Target Practice

Well, it’s been nearly two weeks since my last update, packed full of goals as it was. What’s occurring?

1. Stairs

These are a lot easier now. I am firmly into the habit, despite having to occasionally leave a colleague or two looking mournfully out past the closing lift doors at me. It’s rare I don’t make it up the stairs in the same time as the lift takes, more or less, which is heartening. I wouldn’t say I’m entirely non-breathless, but (unless I take the stairs two at a time, which I sometimes like to do on the final flight, and even then) I’m a lot less breathless when I reach my desk.

So that’s nice.

2. Lunchtime Walks

This has been going pretty well. I’ve managed to do this (or roughly this) every workday lunchtime, and have even fitted in a couple on non-workdays (walking to Newmarket Road and back on Wednesday - 1.4 miles either way; walking to Milton Country Park on Sunday - 1.5 miles either way). In fact, I definitely seem to have hooked into the “feeling weird if I don’t do it” vibe pretty quickly. In terms of goals, I do seem to have upped my pace for the lunchtime walks, which is groovy, though measuring inconsistencies (the first few times I kept forgetting to switch off the recording device until I had been pottering around in the canteen for a few minutes) mean that it’s hard to say whether I would have recorded a lower completion time in the first few anyway... However, the mean pace is consistently better (though sometimes a little slower than my average if I’m walking with someone else - getting breath to speak and all that). That one feels like a solid win so far (though I’ve had few weather challenges to overcome), even though I do feel like a dapper gent taking a lunchtime constitutional (yes, I do wear my famous hat).

3. Isometrics

Bloody isometrics. Well, I’ve finally hit upon a way to do them at least once a day - tag them on the end of my morning physio. Fuck it. I can always to an end-of-working-day one as an extra, but I’ve had trouble working that in, so I’ll at least have that one. I’ve only done this twice now, though, so no stats yet.

Time for some other goals/ feedback

4. Hydration

I’ve been using the FitBit to monitor my water intake. It’s a bit rubbish, which I knew it was, so I’ve been using various methods to improve that, and (apart from this morning, because Monday morning, amirite?) I’ve been doing pretty well. Not, you know, excellently, but better. And my evidence on the benefits on days with proper hydration in them is fairly bloody empirical, but you don’t want those details.

Advantages: All of them? Good for digestion, skin, metabolism, oh yeah and staying alive.

Disadvantages: Obviously I need to wee more. That’s part of the point though, so hey.

Goal: Get up to drinking about two litres of water a day without having to poke myself in the head to do so.

5. Fitstar

As previously reported, I selected the “Get Strong” program from Fitstar, packed full of strength-building and cardio exercises in three-times-a-week, twenty-minute sets. So far it has not proved onerous to do the three sessions a week (so far Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays), though it’s significantly easier to not feel self-conscious when bobbing up and down to some perky fitness expert’s generic instructions when no-one’s in the house. (“Tighten those abs!” “Remember to keep a straight back!” “Keep it light - land on the balls of your feet!”) And the program does seem to keep track of which exercises I label “Too Easy!” and “Brutal!”, pushing me where I’ve indicated I’m up for that and not where I’ve said “Nope”.

Unfortunately, there are a fair number of exercises which require the adherent to put weight on one or both knees. After gingerly trying a couple of these and suffering both math and aftermath, I now instantly skip any with weight-bearing knee forms, label them “Brutal!” and indicate that I’ve done zero. Apart from the “press-ups from knee” which I do from the toes. So.

The exercises get my heart-rate up and many are moves I’d never have considered (read: in some cases didn’t even know they were A Thing). Some are nearly impossible to do properly in my living room, so require improvisation, improved immensely when I realised that I could pause the instructions while I rearranged things to roughly match.

Apart from some tightness and pain in and behind my knees which felt terrifyingly like a return to horrible old symptoms of 2011/12 until I ruthlessly did all the right things to loosen stuff, these exercises appear to be taxing me exactly the right amount.

