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Fitness Weekly Discussion
What have you been doing lately for your own fitness? Try out any new programs or exercises? Have any questions for others about your training? Want to vent about poor behavior in the gym? Started a new diet or have a new recipe you want to share? Anything else health and wellness related?
Completed bailed on the gym this week :( I'm still telling myself I'll go tomorrow morning, but I went to bed last night at 8:30 and woke up at 7:30 and it felt SO NICE that i'm not sure I want to stop yet...
Unrelated, when I do go, I have a serious case of fuckaround-itis. No schedule to my lifts really, so I'd like to get back on some sort of plan to really help push me increase my lifts.
Sometimes it's good to take a rest week and let your muscles heal, don't get discouraged! I have been kind of good this week but definitely taking it easier than normal.
I know, and I wouldn't say I'm quite beating myself up about it.... but I would say last week was a "healing week" too :D I just need to get back in the swing of it again, and I'm sure that'll happen soon. MKL Day is around the corner so I'll start for realsies on Tuesday then.
On reddit someone asked Terry Crews once about motivation and his answer was something along the lines of 'I have a set time to go to the gym and I go. It doesn't matter what I do when I get there. Some days I just sit and read a magazine in the gym.'
His point was that sometimes it's more important to set the time aside and actually go, because you'll find yourself more often than not at least doing a little workout if you made time to actually get to the gym.
I try to wake up at 5am to make it there by 5:45-6, so a lot of the time that I don't make it is due to staying up late the previous night. Definitely something that I need to work on improving, but i feel the quote still rings true in that i should still go, even if I'm tired, if only to keep the schedule going. Thanks for the pep talk, I appreciate it :)
I've missed two out of the usual four gym/swim days this week; I've been more than usually achy and tired, so I don't regret it too much as a short-term thing.
The last couple of weeks, I've been making my swims work harder by adding a pair of hand paddles. They've been great for helping with strengthening arthritic shoulders and hands, but I've probably been overdoing it.
I've also slipped up on post-workout protein, creatine, and BCAA supplementation. After the holiday binging, my appetite is back down and slamming that icky-tasting shake is too nauseating. I'm trying again to get it all down over the course of an hour or two, assuming that it's still beneficial even if it isn't taken during the ideal window.
For the past three weeks, I've been testing Mealime, an Android app for creating healthy meal plans and shopping lists. The nutritionists behind it seem to have only vague ideas about how to write recipes - I wouldn't recommend it for inexperienced home cooks. I can puzzle out the instructions well enough, adjusting cooking times and seasonings as needed. The basic food compositions seem reasonably healthy and tasty, it's easy to adjust for dietary preferences/restrictions, and the shopping lists are very convenient. We're trying to get down to one meat meal per week, and Mealime has a good library of quick vegetarian/vegan entrees.
Protein timing being beneficial is a myth (or rather, a jump to conclusions that was made from some old studies), so long as an individual has an adequate intake of protein. Here's a good meta-analysis on the subject
Speaking of protein, you may find the ISSN's nutrition and exercise position paper a useful read as it tackles issues such as protein timing, adequate protein intake, BCAAs, body composition, and more.
Greatly appreciated, thank you; it's clear I've been working with some dated assumptions. The research on casein supplementation at bedtime is likely to mean some improvements, and I'm probably going to need it to actually get to 1.7+ g/kg of protein/day with reduced meat consumption.
Just don't expect night and day. Extra protein is hardly steroids, but if the goal is optimization it can't hurt.
I'd say optimizations like this are going to effect maybe 0-5% of your total progress. Much more important is actual time/effort spent in the gym, adequate food/protein intake, and appropriate recovery.
I'm hoping for improved recovery, for the most part. It's not DOMS holding me back, but ongoing damage from joint inflammation. The medical advice on this is alarmingly inconsistent, but the theory I'm going with is that greater strength from resistance training will help unload and stabilize the crumbly bits, and might encourage cartilage regeneration. I do seem to notice more pain and stiffness on the days when, by the numbers, I haven't gotten enough protein.
Ah yes, joint issues. I'm very familiar with those. If you're not taking glucosamine, I'd highly suggest it. Also, if your knees are problematic, knee sleeves can help.
There's pretty good literature (and just plain physics) to support the idea that stronger muscles means they can support the joint. However, to get stronger muscles, you need to move more weight, which means greater force moment arms on the joints themselves. Luckily, just like repeated stress will cause the muscle to repair itself to be stronger, the same is true of joints albeit on a longer time-frame.
I'm taking figurative buckets of glucosamine (and omega-3 fatty acids, and oleuropein); so far, my knees have been spared, but I'm already minus one hip and the other is on the way. Options for spine, shoulders, wrists, and hands completely suck, so if I can do something, I'm going to. There's evidence that exercise has direct anti-inflammatory effects, and even if it just helps OA, that's better than nothing.
Edit: updated for research on oleuropein; though the best research work is on cardiovascular endothelium inflammation, there's evidence it's effective on cartilage as well. We need a supplements thread!