Sharla's New Log - Attempting to Avoid Becoming A Slovenly Pig

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Originally Posted by iceman

ya gotta walk before you run...i forget this all the time and injuries pile up adding to frustration leading to depression...go slow, get the feel get hungry but mostly find your passion for it, what makes it fun what makes it the thing you want to do more than anything? the thing you can't stop thinking of? hope that helps,and if not "remember we're all in this together"- amna wise beyond my years

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Thanks Iceman - Even though on one hand starting back slowly makes sense on the other hand a little part of my brain just scream "SISSY!!!!!" - so it's good to know other people have gone through this and can relate!

So I have done my circuit every day since I last updated my log (plus a slightly longer one on one day) and I'm pleased to announce the last two times I've done it it felt MUCH easier. I'm not sure how much is physiological improvement and how much might be mental.

Along with just feeling more sure of myself over the distance (which wasn't scary to begin with but now isn't even uncomfortable) I have been a little more productive with uni work than usual. I had to go through my old desk at uni to clean it out and working through all the reading etc I have done I realised I haven't completely wasted my time even though it feels like it sometimes and it re-sparked my interest in a few old ideas.

An old running partner once said to me when his running is not going well it feels asthough work and everything else doesn't go well either. I think a part of this is related to confidence and probably in his case fatigue as I'm pretty sure he over-trained quite a bit pretty much running the full distance of a marathon every Sunday plus a lot of kms every other day. I wonder how much it does the other way though. :confused:

I'm also eager to get back to the gym this week - we have a public holiday for New Years Day tomorrow so i'll have to wait until Tuesday but I feel ready to start some more strength training and have a few ideas from a magazine of all places. ;D

Also regarding food the LSA, psyllium husks and quinoa flakes it has been working really well. If I have breakfast at home rather than at work where I have my stash I get a LOT hungrier and almost definately end up raiding the chocolate box!

So i bought another stash for at home and am trying to put my sister onto it. She's overweight but i struggle to find ways to help her improve her habits without it being counter-productive. I figure it's much easier to get her eat something extra in the morning than it is to tell her she doesn't need that junk food she goes for when she's hungry later in the day.

I've also started my own veggie garden (in pots so i can move it when my apartment is finished). So far I've only got a couple of capsicum plants (called peppers sometimes elsewhere) and some sage. I'm going to add something every couple of weeks. I figure if kids have ADD from malnourished low nutrient plants from over-cropped land then growing my own in good quality potting mix should be better for me. I'm using self watering pots so the time watering and knowing how much to supply is not such a problem. I need a low maitenance solution but the initial set up I have to admit is fun :).

I have been elected as my sister's personal trainer.

It all began when i found and bought some online nutrition software - will get the name later yesterday morning. It should be handy once it's set up properly as it keeps a database of food so you just add it to each meal in the diary and you can track your consumption.

At the moment it's a bit fiddly as it's American and a lot of things I would consider normal are not in the database like Weet-Bix and skinless chicken breast :confused:. So i have to use CalorieKing to google the figures and add it to the database. I don't have a lot of patience for the fiddlyness of it but I'm persisting with the hope it become manageable.

So Rachel looked interested so i added her as a user and she asked to go swimming with me and we used that as her first training session.

It took an hour to get her to burn 325 cal. That was really hard work for her. It's much less than I would've suspected according to how much people are supposed to burn but i did get her puffing occasionally and she did a lot more than she really wanted to do.

Tuesday
Morning walk/jog with Rachel. We did my little cicuit (3 laps around a few local blocks). It took almost an hour. Completely walked the first one and walk/jogged the 2nd and third. She found it really hard and I couldn't leave her at all otherwise she wouldn't keep going. I don't know why she seems to find it so hard yet her heart rate is not so high. Perhaps it's because she's so over-weight it's almost more anaerobic rather than aerobic :confused:.

I learnt after the second lap that I couldn't push her to jog for 20 m very many times before it all felt too hard for her. We cut the jogs down to about 5 m and did them more often. Even her fast walk was slower than my normal one.