Goal: Just keep going and ingrain the habit.


6. Weight

Argh. So, the side-effect of being more active? Yep - weight-loss. Which, in my case, is a bugger, and leads to friends advising me to eat more, and put on some weight.

I. Am. Trying. Believe me.

The balance of “types of food that won’t fuck with my now-shitty digestive system”, “quantities of food/ drink that won’t fuck with my now-shitty digestive system”, “time periods of ingestion that won’t fuck with my now-shitty digestive system”, and “oh, yeah, I’m still allergic to loads of stuff” with “go on, eat more and put on weight” is proving... problematic.

I am going to try protein shakes next. Because fuck it. There’s been very little advice online about this, and most of it is: “Hey, ladies, you don’t want to put on loads of fat (urrgh, fat), you probably mean you want to pile on lean muscle; here, have an avocado.” And while a) avocados are nice (especially mashed up with bacon and garlic-infused olive oil on brown toast), and b) more lean muscle would also be nice, c) I am finding it hard to keep warm when stationary and my less-padded arse has difficulty sitting for extended periods of time, especially on hard surfaces, dammit. A significant number of “weight gain diets for women” searches have led to the above advice, or even straight to weight-loss advice because apparently I don’t know what I’m talking about plus Western culture’s obsession with thinness = healthiness which gjjh&*HJ*$%&Jkj, basically.

Any advice on this would be super-gratefully received. In the meantime, I’m due to see the gastroenterologist in October, and I’m going to ask for a referral to a dietician/ nutritionist for this very reason, because at least they won’t advise me to eat more eggs, unlike even the actually vaguely helpful websites do. (I am super-allergic to eggs.)

And how is this all making you feeeeel?

Ah, that one. (How about super fucking hungry all the time?) Well, I’m feeling a bit more confident about my body and its ability to cope with physical challenges. I’m also enjoying the fact that I appear to be (slowly) gaining a measure of discipline over a lot of these things, which in turn makes me feel better about myself, which in turn makes me more likely to Do Things Right, so...

I’m also noticing a (unexpected at this stage) small but significant set of changes to my body shape and, well, the best word I can think of is texture. Specifically:

• there appears to be more intense wall of muscle around my abdomen, especially evident when standing.


• My thighs and calves are definitely more heavily muscled. Again, this is more evident when standing, but the calves, in particular, seem to be changing shape even at rest. Their texture at rest is different. Sorry - I can’t explain it better than that they’re denser? less wobbly? Maybe...


• My forearms also have this change of texture. Not that they were ever particularly wobbly, but... yeah, they feel denser.


• My biceps appear no different, but my triceps appear more defined, especially when my arm’s extended.

I am stiff a lot of the time - sitting still really does cramp me up, but I seem to be recovering quite well each time. And maybe some of that recovery is more psychological - I’m expecting my body to be more in command, so just act as though it’s going to be fine, and it is.

My digestive health is... mixed. I am trying to eat larger meals and that’s causing me pain and bad reflux issues, including impacting on voice and breathing. On the other hand, I know better how to deal with that, so that’s passing faster and I’m panicking less. Mostly.

Spent two weeks saying how great it is to have my voice back. Woke up today with it as scratchy and painful as before. Send hope, please.

— Fay Roberts (@fayroberts) September 17, 2017

Oh well. It still cleared up within a few hours, so that was nice.

I’d like to say I’m sleeping better, but that’s a Whole Other Thing that we’ll have to address in a separate blog post, possibly a couple of months down the line when all this has bedded in properly.

Haha. Bedded in? Bedded... Bed. Coz sleep, coz. Yeah. Ahem. Anyway. See you soon!

BEEFCAKE!

So, as I mentioned in my previous post, I’m back on the getting-strong trail. Finally. This mostly involves just doing lots of stuff and being active, but also some focused exercises.

For the explicitly (mostly upper-body) strength-building stuff (what I tend to call the “hench mat exercises"), I do press-ups (normal and wide-arm), planks, leg-lifts, and - when I get to that stage - chin-ups.

