Sharla's Log

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Originally Posted by hfahrenheit

keep at it.

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Thanks :)

It's always nice to get encouragment!

Unfortunately I'm a bit embarassed about how the last two weeks have actually gone.

I haven't achieved much training wise at all.

Basically I haven't been able to juggle my uni workload, job hunting and applications and my flatmate seems to be going through the breakdown of a long term relationship at the moment too. I can't just walk out and leave her to cry and i've been equally pathetic lately when things have gone wrong at uni.

I gave up my weekend cleaning duties last weekend to spend the full weekend preparing grain for a major experiment. I had boxes coming made by an engineer delivered on Monday but when they arrived they were not even box like.

It turns out that my ability to glue what is basically shallow trays in sets with one transparent and one opaque black is better than what this 'engineer' could do so I'll be doing it myself.

Nonetheless I had a good sook when I'd slept at uni on Saturday night to prepare my grain after going to a job interview in the morning and worked all day Sunday just to spend Monday night working out that while I could dribble acetone on the glue in some parts I couldn't take apart many and the acetone marks up the acrylic anyway! :mad:

I'm still working out where this leaves me with uni work and training etc so I have no plan. :-\ Plus there's a chance my flatmate is going to buy a one way ticket interstate to go back to family if her relationship caves in properly tomorrow - then i can add flatmate finding or moving to my list of to dos!

I think ultimately i'll have to arrange a fitness program aimed at destressing which doesn't take a lot of extra time out of my day. I still want to get back into a training routine because I think I'm happiest when I have one. Not sure what an interim program might involve just yet but I will update my log if i think of one!

Of course any suggestions would be great!

What do other forum members do for training in these situations?

I'm stuck in the same situation except not nearly as bad as you. Uni exam time has me stressed out and I tweaked my back last week so only done about 4 or 5 workouts in two weeks. It's weird going from 100% to crap all, I feel like i'm on almost on edge. Today has just been me sitting in front of my computer learning a semesters worth of economics ad it's been frying my brain. I can even imagine what this time is like for a Phd student.

All I can say is the heavy bag is great for stress relief, burpees are great for a quick full body workout and a shower does wonders for your state of mind :)

Thanks Salty :)

Yeah i've been nervous/paranoid about doing short sessions of high intensity training since perhaps unreasonably i've always felt that I really need a long warm up to prepare for it.

Maybe I'm worng - at least I can't think of any real reason why I wouldn't be able to do a short, fast workout with a normal warm up more safely than a longer run.

I have been considering going to check out another boxing gym not far from me just for casual equipment use to begin with at least.

I've also been told that there are some positions for swimmers able to pass a fitness test to become lifeguards and get all the necessary qualifications.

If I decide I'm too cheap to go to a pool or a gym there is grass around which i can do sprints etc on so I don't really have any excuse.

I might see what I can do based on maybe 40 min sessions for a while I guess!

It's good to know other people are going through the same thing Salty! Although i have a slight suspicion you're still training more effectively than me at the moment!

Trust me you have nothing to be worried about on the injury front and once you go high intensity you never go back :)

Here's a nice quick one for you to try which only takes 15 mins...

30 second intervals of each exercise, doing as many as possible, each round totals 3 mins, with 30 to 60 seconds break between rounds. Do 4 rounds in total.

Burpees
Jumping Jacks
Split Jumps
Burpees
Jumping Jacks
Pushups (sets 1 & 3) Squats (sets 2 & 4)

I usually only do a bit of skipping and stretching as a warm up for this, just make sure your quads are stretched. Then afterwards do an ab circuit and you have done a great, time efficient workout in under half an hour. If your feeling adventurous, do some bag work afterward. Now you have no excuses Sharla ;)

A few of my mates have been lifeguards, pretty cruisy job most of the time, well paid; I'd go for it!

Ok in some ways I've procrastinated a lot today but I have a clearer idea of a few things.

Basically on top of my usual disorganized state I have difficultly prioritizing things so when the first plan I make which I'd like to stick to falls through I don't usually have a back up or any logical easy conclusion as to what a back up plan would look like.

So a job application I had to fill in this week gave me some idea. Basically one of the earlier Qs it asked on the job specifications was for an example of experience prioritizing work. A later Q was about time management.