It makes swimming seem like more the thing for her. At least in the pool I can get her to do kick with fins and do it myself without and she can woop my arse making some cheeky comment as she passes me. It's easier to find things she can enjoy in the pool and feel less useless doing. The dog loved the walk though so we can't stop that completely!

So it was exercise for her but not for me - will get to road runners speed training tonight for myself and tomorrow morning I'm considering taking her to the gym to do some cardio on the rower and we can both do some resistance training etc.

Last Night Made it to speed training -

I can't say there was much speed about the way i was running though!
2.2 km warm up followed by the following intervals -1600m, 1200m, 800m and 400m.
The others were timing their breaks but i didn't have my watch and felt I wasn't running fast enough to justify much of a break so i generally left at the same time as whoever i saw finish just a bit ahead of me.

Walked about 2 kms to the bus stop to warm down. Overall felt good and the group was a friendly bunch. Told one of them i'd pay him $5 if I didn't show up next week. He looked a bit confused until i told him i needed to blackmail myself. ;D

Wednesday Morning

Cycled to the gym. Planned weights with some cardio between to help kick up my heart rate.

15 mins on the rower - 5 mins easy - last ten with 30 secs hard alternating with 30 secs easy.
One set of shoulder press and seated row (underhand grip to relax my shoulders)
2 mins on treadmill at around 12 km/hr but foot didn't appreaciate it.

Then did the following with 2 mins on the rower between each set (1 set - 2 exercises):

• counterweight lat pull down and tricep dip X 3
• shoulder press and seated row
• shoulder press, Bicep curls X2
• Shoulder press, bicep curls and seated row (got a bit confused there as other people hop on and off the machines bw my sets and i couldn't remember where i was up to but it's all good!)

After the last set above i did the following without cardio between as i was running short on time:

• hamstring curls & leg extensions X 3 sets
• hip raises on mat with extra weight on my abdomen for resistance & squats on 2 medicine balls X 3 sets

Medicine balls were a little awkward. Had none very similar in size so one leg was bent noticabley more than the other. One was more 'squishy' than the other too. Did first two sets of 20 with those balls with them the opposite way round for the second set. Found that the 'squishy' ball was too soft and it made the exercise easier than it's meant to be by absorbing all my wobble!

Then swapped the squishy one for a harder one and did 15 reps with the balls each way for one longer set.

Finished with fit ball hamstring stretches, psoas stretches and band chest stretch. Found my right side is a little tighter than my left.

Didn't get abs in this morning but will hopefully cover them tonight - am going to a kickboxing gym - my first ever kickboxing coach has a gym I need to visit. :)

First Session at the new kickboxing gym -

Was good :)

The coach was actually my first ever coach who I happened to run into at the supermarket before christmas. I was putting off going because of the price of the classes on the web but when I arrived I found out they are changing it to $10 a week with no contract from $13 a session - much better! ;D

There is no sparring as far as I can see and no ring - it's all classes which would've turned me off at one stage. Now it works well as I can concentrate on technique myself but tend to get paralysis by analysis. Here i get good technical coaching but also a really good workout with good stretches etc at the end.

Also since it's kickboxing and I haven't kicked for years I'm a long way off of feeling co-ordinated enough to spar in kickboxing anyway. Boxing would be different - this however is kickboxing with knees and elbows. When I kickboxed before it was without knees and elbows at all!

Now I'm working the bag in combinations using knee and elbows as ordered - bringing me into a range I've never deliberately moved into before. It's quite foreign but i think that's what makes it fun - i'd probably get bored of the equivalent boxing class without sparring. :)

My shins need toughening up again - they didn't appreciate being slammed into the bag. My balance needs work too. I will enjoy trying to build that up again! :)

Rachel had a pilates class today and worked tonight so I haven't checked in with her though. I'm impressed with her attitude though - until now she's always been very reluctant to consider eating healthy. Today she went out and bought diet cordial :).