Once all these are relatively easy, then it’s onto more exciting gym machines, which actually means entering a gym - all these other things I currently do at home.

In the meantime, I also want to get back into free weights but without, you know, injuring myself again in the manner of a muppet. And I’d also like to ensure that I’m making the most of recovery time between exercises by eating the right foods.

So this is also an advice-asking post:

1. What/ where are good resources for finding out about free weight exercises (and advice about actual weights to use) for people who injure themselves easily yet build muscle quickly (or even just the former)?
   
   
2. What/ where are good resources for finding out about good foods to eat and drinks to drink for recovery after exercise and maximising efficiency of building muscle from exercise? So far my best bet appears to be chicken (high protein but not too heavy on my poor stomach).
   
   (I used to eat protein bars, because they’re convenient and portable and last for ages, but they’ve changed the recipe for the ones I liked (read: the only ones I found that weren’t disgusting/ allergenic) and so I’m kind of scuppered again. I’d be particularly interested in finding some new, non-allergenic (milk: fine; ton of sweetners, nuts, eggs, or chocolate: not fine) protein bars...)

I’ve been doing the Hench Mat Exercises again for a few weeks now. I’ve managed to push through the “But I don’t like it!” stage into “Oh, does today have to be a rest day?!” remarkably quickly, which is something to be happy about. The same thing happened with the bike, which was also gratifying. My main worry now is the perennial “Fay gets cocky and overdoes the exercises so that she injures herself... Again” problem.

Remarkably, I’ve only just thought about recording progress on a spreadsheet, so I can’t tell objectively if I’ve got any more adept, though it feels like I have. I know explicitly that I’m holding my planks for longer (at first I was pleased with 47 seconds (which would sink ignominiously to a bare, shaking 30 towards the end of a session), but now 01:05 is the baseline (can be as much as 01:20 to start, which then sinks to 47 seconds towards the end of a session... or rather: the middle, weirdly, then back up to 01:02). As for number (and quality) of press-ups, etc., I don’t have the data for that, so we’ll have to see...

This rambling post was brought to you by, among other things, a new medication that the specialist is trying me on, which word-suppressing funtimes side-effect is making everything more of a chore when it comes to communication.

Yay.

Grindstone, meet Shoulder

So, as I’ve just posted, it looks rather like I’m back in the old exercise saddle.

I have bust through the notorious two week point (don’t know about anyone else, but if I can make it through two weeks of good exercise habit, the pattern is generally set until injury) and so far appear to be injury-free (you know, above my usual baseline of "various bits of me are a bit wrong").

So, what have I been up to?

1. Cycling
2. Large Muscle Physio Exercises
3. Small Muscle Physio Exercises
4. Butch Core Mat Exercises
5. Dancing

1. Cycling

I’ve been doing my best to cycle everywhere I can.  This is by no means every day (sometimes I’ve got massive stuff to carry; sometimes I’m not even leaving the house; today I couldn’t find my cycling helmet until after I’d given up and ordered a taxi), but most days, and I’m generally clocking (when the app bloody works) between 3-7 miles every day that I do cycle.

Advantages include cheapness and smugness alongside muscle strength; non-weight-bearing cardiovascular challenge; and the sensation of my lungs "opening up" again; forces me not to carry too much stuff with me.

Disadvantages include smelling bad (or feeling like I smell bad); dangerously ignorant cars; annoying cyclists; headwind; forces me not to carry too much stuff with me ({pout}).

Improvements to be made include being more systematic about where I put my gear, and getting better into a regime for the mornings in order to get to work more on time.

2. Large Muscle Physio Exercises

I’ve only missed one morning physio session in about 8 months, and that was when I was too ill from The Cough to go into work, so I sat on my arse and watched Netflix.  Other than that, I’ve been doing my usual:

leg-lifts (supine, sideways, on my belly)

crunches (normal, side, and slightly twisted)

kicks and crosses

All of these from the floor, and apparently - according to various friends - quite similar to a lot of Pilates moves. Most of them are designed for either 20/ 10 reps. As advised by physio.

