Saturday, December 24, 2011, Check-In

[muck_a_luck]

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 (that's me!) 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

[ex_sunne737]

Snowshoeing 90 minutes in powder snow

[resolute]

That is a workout, my goodness yes.

[ex_sunne737]

It is, at the end I had troubles lifting my left leg ;)
Of course it was my own fault that I did some leg lifting exercises on Friday.

[rydra_wong]

Morning yoga, two and a half hours climbing. Happy thuggy roof route work.

[resolute]

What makes a route "thuggy"?

[rydra_wong]

Big powerful moves, often onto big easy holds ("jugs" -- there's a route somewhere named "Snug as a Thug on a Jug" *g*). Lots of energy and arm power, no subtlety at all.

[resolute]

That makes sense!

[rydra_wong]

I should add that it's only pretty recently that I've had the strength for anything "thuggy" at all. So I get extra amusement and glee from having the power to throw around. It's just: Me! Doing this! Ahahaha!

[resolute]

Oh, dude, I know that glee. Not in a climbing sense, but every time I do something I couldn't do two years ago. I cackle madly in my head, just as you typed.

[resolute]

Weights, and walking/jogging. For a mile. .35 of which was jogging. I think my jogging is slower than my walking and I do not give *fuck*. I am jogging, [expletive redacted].

I cannot seem to break past 165# on my deadlift and 95# on my bench press. I find this frustrating, but I will keep plugging away at it. Also, I can do a 75# barbell shoulder press when I am sitting, but only 45# while I am standing. This seems odd to me. But, it might just mostly be that I have ongoing and continuous rotator cuff issues. They never seem to be quite all the way *right*. Barbell shoulder presses are not good for my shoulders, sadly. Neither, frankly, are barbell bench presses.

[semielliptical]

Congrats on the jogging! When I started adding running to my walks this fall, I was surprised to realize how slow I needed to jog in order to go any distance. But I decided I wouldn't focus on speed and that worked out for me.

[resolute]

Exactly.

[smackshack]

I second the congratulations on the jogging. For me that was a huge emotional thing when I was starting to exercise a year ago; discovering that I could learn to jog and run again, even though I had to do it in small increments spread out over a long period of time, made me feel free in a way that no exercise class ever could.

As for the shoulder press, it's a deceptive exercise. It looks simple -- just push something up overhead -- but doing it right can be tricky. Doing a standing press is more difficult than a seated press because a standing press is a massive core exercise: to stabilize your body beneath the weight your legs, glutes, abs, spinal erectors, lats, trapezius, and pectoral muscles all have to work hard. A seated press takes most of the lower body out of the equation and reduces the amount of work the upper body does to maintain stability, so you can focus more on the business of lifting the weight.

(I hope I'm right. I've been learning this stuff as I try to improve my own poor upper-body strength and correct a lifetime of doing things wrong...and screwing up my shoulders in the process. But now that I'm doing things right...I think...my shoulders complain a lot less. Which is why I'm going to indulge myself with some unsolicited meandering below: it's a problem I'm trying to solve for myself as well.)

My understanding is that the barbell should go up and down in almost a perfect vertical line, and the torso sways beneath the bar as it goes up, a bit like an upside-down pendulum with the fulcrum at one's hips. When the bar is on the chest, the torso leans back a bit to compensate. As the bar goes up, the torso moves forward, bringing the head between the arms, and when finished the head is actually in front of the bar. At the beginning of the press you're pushing with the chest and the front of the shoulder; in the middle of the press you're pushing with the top of the shoulder; and at the end of the upward motion you're pushing with top rear of the shoulder and with the upper back as well, in a bit of a shrug. At the top the weight is being held up by your back, basically, from your trapezius down to your spinal erectors, glutes, and hamstrings, with everything else working to stabilize your posture. (Lowering the weight, everything happens in reverse, of course.)

Stability depends on activating all the stabilizing muscles before you start: there's no room for any relaxed, non-working bits in a standing press. A strong, efficient pressing motion depends on getting the pendulum action of the upper body just right. (If you're fiddling with the lateral front-to-back motion of the bar as you raise it, for instance because you're trying to move the bar in a curve around your head so you don't knock yourself out, then something's wrong.)

I'm convinced that I've hurt my shoulders in the past because I did this stuff wrong: I didn't stabilize my lower body, and I had no feel for the torso motion, which meant I was screwing around trying to control a bobbling weight that wasn't going straight up and down, which inevitably caused me to injure myself. I also remember trying to press from behind the neck and hurting myself that way: apparently this is an advanced move. And doing the equivalent press on a machine tends to be bad because you don't get the torso motion and your grip is dictated by the machine rather than your own body's proportions.

Which reminds me: another thing that can hurt your shoulders in the bench press and the overhead press is allowing your elbows to flare out to the side. Control that tendency by squeezing the armpit (basically activating the lats and pecs for more stability). And by getting a good grip to start with: my understanding is that the forearm should be perpendicular to the bar when the elbow joint is at a 90 degree angle.

Anyway, this is going on way too long, but I've been focusing on this issue a lot lately, and it's like I have to recite an encyclopedia to myself every time I pick up a barbell. But so far it seems to be helping.

[resolute]

Oooh, this is excellent.

[ex_sunne737]

Until recently when I started to focus on speed in my jogging, I used to be overtaken by nordic walkers.
Or, when my bf joined me for jogging, he sometimes just started walking because he could match my speed even when walking.

[resolute]

Hee!

[weirdquark]

Unexpected lifting yesterday, so today I yogaed along to a bunch of videos on YouTube.

[juliet316]

I've had a horrible headache today that just makes me want to curl up in bed (or wherever comfy), so I doubt I'll get any exercise in today.

[semielliptical]

Run: 40 minutes, yoga: 25 minutes.

[via_ostiense]

Went for a ~1.5 mi walk with the dogs. It was a sunny, beautiful day, and I'm glad I got outside to enjoy it and equally glad that it took the edge off of the dogs' energy, so they'll be calm and cuddly tonight.

[smackshack]

Weights (pull-ups, pull-downs, presses, push-ups) and a 5k run and a 12-yr old Highland Park. Happy Solstice-related holiday. :-)