t belong, scared of looking like an idiot.

If you read things like Testosterone Nation and some such, with a lot of their very harsh comments about fat people, it’s understandable that you might be a little scared. I’m increasingly of the opinion that it’s a loudmouthed minority[3] who really only behave that way from behind the computer screen. I mean come on, if a woman is strong enough to lift a 15 lb kettlebell, she’s strong enough to brain you with it from behind. Who wants to risk that? You’re much more likely to face online nastiness than you are actually in the gym. Not trashing the site. There’s some good info there. Just read the articles and ignore the chest beating. Or, hang it up and go to Stumptuous for your info. It’s just as macho. <grin>

I talk a lot about getting fit and what it’ll do for you.

What it won’t do is make you automagically skinny. The people that read this have a fair idea of my basic workouts. This and a moderately okay diet will give you a body that looks like this (if your basic shape tends to such) when you’re starting out heavy.

This is not to discourage anyone from working out. Working out is great. Working out makes you strong and happy and all that.

It just doesn’t make you skinny.