Advantages include simplicity; portability; being part of a good morning habit; excellent for core strength; great for a range of leg muscle strength and stability; really good, demonstrably effective way of ameliorating and preventing pain, damage, injury etc. from long-term standing.

Disadvantages include finding enough room to lay flat, arms and legs full stretch in all directions, on a surface that won’t hurt to exercise on; needing to do it before breakfast otherwise indigestion; them doing pretty much nothing for upper body strength/ stability, which I badly need, considering the frequency with which my shoulders/ neck get injured/ go out of alignment/ both; they’re really only any good for maintenance rather than development.

Improvements to be made include getting them done earlier in the morning; finding something maintenancey to add to them for arms, shoulders, etc.

3. Small Muscle Physio Exercises

Instead of waving whole limbs around, these focus on tiny, tight-to-the-bone muscle groups, ostensibly to improve stability. Instead of lifting against gravity, you’re squeezing or pulling against yourself - these are for arms (and therefore shoulders and wrists), and can be done either sitting down or standing up:

pushing palms/ fists against each other

hooking fingers and pulling hands/ arms against each other

palm-against-back, one hand pushes towards the body, the other pushes away (then swap)

All of these forms are done in front of the torso, above the head, and behind the torso, holding the push/ pull for at least ten seconds before moving onto the next form. As advised by physio.

Advantages include them being for shoulder stability, which I badly need; massively portable (I can - and usually do - do them at my desk at work); hard to see how you can injure yourself only pushing against your own strength.

Disadvantages include that they’re super-boring, so it’s difficult to remember to do them unless I’m already injured and thinking about that kind of thing; it’s difficult to discern any difference even after doing them for a while.

Improvements to be made include setting up a thrice-daily reminder to do them, like I have the once-daily to do physio, twice daily for nasty medication, etc.; do some research into how they function and how to spot the difference between doing and not doing them; add more neck ones (which I’m currently not doing because they’re more fiddly and look "weirder" than the arm ones in work!).

4. Butch Core Mat Exercises

A long time ago I went out with someone who was a Navy officer and who taught me how to do a press-up. In fact, taught me that I could do press-ups. He taught me a routine of three types of press-up ("normal", wide-arm, and wacky ones with hands close together to challenge the triceps), and three types of sit-up ("normal", twisted, and crunch). I vaguely remember that I was supposed to switch up between these and do lunges or squats or some other damned thing that I can’t do these days because knees. He also showed me free weights.

A more recent partner taught me about planks and tricep dips, rest days, and doing crazy things like press-ups or planks with your feet elevated (I don’t think I’ve yet done these). Another showed me Russian twists, deadlifts, and how to improve my full-leg-lifts (i.e. both at the same time) in order to make them more challenging. The internet (and Wii-fit) showed me flying press-ups and some crazy versions of crunches.

This, I suspect, is why I used to have a six-pack - I used to do a bunch of this EVERY DAMNED DAY, along with punchball exercises and free weights every other time.

Instead of doing the usual thing that I do which is flail wildly into DOING ALL THE EXERCISES ’TIL I BREAK then advanced pouting for six weeks, I’m moving slowly back into Butch Exercises by doing increased reps and increased sets of only four forms to start off with, including lying the hell down between sets:

a) "Normal" press-ups. Generally up to 20-25, except for at the end of the event, when the sets are more like 10.

b) Planks. I’m now up to minimum 1 minute, even at the end of the event (although a lot of swearing is currently involved when I come out of the form on the fourth go-round), and up to 1:40 max. I know this isn’t much, considering that the world record is in hours, but it’s my best, dagnabbit...

c) Double leg-lifts. I’ve injured myself with being over-enthusiastic with these, so - even if I’m feeling full of vim and strength, I tend to only go to 16 max, even at the beginning of the event.

d) Wide-arm press-ups. Only for the latter half of the event once I’ve warmed up, and - again because of former injury - I keep the set reps to ≤ 10

Advantages include fast speed of discernible differences; really feeling core tightening; butch satisfaction of "proper" aches the following day; done right the press-ups lead to good shoulder strength and - I think - stability; measurable progress (more reps before exhaustion, longer holds on planks); some cardiovascular challenge; have to do them from the feet.