Thursday

Swam with Rachel. She sat down on the steps at one point between laps and noticed a heart symbol with an up arrow next to it on her heart rate monitor. She showed me thinking it meant something like her heart could explode at any moment. I told her no it means you need to get it higher - it's too low.

Geez did that work well! ;D It was like something had bitten her on the arse then and she pumped out 357 cal worth of exercise ten minutes faster than it took her to burn 315 in the pool last time! :)

I swam with her without fins while she used fins. We also incorparated some running, squats, pull-ups using the pool ladder and push-ups at the shallow end on the side of the pool. It was an easy workout for me but I'm still sore pretty much everywhere from yesterday's effort so it was good to loosen up.

Rachel's food consumption si going well. As she is heavier her resting metabolic rate is higher at the moment than mine. I'll need to be stricter than her. I'm not eating any individual thing that's really bad but dinners cooked by other people are not always great. Will have to attempt to dominate the kitchen a bit more. Probelm is other people who cook at the moment are too helpful and make more than one night's worth at a time so if it's a bit fatty we're stuck with it two nights running.

Fri morning

Rachel came with us to burnside for Road runners session. I started with the main group to do a hillier run but my foot really hated it this morning. I think my trail runner which i was wearin exacerbate the problem a bit. So i turned back and did a walk-jog session with Rachel. She's getting better at pushing herself which is awesome!

Ken who organizes the runs and follows people on his bike was really warm and encouraging to her. We went for coffee with the group afterwards and people we're really friendly to her - even though most of them are disgustingly fit they didn't look down their nose at her at all. It was really nice of them. :)

I have kickboxing tonight which should be ok for the foot as that didn't bother it last time. Wednesday at lunch time I got around to buying a really cheap pair of supermarket shoe sport insoles and just put the left one in my bike shoes. That helped a bit I think. There is one thing left to try though.

I need to fiddle with the pedals so they release the cleats more readily so I don't have to twist as hard. This bike was my mum's before it was mine and she always uncleats on the right when she stops at lights etc whereas I uncleat on the left so i can put my foot on the curb. It's possible she's loosened the right over time but the left is tighter and being the one I use the most giving me trouble.

Friday night I didn't manage to get to kickboxing - I decided to try finding a route with less traffic on the bicycle but just got lost - so did a longer than normal ride but didn't get there. That is probably not a good thing as my foot needed some time off.

Also rested it over the weekend and tried to get organized with uni stuf - why oh why did i put so much crap on random pieces of scrap paper!!:-\

Went to see a physio on the weekend. Actually heard about them during a running clinic last year - they find your weaknesses and give you drills etc to improve your running and prevent injury. I like this idea - why wait until you're injured to go to a physio if you can prevent it all together! Still I put it off for financial reasons and because i wanted to know i could stick to a routine enough to do the exercises given to me before i started.

He did have some good things to say like I hold side plank higher than most people are able to, my form is good from T1 up and my ankles and feet are good - even though my standing arch is a little flat i have good arches in movement (i think from barefoot running).

The area I knew let my down though is my hips. I also have a very tight left ITB which suprises me. On video he showed me when i run my right hip drops which is bad but even worse my left hip just floats sideways past my left foot. This has the knee pointing in which si not good for that either.

This explains why i couldn't bring my left foot up easily when i was on Scrap's verti-run. It's not something i notice so much in normal running until i'm shown and now i notice it all the time. I'm using the wrong muscles to bring my left foot up. I have been given a program to follow 3 times a week and have another appointment in 2 weeks time to make sure I am doing everything correctly and get some running drills. He's also goign to measuer my calf strength then incase that is another factor.

Monday
Cycled to work, cycled to kickboxing - did the hour class and cycled home.
Some things still feel very un-natural and the combos are often very weird.

I'm still trying to work out how much of that is because i have been stale, because it involves knees & elbows and in a few cases possibly it's just not very realistic for most actual sparring circumstances and more of an exercise in balance etc. I'll reserve my judgement for now because some things that feel very awkward to begin with but then get easier.