I answered the prioritizing Q as if it was time managment and had to rethink it when i got to the time managment Q. I think i wrote a decent answer for the prioritizing Q but until they made me think about it i didn't really have much of a concept of it.

So basically being crap at it I made up an Excel spreadsheet today to help me nut out how to manage things. When I thought of all the criteria I'd assign to things to different things to assess how much of a priority they are I realized dropping some things like my exercise recently was not really that smart.

I have scores attached to everything now and some things like exercise were higher on the list due to the fact they help me relieve stress, maintain my health and perform more efficiently in all things than I would without them.

So based on Salty's excellent advice (rep when I can get it to you) I've decided to train 4 times a week, once in the pool minimum. More than that will be lower in priority but i'll do it if I have time.

I'll keep stretching every day but only 30 mins on non training days and I'll probably choose a few stretches most likely to combat computer posture for non training days.

Today was a stretch followed by a 5 min walk, 5 min jog warm up then 5 X 4 min intervals with 1 min walk recovery between them. i did the 4 minute intervals at a hard intensity and I really feel like I've done something unlike I would with one of my 30 min easy jogs. I finished of with some more stretches in between ab work.

I think I have had a few injury phobias that have been justified and a few which I've taken too far. I think especially when I'm not in a routine or feeling unfit I am prone to worry more than is perhaps justified about whether or not I can get away with training at a high intensity.

I'm kinda glad Salty made me think about it in a slightly more rational way. :)

I won't be doing burpees until I join a gym again though since I'm allergic to bees and restricted to training either outside or in my house and I believe you are best not jumping on anything other than sprung floor boards. If I try doing burpees at the moment I'm bound to either squash a bee into my hand or hurt my knee or back pounding on the floor inside my unit (ok let me keep a few phobias ;D).

There is a casual run on Sun Dec 7th. It's set up by the Adelaide road runnes club. Since I'm only planning short training sessions I'm going to enter the 5 km.

I won't aim for a time just yet but I think just having an aim - something to look forward to and give my training some focus - will keep me feeling a bit more positive in general because even though i won't be training much I'll know I'm achieving preparation for something. Also it'll keep my spirits up when other things at uni etc are just going really wrong.

Maybe next year I'll have a more interesting log and some more interesting goals but for now this is it so I'm sorry to bore the hard core amongst you who are doing a lot more than this!

Of course my plans for this week are not going to be what I would have expected.

My flatmate was dumped by her partner today and is getting on the first flight tomorrow to go back to Sydney and stay with her parents.

Poor thing is soooooo upset! :(

We'll be up late packing her things and she'll send a truck for her furniture later.

Ironic thing is she had it trucked here less than six months ago and since I own a basic if modest lot of furniture already and her partner had nothing it's just been sitting at his place only to be moved back again.

Sucks - she was a really good flatmate, the one time I went swimming with her was awesome and we got along really well.

Now I have to get a new flatmate in which sucks! :mad:

Do the ressistance work before the Stretch, much better ;D contraction before expansion.

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Originally Posted by Scrap

Do the ressistance work before the Stretch, much better ;D contraction before expansion.

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Ok thanks Scrap i will do!

I have been thinking lately there's probably a lot I don't know about how and when to stretch. I'm definately a stretch beginner so any advice is greatly appreciated!

My now ex-flatmate Sarah gave me my birthday present early since I drove her to the airport to move back home this morning.

She gave me a book about exercises including stretching and strethening techniques that can be done with a fit ball! How did she know! :o

Monday and Wednesday swam. Workout was 20 X 100 m with a little warm up and cool down.

Monday no fins - Wednsday I remembered all my gear.

Monday didn't do any butterfly. I attempted it but without the fins I couldn't get the power I needed to do it properly especially since the pool was 50 m so that would be the minimum distance really.

Everything else I could do for 100 m lots without any problem. I am using that distance to work at a reasonable rate, with reasonable form, have a short recovery (forgot watch - not timed) and go again.

It worked out to about 7 hundreds of freestyle and backstroke and 6 hundreds of breastroke. The session felt good because it sort of stretched me out with the backstroke and got all my muscles used to swimming again but wasn't very aerobic.

Wednesday using the fins I did 5 hundreds of backstroke, 5 hundreds of freestyle, 5 hundreds of breaststroke and 5 hundreds of backstroke for the first 50 and butterfly for the second fifty.

