Category: Self-Improvement

I’m psycho busy this week.  That’s a good thing, mind.  Not busy means no money to a bum without a “real job”.

Because my work is very much a feast or famine sort of deal, during one of the famine periods, I got a job at a gym.  It’s less than five hours most weeks, but I did it to make absolutely sure I could afford my gym fees.  Well, okay, if you’re an employee at the gym where I work, you can use the facilities for free.   In fact, if you work there, they really wanna see you working out there, too. The little extra encouragement doesn’t hurt.

Because I’m so psycho busy, I almost blew off my workout today.  I was in the locker room where I’d stored my gym bag almost ready to say, “Screw it” when I had this little conversation with myself.

Me: What time did you get up this morning?

Myself:  4:30.  You know that.  What’s your point?

Me: And you did that why?

Myself:  Cause I hadda open the gym!

Me: Well, why have that job?  I mean, come on, you’re a morning person and all, but that’s an evil time to get up, and you earn more writing when you get the work.

Myself: I wanted to be sure I’d have access to the gym… Oh, stop looking so damn smug.  I’ll do my damn swim.  Happy?

As I was swimming, I realized that in my case, I kinda earn my workouts.  That gives a real different perspective to how I value them.  Instead of a chore I have to do, it’s something I’ve worked to be able to do.  Then I got to thinking more¹.  Anyone in that gym has really earned their workouts as much as I did.  I mean, how do you get the money to pay for something?  You earn it one way or another.

So, when you’re a gym member, give some thought to how many hours you had to work to earn the right to be there. At that point, do you want to cheat yourself out of that workout you earned?

Didn’t think so.

¹That’ll happen in a pool. When you’re swimming laps, your mind wanders.

Today was leg day. My joints have been hurting like crazy and for some reason lunges have been making my knees feel bad. Yes, yes, I’m sure form has something to do with it. I should probably book a session with one of the trainers to review form. I do it in front of a mirror, but back when I was rehabbing my ACL, my PT did say that I have a tendency to bad form in lunges.

So, since it hurt when I did that, I stopped doing that.

But, I like to have a couple of exercise per muscle group, and no power on earth is gonna get me to do open chain exercises for my quads like leg extensions[1]. So, the next best option was the leg press <hawk/ptui!>

Now, in reality, the leg press is not bad. Really it’s not. If you have back trouble, balance issues or what have you, the leg press is a far safer alternative to the squats that still gives you a challenging lift. I think where the leg press contempt sometimes comes in among some weight trainers is when people try to brag about what they can do on the leg press and think it compares to a back squat.

Friends, it doesn’t!

In my workout today, I was squatting four sets of eight reps with seventy-five pounds on my back. That got me sweaty, heart pounding and gasping for air (real bodybuilders feel free to laugh, ya smug jerks!). When I got to the leg press, I was using 185lbs for the same reps and sets. I possibly could have actually done my body weight, but I was tired and in the interests of Rule One, chose not to.

The leg press numbers look more impressive, but they’re apples and oranges. The lifts are meant to do accomplish two different goals. Squatting is for “real world” application. It’s a motion we humans perform all the time, from sitting in a chair to squatting down to pick up something[2].  Challenging those muscles and performing that range of motions help you in your daily routine.  However, spot work is a good supplement to round out a workout.  I like free weights, compound exercises and Olympic lifts best, I really do.  But mixing it up is good training.

And can help prevent injury.

[2] You do squat down rather than bend over, right?  Please tell me you do.  It protects your back.

Today was just a bad workout day.  I slept in and had to talk myself into going to the gym.  Okay, I did go.   But I was tired and weak, and in pain.

I think Fall is hell on a lot of people with chronic pain issues.  My knee was really hurting yesterday.  I thought I wasn’t going to be able to do my clean and presses without hurting it, so I was surprised to find that it seemed to make my knee feel better.  Weird, but I’ll take that.

However, I seem to have overchallenged my left shoulder.  Ouch, ouch, ouch.  Hadda remove some plates and do the sets for fewer reps.  I hate doing that, but Rule One¹ and all.  Injuring yourself so you’re sidelined from an excess of macho isn’t actually cool.  Just means you broke Rule One.

This is where doing what you can is important.  Sure, sure, unless you’re paralyzed you can do something.  And yes, you should be doing something.  But no-one but you can judge what that something is.  I remember when I had my ACL repair,  I fretted a lot until I could get back in the pool.  My PT told me that while it was great I wanted to get back to swimming and I was lucky it would be soon, what I really needed was to focus on activating the muscles in the leg that’d been sliced open with a knife so that they’d work again.   While it didn’t feel as cool as the workouts I was doing, it was indeed exercise, necessary exercise and it was what I could do.