What is very good is the stretching and the fact that whatever we do in orthodox we do in southpaw - each side is worked evenly which is exactly what i need! The atmosphere is also very friendly and I like that no one is really trying to prove anything to anyone but themselves here. :)

Tuesday Morning
Cycled to the gym - did my physio routine - took ages as i need to control things fairly precisely. Didn't get a sweat up but I figure as it becomes more familiar i will and it's worth it.

So i haven't updated this for a while. Basically just got too busy with work to do it and was tired when i got home. Things have gone well - up to a point - thatpoint being the bitumen at about 10 to 9 Wednesday morning.

My sister has lost 5 kg already which is great. I found kickboxing again made me really sore and was worried for a while that i might be too defected to do it until i was fitter from other activites again. However, i found each week i was able to do another session with less soreness. I think being a little older my recovery/ adjustment time was slower than when i first got into kickboxing. I struggled coming back into it without understanding why being able to remember how easily i jumped straight into it originally.

I can see the positive side of it now since i guess if it takes longer after a workout to see a training effect then it's longer before i detrain also. Plus it means a little difficulty to begin with is less likely to mean i can't become competant at an activity.

My physio exercises have been added to and i'm less lopsided already. I have begun to feel the difference between the right and wrong movements during my physio routine although i'm way off being able to maintain it for a run.

But after all that Wednesday morning i piked on the gym and decided to cycle in for work at peak hour. Karma then introduced me to the bitumen by way of a car door suddenly opening in front of me from a vehicle lined up at traffic lights.

It happened so quickly i thought i'd been aimed for and screamed "you idiot" as i fell. Both passenger and driver were extremely apologetic and the passenger was actually a cancer patient in a dazed rush to get to his chemo treatment. Now i've yelled at a cancer patient i am definately doomed to hell! :-\

So i fell on my left arm and after 2 days when my range of motion didn't improve the doc sent me to get x-rays. I wasn't expecting anything serious because it wasn't as painful as people said it should be. Alas i have an undisplaced fracture through the radial head & neck.

I'm now in plaster which I'm told will smell like somethings decomposing after a while. I am not allowed to get it wet at all. Obviously no kickboxing, no swimming, no running, no side plank (physio exercise), no work and NOOOOoooo cycling for 6 weeks.

I think it's a threat from the universe - move it and stick to your morning gym sessions or loose it badly! It's also an order to hurry up and write my thesis while i don't have work. Luckily for me Adam is on his way home so i have a carer! Meet him at the airport on Sunday - very excited about that. Cairo is not safe for him to travel through so he's had to cancel that part of his trip. So i won't have anything exciting to write re training - just walks really - for six weeks.

Will check in again after that to winge about how measly & puny my left arm has become .......

Ok I'm back!

My elbow having an undisplaced fracture didn't require surgery to have pins inserted. When I went to a specialist he said that's what would've been required if it was displaced and if I fell on it or something and caused it to be displaced while it was healing.

That didn't happen! Halleluya! :D Me being clumsy is not such an uncommon occurance so that really is a true miracle!

The other great thing was that i got to take the cast off after only 10 days. The bone doc was actually disgusted to see it had even been put in one as apparently if it was left that way I may have had difficulty ever straightening it again and competant doctors don't cast elbows. I was suprised something as basic as treatement for a broken bone can be stuffed up by 3 separate GPs that saw me before i saw the bone dude! Scary! Pays to get a second and specialist opinion I think! All the treatment did cost a little bit buthopefully I will end up being refunded on the driver's 3rd party insurance (fingers crossed).

Other news - well I've been feeling like a fat slovenly pig and thus failing at the aim of this log but hopefully I can turn it around now. I can completely straighten my arm and do pushups on it. I'm going to wait a few more weeks before i punch with it but I have made plans to keep myself busy in the meantime.

