So. Facebook doing that creepy thing. Just showed me an ad for this.
Seems pretty good. But I’ve never seen this discussed before. So maybe I’m missing something.
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That actually does seem pretty good.
10 pull-ups!
Arbitrarily, my long term goal is 20. Maybe in a year or so at this rate.
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That’s awesome.
Why 20 instead of adding weight or difficulty?
I want to keep it simple and stick to body weight. I’m old so have no illusions of building lots of muscle. 20 seems attainable if I stick with it.
Rugby suggested that I might have some issues with movement patterns and that I should check out this thread, so here it goes.
Before COVID, my main form of exercise was walking indoors and swimming laps at the YMCA. I’m a forty-something male could probably stand to lose a pound or forty.
I have problems with soreness in my knees, hip, calves, and heels after physical exertion. Swimming is easier on those body parts. I haven’t been formally diagnosed, but informally discussed it with a doctor friend and it seems likely I suffer from plantar fasciitis. Measures such as wearing compression socks and avoiding walking around barefoot have greatly decreased the amount of pain I feel.
I am rather clumsy. I have poor balance. I had a problem earlier in life with stumbling a lot. That seemed to be related to not lifting my feet high enough when I walk so that my toes would often hit the ground mid-stride and I would trip. I feel like I have trained myself to do that much less often, but I am uncomfortable with walking on uneven ground.
I’m not looking to build muscle, just to increase stamina and lose some weight, but I get into this cycle where too much exercise makes me physically sore and I end up in bed trying to recover.
Any thoughts?
At some point, I would like to have some sort of gait analysis done, but I don’t think that is an option right now. What I do think would make sense is adopting a daily stretching routine. I would say a morning routine, but I have a highly irregular sleep schedule and time has no meaning for me.
A few things. Whatever it is you do, stay with it. Before the pandemic, I was getting to the gym at least three times a week for weights, and once of twice more for the elliptical. I saw a meltdown coming, so I bought some dumbbells in late February and haven’t been back to the gym since. I’m only doing about five exercises with them, but its better than nothing.
I have slacked on the cardio. I miss the elliptical. But I’ve decided to change that. Today I took a brisk 20 minute walk through the neighborhood. Not a lot, but a decent start. I think with a slightly different route I can boost that to 30 minutes.
I guess my point is that regular exercise will help, but you have to do it. Treat it like a job. There will be days you don’t want to lift or walk or stretch, but you have to set that aside and do it. Do it for a month. Then two. Then three. Then see where you’re at physically. Start with something you can handle easily and build up from there. Extreme soreness is demoralizing and will frustrate you into quitting. We don’t want that. So start slow, and steadily work your way up. And look forward to the upgrades. The exercise should help inspire improvements in your diet. The diet will be the real answer to losing weight. I"ve put on 10 pounds since the pandemic started. Time for me to get disciplined again and get rid of that weight.
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went for a ride on a bike share this weekend. after about two miles minutes of going over mostly flat and some moderate uphill parts i was totally winded and had to sit/lay down for 10 to 15 minutes. my vision even did this weird thing where everything looked overexposed. not a great outcome, and i had to admit i’m totally out of shape cardiowise.
so today i started a running program called none to run. for the first week, you do three days of intervals with 30 seconds slow running alternating with 2 minutes walking. this program is a more gradual version of the popular couch to 5k program, which i did over 10 years ago. anyway, this went much better, so i’m going to try to keep up the program.
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Make sure you’re hydrated and take it easy.
I had something similar recently at end of 3.5 mile uphill ride. Not in great shape but I’ve done that ride quite a few times with no problems. Took me about an hour to recover. I assumed heat exhaustion because it was warmer than normal, and I hadn’t maybe had enough to drink beforehand. I did the same ride the next day and it was fine.
Could have been some kind of vasovagal response, which I get very occasionally and randomly. Triggered by sudden stop of high-intensity excercise? In high school PE they wouldn’t let you collapse at the end of a run and would make you put your hands behind your head and walk around. They never explained why. Anyone know?
This is supposed to make it easier to catch your breath. My personal trainer also makes me do this is I get gassed. Not sure what if anything is the scientific back up for this.