Disadvantages include how easy it is to get carried away and bugger my shoulders, especially the Especially Borked One (left), leading to aforementioned six week pouting; not entirely convinced I’m doing the forms properly (could I be preventing injury with better form?); if I forget to stretch properly afterwards, I’m screwed; not very aerobic; have to do them from the feet.

Improvements to be made include setting limits on sets/ reps and - instead - adding new forms at lower reps; getting some advice about forms.

5. Dancing

Only just got back into this on Saturday just gone. I have no discipline beyond the beat, and making sure I wear vaguely suitable shoes (canvas trainers with ankle support) rather than The Boots. I stamp, pogo, flail, mosh, gurn, wiggle, grin, pirouette, and do fancy-ish footwork with lots of crossing-over of feet, kicking, and double-kicking.

I’m a bloody maniac.

Advantages include the weird fact that I can keep up sustained fast movement to music far longer (HOURS) than, e.g. running on a treadmill, which makes me want to die in a tiny ball of fail; excellent aerobic and cardiovascular exercise; needs no special equipment (except aforementioned change of footwear); by far the most social of my exercise activities; cheap (for me - I go to an indie club 3 miles from my house that costs £4 to get in, with free parking, and £1/ bottle of water); the way I dance means that it’s a full-body workout (sustained rhythmical flailing is surprisingly hard on the arms).

Disadvantages include the fact that the clubbing-dancing I’m doing leads to very-late-to-bed, and further sleep disturbance; not very portable (needs friends, and I’ve only found one club in Cambridge so far that plays my kind of music); it’s all too easy to forget to stretch out afterwards and e.g. have very tight calves hobbled by All The Pogoing (rather like I’m feeling today...); all the attendant issues of clubbing in dodgy little places (unsprung floor which stands fair to bugger joints with impact; no mop-up for perilously-spilled drinks on the dancefloor) and any vaguely mainstream venue (no, mate - just coz I smiled at you while jumping up-and-down to Song Two does not mean I want special cuddles with you); moshing is seriously bad for your neck, dear heavens; badly-coordinated people with interpersonal space issues leading to bruising, and/ or, in this instance, a blistered toe from a poorly-managed stiletto.

Improvements to be made include getting a regular night to go out on, co-ordinating friends; some research into other clubs that might play my kind of dancing music (indie, indie-rock, trance, techno (or whatever the youth call it these days), almost anything from 90s except hard or cock-rock); look at finding ceilidhs/ folk-dancing groups locally, because nothing gets you properly out of breath like a good twmpath.


And that’s your lot for the moment. :D I plan to be updating on the progress on these (including any injuries - my left shoulder’s been feeling a wee bit gimpy as I’ve been typing this...) over the next few weeks/ months

Dumb

Oh hey kids, here's some advice:

When you're getting bored with your exercise routine and decide to "spice it up" by looking for a new move on your gym app (which you've barely ever used, at least partly because it's full of animated pictures of terrifyingly ripped people doing incomprehensible things with unlikely equipment), don't pick the one you think "Hmm, I bet my physio wouldn't approve of this..." and then "try a few out" and forget that you're full of endorphins so won't feel yourself bugger your Borked Shoulder.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is the "Dumbbell Scarecrow":

Yeah, the irony is not lost on me...

Note to self: if an exercise is described as "Medium" difficult... you're not ready for it.

P.S. OW.

Progress

Not quite sure what to say here. Have avoided this so far, but this is one of the stated reasons for having the blog - a record of effects, so have at it. Behold a mixture of facts and feels.