I have joined a 24 hour gym and It is cool! No time limit means I can get a decent workout in either before or after work and it's about $10 a week with no contract which suits me as i'll likely be moving in another 6 months or so.

It has the coolest treadmills - there are a lot of choices but my favourite so far is the track setting and the fact you can program in 3 paces to train at by just pressing a button. I've been setting walking pace at 6.1 kmphr, jogging at 11 kmphr and running at 14 kmphr.

Saturday - 15.5 km of rowing, 5 km of track with about 10 mins of walk warmup. Walk pace 400 m, jog pace 400 m, run pace 400 m.

Sunday - 14 km track work, walk warm up 10 mins, the rest being 300 m walk pace, 400 m jog pace and 100 m run. Finished off with 6 km on the rower.

Monday (tomorrow) will be a recovery day and I'll aim to do more resistance training etc during the rest of the week.

I haven't posted here forever and I don't have a lot to add - just a few hindsight notes I'd like to make in case they apply to anyone else.

1) I had the MRI redone on my bad knee mid last year and they did find cartilage damage. There is a good chance this damage was the original cause of my knee pain but the original scan was not of good enough quality to pick it up.

There is a narrow crack in the cartilage behind my left knee cap all the way though. It's not rough and doesn't catch - symptomatically I can see how to a physio it didn't manifest the same way that cartilage damage usually does.

I know now why I went through the cycle of easing off, doing all of the physio exercises, feeling less pain only to have the problem reoccur when I got back to a certain training level. :mad:

The reality is cartilage doesn't heal. I will always be limited in what I can do. On one hand this kinda sucks but it's a LOT better to know this now than to continue to go through the frustrating yo-yo experience I did.

Now I just know there is a limit to how far and often I can run. I know cross training is important if I want to keep my cardio fitness going. I know I can't do lunges or stairs or skipping.

To be able to run a little I must work on my cadence, running form and stick to nice surfaces. I also have to keep my weight close to it's ideal. Right now I am heavier than I have ever been because I am 7 months preggers but I will have to drop the kilos ASAP afterwards.

So my advice to others based on this would be - don't always go with your first diagnosis. Things like MRIs can be hideously expensive but they can be worth repeating if you feel like you are hitting a brick wall with your recovery from an injury.

2) I did get off of my anti-depressants quite a while ago. Chemically I think the medication really just needed time to help my brain chemistry reach a new stable equilibrium. I also suspect having adequate vitamin D and B levels has helped.

I'm learning having a firm idea of your values - rather than goals which we so often hear about is crucial. You can always live in a way which is true to your values even if things you can not control interfere with your ability to reach your goals.

I'm trying to become more mindful - to live in the moment to avoid negative, circular thinking. Not great at it yet - but it's a skill I can see being worthwhile.

I want to point out right now that I do believe I am very 'normal'. I believe looking after your brain is something that warrants ongoing consideration and maintenance just like any other part of your body.

3) Sometimes I wonder why the level of my best was what it was - reasonable but not as good as I would have hoped. The biggest reason would be that I was too self conscious - I worried too much about what people might think when they saw me train or compete. I couldn't tolerate failure in myself either.

That attitude was completely Pointless :rolleyes: - you have to be crap sometimes and make mistakes to learn. Maybe your mistakes happen in training and you have a great record - maybe they happen in competition because you are not pushed enough in training.

Like many others I was not brought up to see myself making mistakes as a step forward so much as a sign I was not capable of something. Logically / intellectually I have always known that anyone who is good at something had to work to get there so at least I kept trying.

However, I think you need to really believe and feel you can learn from all your mistakes to keep improving. You can't let mistakes ruin your confidence in your ability to improve.

Otherwise the temptation is to stay within your comfort zone. You never progress beyond that point then. With coaching that didn't prod me to improve beyond my comfort zone I reached a maximum.

I hope to avoid this in life from now on - not just to reach my best but even if you are crap you should still be able to enjoy what you do! ;D

Anyway I'd be happy to hear any ideas / comments people have RE the above.