This DID get my heartrate up. I've decided being inexperienced in using fins is probably the reason there have been a few doubters on here RE the ability of swimming to train the aerobic system.

I think it's the same when you put a bike on a trainer thingy - the higher the resistance the less aerobic you can make it. I'd completely recommend training with fins to anyone and anyone who's ever swam in a club will know they are a standard piece of swimming equipment!

I swam twice this week because mum and I have been juggling her car so it's been convenient to pick her up after work, sleep at her place and drive her to swimming at 6 in the morning so I can have the car for another late night etc.

So i've kinda dropped the 1 swim, 3 runs per week rule already but I think I can be flexible on that as long as I train with fins to make it really aerobic. Feel pretty good afterwards :)

Ok I don't have great training to report unfortunately.

I presented my final seminar on Monday and stayed at uni from Saturday morning until it was over on Monday afternoon to get it done.

I was really worried about it. Seriously considered getting a friend to phone in with a bomb threat on the buliding so that they would have to evacuate and i would get out of it.

Problem is that the main friend I have who i think would be most likely to do that for me is another PhD student and I think they'd recognize her voice! Plus it would be a little suspicious considering the building is used for lectures almost exclusively and my seminar was one of few on for that day.

I also got a bit of a cough that's going around - probably out of being run down by uni work.

The seminar went ok in the end and now that's over hopefully things might ease off a little. I mean I still have work to do but my scholarship money has run out so my first priority will still be job hunting and if they don't feel i'm doing enough work at uni it's just stiff bickies really!

I ran into Kristine at a job recruiting agency. I was going for an informal interview with the science recruiters and she works there in another department.

I have ehard from her a couple of times since I left. The basic summary being that sparring is going well because she has to be included with the others more now. The same way i was before she joined the gym ironically enough!

I don't blame her and i know she ultimately wants the same thing I wanted - to train and feel like she's getting somewhere. Still i can't help feeling a little annoyed that at the end of the day.

She's the chain smoker and the coach/ her boyfriend is not really all that keen on letting her compete anyway but I had been training and competing long before I joined the gym.

I care about my conditioning even if I'm not always perfect but in general i gear my lifestyle more towards health than most people especially when i have something to train for.

Also I've ran into a few people since i left the gym and they all talk as if I'm just taking a break and i'll be back. I explained my reasons for leaving but i find myself explaining how busy i am every time i run into someone from my old gym as if i need an excuse for not being there!

I've decided i want to train in a boxing gym again. I don't know if it's possible here just yet. I know my old coach will automatically hate any coach who takes me on.

Not because he was ever really very interested in coaching me but i was useful for working with kids and his girlfriend. Also I think he'd take it as an insult that i would leave and claim that he taught me everything i know. I may have learnt a couple of things from them but everything is way way short of reality since i've been in different clubs and taken a lot of outside information and inspiration from places like the forum.

Also I'll be getting everywhere by pedal power so i'm not sure how often i'd realistically be able to make it to a gym further from my house. I'm not sure how coaches will feel about taking someone on for as little as 3 sessions a week.

I also can't predict whether or not i'll be getting back into competitive form so it's hard to walk into a more serious gym without yet knowing what my aspirations for the next six months would be.

All this seems like a lot to ask from any coach! I'm going to give it a go though. I tried to call Dave from Cove's gym this morning but i think 10 am on a Saturday may have been an inappropriate time to call because his phone was switched off after a couple of rings!

To change the subject a bit I've been doing some research. I have access to a journal called Spine through uni. I don't know why i've never searched it before!

I found an article that links prioreception and being too right handed to many cases of scoliosis! I am extremely right eyed and I do have scoliosis! I'll look up the exact quote later and insert it so it makes more sense. Double checking my old x-rays though it seems to hold true for my situation.

All this stuff Scrap works on with priorection etc actually has a direct link to my scoliosis! I suspected it was linked to my posture and balance etc but i didn't realize just how direct and known the link was! Why the hell haven't any of my physios or chiros ever pointed it out!

So now I'm trying to be more left handed. I'm also covering my right eye more. I bought sunglasses and stuck a black piece of paper on the inside of the right eye. I find even the soft eye patches a bit uncomfortable after a while and they look weird but i think i can get away with this more for every day activities.

I'm typing with it now so that would explain the many typos I'm making!

