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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?
I was doing really well on my fitness in 2019, then 2020 pandemic hit... it was a hard year for other reasons too and I lost all discipline and motivation. I gained back AT LEAST 60lbs; honestly, I am too anxious to check the real number.
Although I have been trying to not mention it to anyone, I have been going to the gym again. (To be clear, COVID in the area is relatively controlled, & everyone wears a mask indoors here... still a risk, of course, but a small one in my estimation.) I'm just doing a basic strength class with a trainer with my fiancée + two other people. Classes are twice a week and then I get open access to the space on Fri/Sat/Sun to get a third weekly workout in, although I can come in as much as I want on those days technically.
Now that I've been at it a few weeks, I am starting to... I wouldn't say enjoy it, I've never enjoyed working out, but it's certainly less bad that my previous class experiences. I like having a regular set time, but I've always hated the kind of faux-cheeriness, high-energy classes where they want me to pretend like I'm having fun. It's like, y'all, this may be a passion or hobby for some of you, but my approach to exercise is closer to how I approach brushing my teeth. It's just a health thing I have to do to prevent future issues.
Anyway. My falling fitness has been a source of stress for me for the last year or so and I've had trouble talking about it because I have been embarrassed. But here's hoping I can stick with it.
PS: A lot of people talk about feeling euphoria when they work out, but does anyone else feel like it triggers an emotional response that is closer to uh, wanting to cry? Not just from frustration, I don't think.
PPS: Is there anything non-plank that I can do to get better at planks. They are my weakest thing right now.
Responses to working out are all over the board. I don't get euphoria at all unless I'm dancing or biking for a few hours.
Bicycle crunch is a fairly similar endurance based ab workout with less of a working load.
I don't get euphoria or emotional, but when I lift weights, my mind quiets down. I don't think beyond the reps, sets, and time between sets, and all I hear is my music. That being said, COVID ruined my gymgoing. I'm too paranoid to go, and even if I wasn't, I lack the discipline to go on my own terms despite enjoying it. When I was working at the office, I could change before I left and just go straight to the gym from work.
It's a bummer.
This is exactly how it is for me. It's almost meditative. Just brush away all thoughts of the outside world. Form and music are all that matters.
Like you, I still am staying out of the gym until I get vaccinated. I've found owning a handful of kettlebells to be really rewarding. It's not quite like loading up a couple hundred pounds on a barbell, but you get to push against the iron in some nice full body movements that require some good form. Would recommend.
Yeah I have some light weights but I don't get that same mental reward with them. I'd need heavier but I don't have the money to throw into weights right now. As Gaywallet suggested though, I may look into using a plastic bottle of some sort.
I'm sorry, that sounds quite tough. Have you looked into adjustable weights at your own place? Perhaps some larger plastic bottles or bags filled with rocks?
I have some weights at home but nothing significant. One ten pound weight, four five pound weights, and two 2.5 pound weights. I find them to be less rewarding, and I don't have the money to invest into adjustable weights. I may look at plastic bottles, as I've always recommended that to people too. I just don't buy milk anymore so I may have to just go out of my way to buy a gallon or bigger jug of water from somewhere and use that. A jug for one of those water station thingies (I've forgotten the name) would be good. They're like 40 lbs with the water in it.
For someone that says they hate working out, it sounds like you've done a pretty good job at getting yourself active. 2020 flipped everyone's routines on their head, and I've found even a small routine change can rattle my exercise routine - and that's coming from someone that enjoys exercise.
I would recommend you try a bunch of different things if you haven't already gone through the exploration process. It took me a while to realize how much I enjoy cycling. Honestly I'm not that interested in core exercises or strength training. But I like cycling so much I'll do it in the rain during winter (granted, winters here aren't that bad).
I've been pondering getting a stationary bike trainer (I'm thinking direct drive, since they seem the most like actually riding) - I'm not sure which one though - don't want to totally blow the budget (but also want something decent).
I'm also resolved to try and strengthen my core, just for the sake of keeping my back from hurting. So I've been looking for good body weight exercises for that.
My absolute number one rec for core strength is always an ab wheel. They are relatively cheap (or can be made reasonably easy if $10-20 is not feasible), and offer the flexibility of doing something for someone with very little core strength to a ton of core strength.