It seems to me that you might want to work on your “core”, as they say. Based on your experience I think you may want to develop some hip strength and mobility before trying too much stretching. Stretching is a double edged sword - it can be useful but if your joints are all jammed up you might aggravate stuff with stretching more than you help anything.
Give this a try - 3 times a week for 4 weeks do some leg circles laying on your back, stand on something and swing your legs (one at a time) forward and back, then do 10 body weight squats and 10 reverse lunges. This should get your hips feeling looser.
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Not sure about the science either but found this on the google:
When you suddenly stop running and sit, your heart rate drops more quickly than some of the other responses in your body. The pressure with which your heart contracts each beat can drop quickly as well. These two factors combine to lower the pressure in your vascular system. Your body responds to lower pressure by vasoconstricting, pushing the pressure back up. Why is this pressure important? Because that’s what pushes blood back up to your heart. The body wants the blood to get pushed through the entire system and back to the heart and lungs to be oxygenated and pushed back out. If venous return to the heart drops, your body will aid you with it. How? By laying you down flat on the ground so that blood will passively flow back to the heart rather than need to be pushed by pressure against gravity as when you are standing. The responses in the heart occur more quickly than the vascular response. So venous return to the heart can drop, signalling your body to pass out.
My health app said I was in max heart rate range for 83% of the ride when I had this episode. That’s pretty intense for me. It seemed harder than normal and I did feel like I needed to do something extra to cool down at the end but instead I just got off the bike and after a minute my body just said “ok, we’re done here.”
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This is a youtuber with solid content for stretching. He has body weight exercise videos as well.
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Thanks, very interesting. Personally catching my breath with hands on my head does feel good to me, with no discernible downside, so I’ll keep doing it.
On the topic of blood pressure/ exercise, one of the most intense feelings I get from working out is when I do heavy squats (which is not super heavy, just my own personal limits) I get a VERY intense feeling of blood “falling” from my head when I rerack the bar. I think it comes from bracing my abs super super tight with a full inhale, and then it seems like the pressure builds up in my head. Then when I put the weight down I can feel the pressure rebalance in my body, it’s a trip. I make a habit now of leaning on the bat and taking 4 or 5 deep breathes before letting go, I’m worried I’m going to pass out someday
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What you are suggesting seems similar to the dynamic stretching that I see being advocated in some places over static stretching. I’m probably going to have to hold onto something to keep from falling over while doing leg circles or reverse lunges.
For leg circles lie on your back on the floor, lift one leg in the air, and make circles by moving at your hip.
Your leg will not be straight like in the video.
I would suggest getting the concept “stretching” out of your mind. Although it is a ubiquitous part of fitness, the word itself carries some unhelpful connotations. When we think of stretching the mental image might be something like a rubber band, forcefully pulled to max length and held under a lot of pressure. I would mentally think of words like stability and mobility instead, this is a more positive framing and more naturally connects your mindset to your body and the outcomes you’re looking for. This is subtle but I think it matters. We’re looking for healthy and effective movement patterns, not tension.
No doubt. I try to will my body to do what it used to but it can’t. Too out of shape as of now.
Hi mate.
Lots of good advice so far. I would suggest an approach more than specifics exercises, although all of the ones above would be a great start.
From your expanded post. I would think it’s definitely broad movement issues.
You need to view this as three things. Strength, flexibility and how your brain puts those together to actually move.
Everybody. Including fairly practiced athletes will have a ton of weaknesses and issues big and small. There’s not going to be a one size fits all approach.
The fix for this is to learn how your body specifically works and moves, identify an issue, try and resolve it, move on to the next one.
That said. Sounds like you probably have issues in your hips, and this is feeding through to your feet issue. Or it could be the other way around, or a combination of both. That whole movement is very closely connected.
I recommend regular practice of the squat movement as a good place to start.
Start with hip activation excersises (Google these), then do some sort of air squat. You should be trying to go low enough so the crease of your hip is below your knee.
Otherwise you can do one leg squats onto a chair.
Mix in some press ups and some planks (from your elbows) and you will almost certainly find enough obvious problems that you can start looking into on Google or itt.
The advantage here is that this is pretty fun to geek out on. Just don’t expect your brain to figure this out on it’s own without a bunch of physical practice.
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Great minds think alike. This is exactly why I use a “stability, mobility, stability, mobility, …” mantra to guide my training.
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