Sharla, I don't think you should worry too much about not being a good time investment for a coach. I think any good coach would want a dedicated and focus athlete in their gym 2 or 3 days a week over someone who doesn't train as hard 5 days a week. Maybe just explain your car situation and that you can only make it a few times a week but that you work hard and are serious. If that's not enough for them, then maybe it's not a gym worth going to.

Thanks Sourpuss,

I'm going to investigate my options. I spoke to my bro this afternoon. He's an electronic engineer (got into a profession with a future unlike myself) and is helping me make up some new software for image analysis and data collection.

He's a bit against me going back into training now saying that it won't be just three sessions a week but three boxing sessions with 6 or 7 conditioning workouts to support the boxing. He also said i use sport to avoid doing what i should do sometimes. Damn it he knows me too well!

He is all for me going but against me starting within the next month. I'm going to make some calls and arrange to start in a couple of weeks. That is going half way i think and in the meantime I can work out the most time efficient way to do the conditioning workouts I'll need to do.

It will let me get some key prac work to get images we need to finish designing the first draft of this program too. Then my bro is off on his late honeymoon over Christmas. His wife is German so they are having a second marriage and honeymoon over in Germany with her family.

I'll ring around now before i loose confidence in the idea and woss out again though!

Ok so onto the scoliosis stuff - I have a quote from the article here for anyone interested. Note AIS is Adolescent idiopathic scoliosis.

SPINE Volume 31, Number 19, pp 2237–2242

According to Goldberg et al,19 lateralization is the asymmetric
organization of the cerebral cortex; in patients with
AIS, the brain is significantly more lateralized than in
healthy control subjects. Lateralization is the asymmetric
arrangement of the cerebral cortex and domination of the
right side (98% of the subjects were right-handed), which
provides a possible reason for the significant discrimination
between the samples of participants without spinal changes
and those diagnosed with AIS. The contribution of such
lateralization can be confirmed by the AIS pathologic pattern
analysis; the right thoracis curve is the primary one,
and it is followed in a compensatory manner by the left
lumbar curve.

So basically i think it's no coincidence that I have a slight scoliosis and am also dominantly right eyed. I guess it could be possible to be right eyed first for some other reason and then to get a scoliotic curve but since my mum also has scoliosis i think it's genetic.

Oddly enough mum doesn't get back pain although she looks a lot more hunched than me as i've deliberately worked on my posture and she hasn't! I'd like to work out what else is different between the two of us.

She is not a good runner compared to me (even for her age) despite being quite powerful as a cyclist and swimmer. I think that may have something to do with the unbalanced movement described in further sections of the article. I think her balance is probably effected more than mine.

Scoliosis is not supposed to hurt so i guess with me that might come from the Post Schermanns disease or step spondidylilolisthesis my chiro thinks i have.

I should say i know all this sounds extreme but all of these things are supposed to be as bad as they are going to get by the time people are at my age. I don't expect any of these things to worsen and technically if I can be involved in sport now I guess that won't change for back related reasons. I'd just like to make it more comfortable and avoid it flaring up as much as possible really.

So according to this article it all begins in my brain! That's kinda hard to battle!

I guess i have to deliberately train the left side and instead of having some expectation that it will be cured after a certain amount of time just accept that i will always need to do it.

Perhaps with enough work i can get my brain to rewire itself but i would compare it to someone crippled from a car crash trying to rehabilitate. Possible but likely to be time consuming. Plus I guess I can also expect it to take a while for the muscles involved to even up.

I think perhaps I need to come up with a 5 year plan.

I can be a woss and get discouraged when i don't see results quickly so i think i will have a better chance of success if i expect it to take a long time from the beginning.

So as per usual i have a lot of planning to do! :rolleyes:

Sharla, its genetic, but impact plays a part in the problem cycleing and swimming have not got the impact of running. You need to stretch a lot, muscle imbalance wont help the problem only agrivate it. Ill get back to you.

Thanks Scrap - I appreciate your opinion and since what you suggest for me is uncannily more correct the more i understand I take on any suggestions you have to offer!

I have recently found something on the net called the three dimensional Scoliosis treatment according to Schroth:

http://www.easyvigour.net.nz/pilates...2Treatment.pdf

I haven't had a chance to read through it much yet but the basic idea i think is to using breathing techniques and an awareness of the shape it makes your rib cage.