Really the only recommendation I have for a stationary bike is the Peloton, because I have experience with one on account of my ex. Those are relatively expensive though. What price range are you looking for? Perhaps someone else can chime in with a rec.
I've heard good things about those, but I was looking at something like a Wahoo Kickr, TacX product, or similar (a guess it's called a "trainer" vs. a "stationary bike"?). I already have an old-ish mountain bike that I think would just get put on it and stay there (maybe occasionally throwing the wheel back on to ride in the winter so my newer bikes don't get covered in salt).
I'll definitely be looking at the ab wheel - thanks!
Hey, something I'm vaguely qualified to help with! I went down a whole smart trainer rabbit hole a few months back. tl;dr: I went for the KICKR Core and I think it was the right decision.
From my totally uninformed starting point, one of the first things that really surprised me was that most models of Peloton don't actually integrate the ride difficulty with the app - you control it by turning a mechanical dial. That strikes me as kind of odd for a two grand piece of kit that's sold as a slick, modern, app-based experience. Price plus vendor lock-in made that a no go anyway, but that was unexpected enough to stick in my mind.
From there I ended up looking at various stationary bikes, and the sweet spot seemed to be at around half the price of a Peloton, with some solid options out there but no tech integration at all. This was in the middle of the UK's second lockdown, so they literally all turned out to be out of stock - which worked in my favour, because it led me to find out that a smart trainer plus a basic but decent road bike would come in around the same price but be vastly more capable.
For anyone who hasn't seen them, you use a (direct drive) smart trainer in place of the back wheel on a normal bike. They're controlled via Bluetooth, they send back nice granular data about power and cadence throughout the ride, and there are several solid apps out there that will map the difficulty to a course that you're riding, either real or imagined. It seems so far ahead of where the stationary bike market is at for a similar price point that it kind of defies understanding for me!
I did my usual slightly obsessive dive into the reviews, and it looks like the Tacx Neo is probably the best overall, with fast and accurate enough difficulty modulation that it can do things like replicating the feel of riding on cobbles or gravel, but it's priced at a premium. I believe it's the only one that can do simulated road surfaces - super cool, but not enough to actually justify the purchase for me. The cheaper Tacx models are apparently solid but not quite so natural feeling as the difficulty ramps up/down. Wahoo KICKR is the main competitor - at the top of the price range I'd go for a Tacx Neo over a KICKR, but on the next rung down the KICKR Core seems to be much closer to it's top-end sibling than the equivalently priced Tacx are to the Neo. I actually can't really see why you'd buy a full price KICKR at all when the Core is so close for 35% less cash.
One small issue I've noticed, not directly related to the trainer, is noise. I'm probably particularly sensitive to this because it's in my tiny flat rather than the more normal garage or basement, but the noise of chains and gears and resonant thudding at certain cadences is enough to make me just a little concerned for the neighbours. Sounds you would barely even hear out on the road are kind of amplified indoors. That said, my situation is pretty much the worst case for that and it's still what I'd call acceptable, so unlikely to be a major worry for most - but worth mentioning as the one probable win for traditional stationary bikes.
Apps to control the whole thing definitely come down to personal taste; I wrote a couple of posts about them when I was testing things out in December. I've ended up subscribing to Fulgaz and I'm broadly pleased, although not unreservedly so. Data all goes into Strava either way though, so I can always change my mind later. I might even give the Peloton app a go.
That was very helpful - thank you! I've been leaning towards taking my old (10 years?) mountain bike (hard tail) and kind of relegating it to stationary bike duty when it's not out for it's (very occasional) winter ride. It has an 8 speed cassette, so I assume I would have to get an 8 speed cassette for the kickr? Or would it make more sense to buy a cassette that matches my road bike (thereby not being able the use the mountain bike on the trainer, I assume)? My concern with that is I don't want to have to constantly be swapping the wheel on and off, as it gets ridden quite a bit in the spring/summer/fall.
I know less than I'd like about gearing, and nothing about mountain bikes, so consider this far from authoritative! I'd say go for the 8 speed - if you're anything like me, the convenience of having it always set up without having to swap wheels and frames around will outweigh most other concerns.
