Saturday, October 15th, 2011, Check-in

[weirdquark]

Hey, EED community!

Here is your daily check-in post! Hope everyone is having a great day!

If you are posting for the first time, or new to the community, please review the community's standards, below.



1. Mod (or someone else) will post a Daily Check In post, for those who prefer to note their daily activities in response to a prompt. Please only place exercise comments here.

2. All members are encouraged to post daily independent posts about their activities, if they prefer that to a prompt.

3. Please place any NON-EXERCISE comments in independent update posts and behind a cut. Some people are sensitive to discussion of diet and nutrition. That is integral to many people's exercise activities, so I want members to be able to discuss that, but for those who are here strictly to log exercise, I would like them to be able to avert their eyes.

4. Everyone is encouraged to introduce themselves, discuss their exercise goals, and post updates on their activities. "I finally made it to running a mile!" or "I kicked up into handstand today!" are updates that we all want to hear about and share! Please put long posts and entries involving diet and nutrition behind a cut, though.

5. Aside from intro posts and injury announcements, please try to include an exercise update in every post.

Comments

[weirdquark]

Finished stage 6 of NRoLfW.

[resolute]

Woot!

[resolute]

Weights, which was all fine and good, but here is the learning experience:

Farmer's Walk is *hard*, y'all. My *goodness*. I took a stroll around the weight room about 120 feet, carrying a pair of 40 lbs dumbbells, and I nearly dropped them at the end. So then I did it again, to see if it was really that hard, and it is. My forearms are aching in the good way. Who knew?

And here is the triumph:

I did five second of UNASSISTED PLANK. Like, on the floor, not on a bench, just me, and plank, FIVE SECONDS. This was after my workout and my usual assisted planks on the bench. WIKTORY!

[rydra_wong]

Farmer's walk w00t! Yeah, grip strength involves some muscles that don't get a lot of attention in everyday life (or, necessarily, in weightlifting). This is why rock climbing for the first time tends to produce the same AAAAAAAH WHAT THE HELL JUST HAPPENED TO MY FOREARMS response. But it pays off when your deadlifts get heavier. Or when you need to open jars.

Also: PLANK MOTHERFUCKING YEAH. \o/ Those breakthrough moments are so magnificent.

[resolute]

As I was walking around, shaking out my hands and wincing, I thought of you and the other rock-climbers I know, actually. :) "Holy buckets, I hope they all know about this!" is what I thought.

I think I'm going to keep doing the low assisted plank for a while longer, try to get up to a minute, but I'll add in short unassisted planks, to keep me motivated.

[rydra_wong]

Climbing walls are full of people walking round shaking out our hands and wincing. Or, in some cases, lying on the mats shaking out our hands and wincing. *g*

If you want to work grip strength regularly, it may help to learn some climber's stretches to use afterwards -- the forearms have a lot of muscles and tendons packed into a very small amount of space, so they can get tight very quickly, in my experience. The key stretch is the "flexors" stretch shown here:

http://www.nicros.com/training/articles/treating-climbers-elbow/

That sounds like an excellent plan with the planks.

[resolute]

Thanks for the link! Since I *have* elbow tendonosis, this is excellent.

[rydra_wong]

In that case, you might also find these useful:

http://rydra-wong.dreamwidth.org/235642.html
http://www.athlon.com.au/articles/r&i_dodgyelbow.pdf (pdf)

[resolute]

You are exceedingly helpful, thank you!

[weirdquark]

Yeah, my adjustable dumbbells come in boxes which weigh 40lbs and I occasionally pick them up and walk up and down the hallway. I usually only manage this once. ::g:: I foresee more Farmer's walks in my future though, for lo, NRoLfA has them, and it also has them with unbalanced dumbbells because this makes your core work harder.

Yay for plank victories! It's amazing how long five seconds can be when you're moving to a harder level.

[resolute]

ooooh, unbalanced farmer's walk ....

[cofax7]

Awesome! I ran the longest run in the last six months--probably about 5 miles, in the hills. Woot!

[rydra_wong]

Morning yoga, then headache-y grumpy crash. Woe.

(But tomorrow is a climbing day! \o/)

[devilc]

Houseworkout! Vacuumed the downstairs, wet vacuumed the living room, partly cleaned the kitchen.

[mixofsun]

Walked for about two and a half hours total.