Timetable

I have one now, and so far I haven't cheated. It's only been a couple of days now, mind. Basically, I have to treat exercise (physio, strength-builders like press-ups, etc., and gym) as an entity like gigs or arts admin meetings or dates or stuff, only the main difference being that I can move them without asking anyone else. And that's move, not cancel. I try to make sure there's at least one rest day per week in the mix (and some of the other days are physio-only).

Let's see how that goes. I've learned from tonight's experience that I can do a day's work, go to the gym for a short but thorough workout, and drive a 100-mile trip round a gig without dying. I wonder what tomorrow will bring!

Physio

This is going well, and I'm building back in some of the weird micro-muscle exercises I can do in my chair at work as well. Doing 15-20 mins of mat-physio in the morning does seem to make me feel more energised. It does, however, need to be timetabled with real discipline, mind...

I'm up to the proper number of reps for everything, and it's neither a burden nor a literal pain at the moment.

Gym

Gymnasia are weird places, no? What the...? Yeah. So re-calibrating my weirdness scale again to fit gyms in is proving interesting.

I've worked out how to make the stationary bikes do stuff that works for me and doesn't make me frustratedly confused. This is good. I'm up to a whopping 13.5 minutes (oooh) on each type of bike (beginning and end of the workout) at around level 8 (whatever the hell that means), and the time doesn't drag.

Much. I did have to start reading on my phone for the final 5 minutes of the second set. I should look out my Kindle - that worked well last time around, in the gym I understood.

This gym is shiny and doesn't have thick, slightly manky mats on which I could stretch and do floor exercises like the old one. It also has an alarming number (one so far, but where are the rest?!) of work colleagues in it. And there's a hot tub on a fire escape. I don't even...

Okay. Right. I'm using 2kg weights for the free weight exercises - up to 20 reps for the "easy" ones, and 15 for the "people with a screwed-up shoulder probably shouldn't... fine..." ones. I'm doing a mix of biceps and triceps and I have to try hard not to smile encouragingly/ snigger at the other people with (much bigger) weights. (Listen, if you look at me out of the corner of your eye while mashing big lumps of metal around and grunting, I have to assume that you want me to pay attention and validate you somehow.)

I'll switch up weight and down reps when 15 and 20 get easy. They have 2.5kg weights. They're barely used...

My arms don't burn like they did at first; the final five reps of any set are a lot less Sisyphean than they were last week.

Rowing machines are fun! :D Especially when you remember that time your partner taught you how to row properly on one of these things. 800+m in 5 mins? Something like that... More next week, and to think I only got on it because someone was using the chest press.

Up to 14kg on the chest press - two sets of 15-ish reps (second set always shorter than the first). Starting to come to the conclusion that either all chest press machines are wonky in the  same way, or I actually have one arm shorter than the other.

Strength exercises

Up to 20 on press-ups, 15 on leg-raises (old injury I'm being careful of), and 60s on front plank (get in!). I do four sets and the reps/ holds definitely vary after the first one.

How does it make you feel?

Chuffed, really. My top pulse rate appears to have reduced on the bikes, the weight reps are solid, I haven't injured myself yet, and it feels like progress.

And how does that make you feeeel?

I definitely feel more confident and more present in my body (as opposed to disconnected/ avoiding sensations from). I'm not exactly free of pain at the moment, but I seem to be less bothered about it - it's just information.

I tend to start to groan when I pull myself up from sitting, then realise that's not that painful. In fact I've only just realised this week how much I move through the world as though in expectation of pain. It would be good to stop that.

Dietary Stuff

Drinking more water is brilliant! And it turns out I was already pretty good at getting five a day. But pushing it more is good. Eating more raw vegs always gives me this weird sensation of a light belly (no, not hungry!) after a few days of putting the effort in.

And I'm therefore eating fewer snacks as there's no room for them.

Right. I'm.crashing. See you soon!