Have you heard of it Scrap? Any good?

Have not Im afraid, but the problem can be Helped. Cant get to sleep tonight so I popped in here. You will have to work from the hips up, your body is overcompensating all the time and that wont help your problem I shall return ;D. Oh I assume its upper yes.

Thanks Scrap! :)

Yes it's slight but i think the curve is gently to the right and then to the left lower down to compensate i think. Looking at the x-ray the curve to the right is more gentle over a larger number of vertebrae and the curve to the left a bit more pronounced but it's hard to tell because the x-ray doesn't show the lowest portion of my spine.

The article said that a curve to the right with a conpensating curve to the left is normal for scoliosis. I've had 2 physios and 2 chiros tell me that i have scoliosis but no one has ever really explained where it is down to a particular region so i'm trying to tell from the x-ray alone and i'm not sure i'm interpreting it correctly.

I do often feel that stretching muscles attached to or in my hips makes me feel better overall so what you're saying makes a lot of sense. :)

Uni has still been a little insane.

Things like having job hunting appointments during the day but still a full days work to do at night have made a mockery of my time managment skills and ability to have a consistant training program.

I'm ashamed to admit that part of it is mental also. I've realized I always need a plan for the morning. When I don't have one i pfaff around 'planning' things and it ends up being a procrastination exercise which takes up a lot of time. Then before i know it i've wasted half the day.

So from now on i'll be doing 30 mins of exercise every morning either before or after breakfast depending on how hungry I am. I think i've found before a banana and a coffee are a good pre-exercise morning snack. The caffiene gives me the kick i need to wake me up early in the morning and the banana enough to put off hunger pangs whilst not feeling too heavy or making me sleepy again.

Buying some banana's today. Luckily they're also relatively cheap here. :)

Yesterday i did manage to do this with a run in the morning - easy half an hour. In the afternoon I did another session with a walk and then easy jog warm up for 400 m intervals (X6) then jogged home again.

Today (Saturday)

Decided 2 runs yesterday was enough impact. Morning session was inspired by Scrap and the fitball stretches book my flatmate gave me for Christmas. The book had 'cardio' workouts on the ball which didn't inspire me at all. They were basically sitting on the ball and doing little boucy actions and really not training anything as far as I could see.

However, the idea of using balls for cardio did make sense in a different non-vertical layout.

Now i'll try to describe this in ways only Scrap and his deciples will understand because while this is a very inferior version of what Scrap has patented it is still similar.

Basically having the balls positioned so i had to balance my movement but i'd never manage it without something to hold onto so i rested my head on a kitchen chair with a little padding for my head and neck. I could reach back and grab the chair to avoid falling off but also needed something at the other end to stop everything rolling away.

I wanted to bang my elbows in but i'll have to rearrange things for that next time. I have a semi deflated ball which is smooth and a vertually fully blown up one with little pointy bits on it that stick out.

I thought the pointy bits would be good for having grip but when i tried to bang my elbows in all it did was give me a dead/funny elbow so i think i'll swap the balls next time.

Looking at the HR data right now it was pretty low the whole time. Definately makes sense in terms of the lactate shuttle discussions we've had. I did 30 minutes at a moderately fast pace but seeing my heart rate really wouldn't climb i think this is not an appropriate way to use it.

I think it was good for working against the imbalances which must be underlying my scoliosis. I had to try to stay balanced or fall and the movement mimicks something which is usually much higher impact where i really want to avoid those imbalances.

After that i did some light back and abdominal work on the ball with my feet on a wobble board. Three sets of each, chest on ball lifting arms up and out to the side with light weights for my back and crunches for my abs.

It was definately light because especially with the ab work i must naturally use one side more than the other since it was virtually impossible to stay balanced. Plus the board would slide away too because i must not have had my weight going straight down on it with my knees bent at a right angle. I hope the neighbours couldn't hear me swearing! :-\

Finished by holding a plank with my forarms on the carpet and feet on the wobble board. Still difficult and much harder than the plank on firm ground but easier than the crunches!

Overall I'm happy with this as part of my anti-scoliosis plan and i think if i'm going to be honest about what i know of myself i really need to do something everyday regardless of how busy i am.

I just don't have the temprement to deal with having no physical activity and even if i only have a little time off i'm always semi convinced i can't get my fitness back again once i have time off.

