fit, happy
Posts tagged workouts
I went biking!
0Woo! Back in the (bike) saddle. After physical therapy today I decided it was time to try the bike again (I’m cleared for it by PT), as I was feeling fairly stir crazy. It went well, although the foot’s a little sore now so we’ll see how I feel tomorrow.
Regardless, the PT thinks that I’ve worked through the ‘chronic’ portion of the pain, and now it’s a matter of teaching my foot how to walk again, so there’s progress even if I do end up sore. If I hadn’t spent a couple days on my feet almost constantly last week I would be doing a little better, but it is what it is.
Swiiim (because it’s all you can do)
0I feel like a broken record: my foot hurts, I can’t do anything, blah blah blah. Unfortunately it looks like that will be my story for a while, so I’ll have to find new and exciting ways to say it. Verdict from the doctor is that my foot hurts and it’s going to hurt for a while. Fun, no?
Actually he was very helpful, insofar as it’s possible to help with this kind of nagging injury. He gave me a shoe insert to try (it lasted for a day and a half and by then it made my heel feel splintery. I took it out and went back to my others.), and sent me to physical therapy. I’m supposed to check in with him in a couple weeks to see if there’s any progress and if not, well, things may really get interesting.
Physical therapy introduced me to the truly novel sensation of having my foot ultrasounded. Spellcheck doesn’t think that’s a word, but that’s only because it’s never been ultrasounded. After being poked, prodded, and shot with whatever an ultrasound shoots (ultrasonic things, one would assume), I got iced down and sent home with the promise of less poking and prodding next time, and a sore(er) foot.
After only one PT appointment and a couple days of exercises I can hardly expect progress…Which is good, because there isn’t any. It’s not like I’m lame, I just can’t do anything more exciting than walk around, and I can’t go without shoes for long unless I want to be sore.
Anyway, enough about boring injuries. There are plenty of worse things that could have happened to me! I got back to the pool yesterday so at least I did something.
The first day, in two fun-loving flavors
0Last week, while sitting on the rowing machine for the second day and feeling slight kinks and protests work out of my back, I was thanking my younger self for teaching me to take it easy on my first day.
First Day: Resistance/Weights
Back when I was in college (the first time around), I knew a lot less about the limits of my body than I do now. I decided to try out rowing one day, so I jumped on the machine and found that it was easy! Great! So I stayed there for about three times longer than I’d been planning. And then the next day came…Pain. So much pain. I was sore, and not in a good way – I was sore in the ‘it hurts to even think about moving’ way. It was a couple weeks before I could get back on the rowing machine and start working my way up again.
It was painful, but instructional. I learned after that experience that sometimes you have to quit while you’re ahead. In almost any resistance exercise that I do – weights, rowing, even biking – I know that until my body adjusts, I have to force myself to stop long before I’m tired.
First Day: Cardio/Aerobics
This is a different animal. There’s less I can do to control it, but still, it was the same story when starting kickboxing, running, swimming, or any other cardio-heavy workout I’ve done. When I started kickboxing I was fairly out of shape, but I’d been running a little so I didn’t think it would be that terrible (I never do). Within 15 minutes, I was dying. Wheezing, gasping for air, wondering why I let myself get so out of shape. But it always happens this way with cardio. It’s the exact opposite of when I start resistance – instead of my body telling me it can keep going, it wants to stop, curl up in a ball, and be done. And the first day is so, so much worse than any other day. After the first day, I can muddle through. After the first week, I’m pretty much fine. Oh, every change to the routine will throw me a little, a minor version of the first day, but nothing is like the real first day. And it’s a lot easier to push through the really crappy days when I know they’re going to be really temporary.
Better Knowledge = Better System
Maybe this pattern is just me, but I’ve run into it over and over, and I like knowing what’s coming. When I knew less, I would quit cardio workouts because they were too hard, and overreach on weights, and neither way was encouraging my attempts to get healthy. And because learning the hard way sucks, I offer my pain for your benefit. What’s true for me may not be true for you, but if you recognize these patterns in your experience, at least know you’re not the only one. It’s nothing complicated, just something I see that I find interesting. But anyway, I don’t go in for Profound Complex Life-Changing Fitness Rules, because I think that sometimes the simple things are the most helpful. What do you think?
Survival week
0And now, I have a cold. I think the universe is insisting that I don’t get anything done until spring break. Less than two weeks to go…and only one more week of after school tkd club. Two more classes, and then I will have at least 2 days a week where I can focus on catching up on client work, homework, housework, working out, and whatever other kinds of work I’ve forgotten. I’ve managed to get in quick workouts of some kind or another most days, although I skipped a couple days to study for a midterm, and no P90x.
So here’s hoping that I can dig myself out of the chaos if I get a little more time freed up.