You have a bit of help in software, too: Zwift has a slider to adjust how much of a gradient you actually feel (defaulted to half, presumably to avoid scaring off new riders), Fulgaz has the same (defaulted to full) as well as separate caps for minimum and maximum gradient to simulate. There's also ERG mode, which adjusts difficulty to keep constant power regardless of your gear or cadence, although I don't personally use that.
Worst case scenario, cassettes aren't a hugely expensive part of the whole endeavour, so if you do end up really wishing for the road bike, swapping it out is entirely plausible. You could even start by pulling the existing one from the mountain bike wheel, if you wanted to give it a shot without committing.
I think that's the direction I'm leaning. Last questions for you (maybe...) - do you have to do a whole "electronics setup" around this? I mean - is just taking my cell phone down to the basement, hopping on, and riding doable? I'd rather not have to build a table and bring a laptop/spend 5 minutes setting software up every time I want to just to go for a 30 minute ride. What's your setup like?
Space constraints for me mean that the corner of the living room is literally the only place I could fit the bike - the upside there is that I just use my TV, which already has a PC hooked up to it for gaming.
As far as I can see, just using your phone would be absolutely fine, though. The major apps have Android and iOS versions, there's a Wahoo app to use for calibration and basic functionality, and the Bluetooth connection hasn't given me any problems when I was using my phone for initial setup.
If you did want a more dedicated setup, I've noticed that cycling apps seem to be one of the more niche use cases for the AppleTV. Presumably the easy portability from iOS helps the developers, and in turn it's a fairly cheap way to get the functionality you need on a larger screen if you want to at some point down the line.
I’ve had this indoor bike since September. I was an avid outdoor cyclist pre-pandemic, but I love riding with other people, so I dropped off pretty hard last spring. I paired it first with Peloton Digital, but I switched to Apple’s fitness program when that came out. I enjoyed both.
https://sunnyhealthfitness.com/collections/cycle-bikes/products/sunny-health-and-fitness-sf-b1805-magnetic-belt-drive-indoor-cycling-bike-with-high-weight-capacity-and-tablet-holder
Wrote up my thoughts on my last year of training the other day: https://erikcieslewicz.medium.com/the-start-of-something-else-a-year-of-mostly-home-workouts-5208a1c7301a
I try to do a yearly look back on how my fitness journey is doing so I don't lose sight of the big picture. Usually I concentrate on a sort of theme for the year, but obviously COVID put all best laid plans out the window and my fitness was no different. Still, it proved a great opportunity for me to try a lot of new things and discover how much I like kettlebells.
I hit my goal weight recently! Happy about that. Eating at maintenance has been tricky to start with, but I think this week is going a lot better than last.
The new puppy enjoys the bike trailer, so I can see lots of rides around town in our future, especially once it warms up. I’m taking her to a park to have a socially distanced picnic with some friends this weekend. Fingers crossed that she does well!
My anosmia meds are now light enough that I feel vigorous enough for Beat Saber again! God I missed that damn game. Weeks without it really sucked. And it's demoralizing to pick it back up and find yourself extremely rusty but the thing is, you absolutely need a warmup with easier songs. That game is so completely unforgiving that when dealing with the high end, a warmup is a difference of two full skill levels.
I'm back to my previous level and then some. I can do a lot of songs on Expert+Fast. I bought the Timbaland DLC and adore it, the movements are really fun -- finished it on E+F in two hours.
The Linkin Park DLC remainds the hardest one I have to deal with. Beneath my Skin is the one I'm currently stuck on, very frustrating tbh. I finished Bleed it Out earlier and was happy with the result:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wlRydPtE0uc
After regaining and re-hitting 80kg I'm now solidly under it once more. I'm motivated to lose quite a bit in the coming weeks; work has kept me too busy to focus on workouts… And of course Ice Skating is completely off the table now. Belgium has extended the lockdown until April 1st. We're good to reopen hairdressers but vast and safe open ice rinks?… Anyway.
I ate 2 hardboiled eggs for breakfast almost every day last year, continuing the trend this year. Why? They are cheap, easy and healthy. Low carb, high protein. It is a daily ritual for me. I don't think of it as food but fuel. I exercise for around 30 minutes most days and have a protein shake afterwards for lunch. Proud to say that with this routine I lost 30 pounds last year.