Today i worked something completely different to yesterday and i'd consider a walk ok for some days so i insist on having decent recovery time but i can't do nothing.

Sharla, one way of doing what I think youre doing is use the bed ;D

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Originally Posted by Scrap

Sharla, one way of doing what I think youre doing is use the bed ;D

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Yeah i agree thanks Scrap.

I don't think i have the right type available to me at the moment. I think i'll buy one maybe after Christmas when i have a bit more spare cash.

I was hoping that this would be similar to the bed but also work on my imbalances a little more.

I know your complete patented version is very good at this because it has more range of motion than the bed and whoever uses it can see how they might need to work harder to get their weaker side working the same way as their stronger side. I know it really hurt when i used it for less than 5 minutes which was shocking!

I'm not sure i know how to stop myself cheating when i use the bed version and while i don't think it would aggrivate my imbalances and it is still shock free i was hoping the balls would force me to begin to correct them?

Look forward to hearing your thoughts on that Scrap! :)

So other things to report - quite a few!

Sunday

2 hr walk. Didn't feel like the impact of a run was good and wanted to get outside so a 2 hr walk was nice - might aim to do tha every couple of weeks over an extended time. I have some parkland areas along a little stream called the Torrens which travels over 12 km at least in each direction towards and away from my house so i'm lucky that way. For longer fortnightly walks i'm tempted to go to national reserves not far from Adelaide though - as long as i can avoid walking alone in snake and bushfire weather which will be frequent in the Australian summer!

Monday

10 min walk, 30 min jog -run. It became more of an effort towards the end with a few inclines and i did feel like i got a workout here.

Tuesday

off - i had good intentions but left it to the evening and didn't get home from uni until after 11 pm. Must make a rule to do a session in the mornings without fail.

Wednesday

Today I walked for nearly 50 minutes along the Torrens before running back. I intended to walk an hour but came across an area where i could hear a guy going solo loudly. It creeped me out because i could hear him somewhere in the bushes but i couldn't see him. It's not uncommon for women to get attacked in the parklands so i decided to turn around at that point.

I like to think i could be more able to handle myself than most women enough to be inconvenient and noisy and escape. I wouldn't hesitate to eye gouge or elbow eye sockets but i know i have friends who probably would not be able to bring themselves to seriously maim a person in self defence. I think they would panic and try to push and struggle abut not even think of more vicious options for defending themselves. I like to think i wouldn't be like that especially as an adult but i'll avoid the situation and run away first if that's an option and that's what i did.

I wasn't attacked but it's well known that many streakers and perverts will have esculating behaviour so why continue on a path that might bring me within arms reach of someone like that - i would be silly to take the risk!

Ran back 10 minutes and then did intervals. 8 one minute hard running efforts with 1 minute recovery walk except after the 7th interval i had a 2 minute recovery. I could see in the heart rate zones that i was not fully recovering after each interval.

Ages ago just after i hurt my knee i went to a body composition dude to get my body fat and muscle composition analysed and to get diet and training advice etc. I was put on an exercise bike with a heart rate monitor etc to measure aspects of my fitness. The basic result was that my endurance and lung capacity etc at that time was way above the average for a male. In endurance terms i was a very strong athlete but my recovery for short efforts was not really that great.

I think this has something to do with ego. I have resented admitting that my heart rate has not returned to a low enough level to train sprint recovery before doing the next interval.

So today when i could see after my 1 minute recover after the 7th hard interval my heart rate was still high i bit the bullet and decided to accept my recovery takes longer than that for that effort. of course over time it will improve and i'll recover hopefully in less than 30 seconds for that effort but it won't happen if i don't walk and allow the recovery. I'll be training endurance like i always have.

On another lifestyle note I'm going to ad some mroe person info into this log entry. I was not going to go into it but decided it was silly since everyone has been in this situation and the stigma towards it is part of the problem. Especially i believe with young Australian men. They don't admit to having trouble with depression to the point where we have the highest youth suicide rate in the world. The attitude is to tough it out before you talk to anyone.

I got a lot out of an interpersonal skills workshop that was put on at my uni by a psychologist. She talked about dealing with conflict in te workplace which i've had more than my fill of with my supervisor since starting my PhD. I decided to follow up with a one on one session i could get for free through my mum's work agreement.