Hi Sharla nice to see you here again.
Congratulations on the baby,good luck with it all.
You need one of Scraps machines so you can exersize and repair laying down with no weight on the knee.

I just had a MRi done on one knee and after getting a diagnosis of needing a new knee! :o I have taken some other routes of self repair as much as can be done.

Fish oil 12 a day helps.

Getting adjusted slightly with a vibrating frequency adjuster from a top chiro has helped me to put weight and movement more evenly distributed too.

I use to wake up in pain, I dont any more since getting onto the right dose of fish oil.

Cheaper ones but in volume really does help. (not sure about that if you are pregnant though.:-\

Thanks Andre

We're pretty happy despite the fact I now weigh 78 kgs when I used to weigh under 60 and I know at some stage I'll have to get a watermelon out of something that's usually closer to the size of a grape! :o

I'm actually really impressed by pregnancy vitamins - when you think about it they are designed to not only sustain an adult woman while lactating but also help to develop a little human being inside her.

I did take some fish oil along with my pregnancy vitamins for a while but found out I was effectively double dosing so I stopped. I haven't felt a lot of knee pain since being pregnant and I think it could be partly because of the vitamins - including their fish oil content.

I wonder how long I can get away with taking them after I finish lactating ;D. Preggers vitamins are maybe not something you would want to take for your knee though!

Another possible benefit related to pregnancy could be the increased blood circulation. A woman I work with actually had improved eye sight when she got pregnant because the shape of her corneas was improved by the increased blood flow. Luckily her eye sight has not degenerated back to it's original level since child birth even though her youngest is a few years old!

Cartilage does not heal though - so I don't expect any pregnancy knee healing miracles - just benefits from having better understanding and management. I'm happy with that as it's not really that restrictive - it forces me to expand my horizons a little rather than just to running because it's so easy, cheap and convenient.

It sounds like you are managing your knee well though Andre - to go from needing a new knee to not waking up in pain! Well done :D

So do you have cartilage damage too? By new knee what exactly were they suggesting? A joint replacement like what is more common for hips? Sounds serious!

I can see how the chiro would help. I've never heard of the vibrating frequency adjuster. I've had a chiro use a massage machine to loosen up my back before making adjustments. I have good impressions of exercising on machines with a vibrating platform to strengthen all those small but very important stabilising muscles. Is what your chiro used anything like either of those?

With my current belly heavy weight distribution I don't think I can work much on my posture except for a few preggers pilates classes but after I've popped I do want to work on that.

I have been trying to understand running technique better and figured out that I don't recruit my gluteals enough when I run and tend to drop my hips - one side more than the other. I can recommend a good e-book that explains it all very well in case anyone is interested:
Running Technique Book | Understanding and training for good running technique and form

Training the correct technique for movements that have to become automatic is tricky. With running technique I think that is the hard part - anyone can strengthen a muscle but learning to use it correctly without having to think about it is much harder. I may have to look at some of Scraps threads for ideas. :)

I think to make the most of chiro treatments etc I'm going to have to try to improve my movement patterns. I want to know I'm not paying a chiro to continually put bandaids on a problem just to have me start to undo their good work as soon as I walk out of their office.

And when you find Scrap's old posts, please link them so we can put them back in the Important/Useful section.

Great to see you back Sharla, and congrats on the baby on the way! :)

Thanks Youngblood :)

I will definitely link to Scraps threads as I dig them up again - can't lose them! Those threads make you realise there is a lot more to it all that you need to understand without dumbing it down and just giving you all the answers - they are dangerously addictive! ;D

hi Sharla
I tried to PM you but unfortunately not enough posts.

I've just realised you are training in Adelaide. Wondering if you could help me out.

I am really keen to compete. However, I dont wanna get involved in politic. My club is not a member of BSA. Is there any chance I could do some interclub sparring?

Pls email me and let me know what should I do
my email adress: robin.run@gmail.com
A million thanks
Robin