For the record, I find stuff I know is gonna heal a lot easier to cope with.  I knew I was going to get off the crutches.  The arthritis stays, dammit.

Sometimes doing what you can feels discouraging, especially when “can” changes from day to day.  You might feel like you’re making crap for progress.  You might question whether or not you’re slacking or looking for excuses. You know, screw that.  Unless you’re training for an athletic competition or something, sometimes showing up and going through the motions really is a good thing.

Here’s a great post about doing what you can and working movement into your day from Living at ~400 Lbs.  She changed her commute to get herself walking more.

¹Don’t be a fucking idiot.

I’m a woman and started lifting about six weeks ago.  My trainer told me to stop lifting weights because they are making me fat. What should I do?

Fire your trainer.  Weight training doesn’t make you fat.  You’re a woman. Without steroids it’s not even going to make you bigger.  Find someone who knows what she’s doing.

Should I work out when I’m sick?

The usual rule is that the symptoms are above the neck (sneezing, runny nose, et cetera) then it’s okay to work out.  If the symptoms are below the neck (chills, muscle aches, sore throat, fever), then just stay home.  In fact, go to bed and get lots of fluids.

And for the love of Blind Io, please don’t go to the gym when you’re horking up lung butter.  It doesn’t make you look hardcore.  It makes you look like an insensitive jerk who wants to spread your illness around.

My trainer focuses the entire workout around fat burning and calories.  That’s not what I want.

Make a list of your fitness goals.  Hand it to the trainer and help him with the big wor^h^h^h okay, that was obnoxious.  There are trainers out there with excellent educations.  A credentials check might be in order.

If your trainer’s education and certs are better than EZ Training and Fitness, put the list of goals in his face and explain very careful-like that what’s on the list is what you want to be working on.  If he doesn’t get it, fire him and get another.  The woods are full of trainers, friends.

My doctor said that since my family has a history of bone loss, I have to start lifting weights. WTF?

Darlin’ send your doctor flowers.  Any exercise that places a stress load on the skeletal frame does help to prevent osteoperosis.  Check out Strong Women Stay Young, too!  You can get started a lot less hard core than you think to get the benefits.

TTFN.  I’m gonna brave an elliptical today.  Hopefully I won’t get laughed at.

Today was a swimming day for me.  It went smoothly enough, but it was one of those times when I got out of the pool thinking I’d just crossed something off my to-do list rather than feel Godlike afterwards.

When I got out, I took a second to look over the people in the pool.  There were a couple of competitive swimmers — one using a pull buoy to practice arm technique, another with a kickboard, an elderly lady doing her slow, steady laps (she had that look of someone for whom this has been a routine for decades), another gentleman who’s rehabbing a knee injury, and a woman who joined recently who was worried about whether or not she’d fit in or be welcome because she loved to swim but didn’t exactly have the body of a competitive swimmer.  She’s been a dedicated regular since she joined.  The characteristic arm and shoulder development you get from swimming is starting to show on her, but I’m not sure if commenting would be productive or not. I wish I’d noticed her skill level when she started, ’cause I’d certainly feel like commenting on improvements there would be okay.

I’ve been working a lot on ScrewSkinny in the afternoons and I’m finding myself wincing as I write this.  You see, so many books about health and fitness as they relate to exercise talk about how wonderful exercise is and how you’ll love being all active and stuff.  I state right in the intro that I don’t particularly love being active.  I’m a geek and a writer and most of what I love to do is pretty damn sedentary.  I work out because if I don’t, the atrophy of my body will effect my brain more than I’m willing to accept.  Sure, being able to move well and with power feels very, very good.  But it hasn’t gotten me climbing mountains.  There are physical things I like well enough (get your mind out of the gutter!  I’m talking about dancing!) that I’ll do them from time to time but they’re hardly passions.  I’ll always find philosphical debate over a cup of something tasty more fun than ‘most anything.  Put me in a room with people who have interesting stories to tell and I’m in Heaven.

For me, exercise is time away from writing or learning new stuff.  It’s no accident that most of what I do physically is very technical, so to do it, I have to learn new stuff.  It’s certainly no accident that I write a lot about it.  I was thinking that once I’ve mastered the flip turn hurdle and go on to Butterfly as a stroke I regularly incorporate into my workout, I’ll probably move on to a new form of dance, or finally get into something that involves projectiles and aiming (something I’m notoriously bad at.  Fortunately racketball is physically demanding) so that I’ll have something to learn again.

This last paragraph just hit me as a chapter I need to add.  It’ll talk about finding something that exercise can give you that’s in harmony with your natural tastes an inclinations.

So my fitness book is not about convincing people they need to love being athletes.  Oh if someone gets active and decides they love that, cool.  But not everyone will.  If there was a pill that gave all the benefits of exercise, I’d take it and spend a lot more time writing and reading things.