Basically i guess i've always thought of depression as being a really severe debilitating thing. I'm finding now some days i don't want to face the world. i do get out of bed but i press the snooze buttong more times than i should and little chores seem overwhelming. Thing is my mental outlook is not different except it could be a little negative and i have to give myself more pep talks to achieve what used to feel easier.

The psychologist did end up validating my feeling that i really need to exercise and i can't just drop it because it is part of my coping strategy to deal with the long days at uni and being relatively powerless with an irrational supervisor. To perform at my best nd take action i need to take rather than just aving a victim mentality and wanting to hide i need to exercise. I need the seratonin.

I need to do it outside sometimes also i think. I have read that air outside tends to have more negatively charged components which are better substrates for seratonin so that partially explins it. I think being around trees and hearing the birdlife and enjoying the nice weather we have now is pretty good.


I am the type of person who enjoys simple things in life so i'm not going to feel guilty about time taken to do that now. My brother would and he did sit at a desk without exercising so much that he sneezed one day and got a bulged disc so bad that he came very close to being wheelchair bound. it was really excruciating for him to begin with. He had to have painkillers shoved up his arse and could not even push a vacuum cleaner safely for months. Luckily it went down and he can now do gentle exercise again like walking but he came awfully close to being unable to control his own bowel movements at only 32. I believe that is all due to the risk of spending long hours at a desk with no exercise and under stress - tensing muscles up which put pressure on the back so all it took was a little catalyst like a sneeze to blow it. It's not a risk I'm prepared to take!

As for depression - i think it is too strong a word for me but perhaps a clinical risk for me. It is associated with long term stress and i have been in this crappy PhD situation for 3.5 years and if it was only a job i would have quit and found something else a loooooong time ago! Apparently it's just a chemical imbalance as people get worn down over time.

Normal depression has you feeling sad for a while and then the feelings begin to change. One example she gave was of her friend's mother who has been mourning her husbands death with the same grief and intensity of sadness for 14 years. Apparently this is very un-natural.

I think of it as homeostasis. All biological systems have a level of homeostasis whether it be the approximate number of animals in populations for the health of an ecosystem, your blood sugar level, CO2 levels in the atmosphere etc etc. Levels which are healthy.

Some variation is buffered by the system but if an imbalance is too prolonged or of too great a magnitude it will stop the system for being able to maintain that homeostasis. The system may find a new homeostasis - probably at a less than ideal level or be unstable and start to decline (extinction, diabetes or global warming).

I feel like i am struggling to stop myself for finding a new level of homeostasis as a less active and lass productive, happy person. I don't feel at risk of collapsing or having a nervous breakdown but i don't want to loose the ability to function at my best just because i'm worn down and little things seem harder than they should.

I know these chemicals are in your brain but i don't even really think of it as a mental thing because i don't believe i have an delusions. I think it is just a kind of fatigue.

It reminds me of something I have seen Lord's Gym / Ring Rat write a few times. He said to take feeling sluggish and low of energy over a period of time as a signal you need to step it up. He may be right - it could be you need seratonin from exercise to pep yourself up and correct the chemical imbalance before your level of homeostasis goes down a notch and you have to put more effort into becoming really naturally energetic again.

So i'm taking that on board. I'm also paying special attention to maintaining a good diet and avoiding too much caffiene. i don't drink (alcohol is a depressant in used too much) or take drugs or smoke so luckily i do not have many addictive crutches or comfort things which help in the short term but aggivate the problem overall.

She has also said i should go to my GP to talk about anti-depressants. I have a friend who took a form which just targeted a specific receptor and was very mild. She didn't feel any change for weeks because it was so mild and unlike some of the old school chemicals like Prosac it was not addictive and din't create false emotions - i guess it just helped keep things from declining. It was something she only had to take temporarily as part of a larger plan to stop herself from falling into depression which might make it difficult for her to work and function properly. It was a temporary measure for her and ow she doesn't have depression ro the need to take anti-depressant.

I wouldn't really see that as being too different to taking something like a vitamin pill like iron when i'm deficient. I'd stay away from something like Prosac at all costs but i'm not opposed to something mild which won't have a big effect.

I don't need sympathy - i don't think i'm really depressed int he common sense of the word but i think it's human to feel emotionally run down sometimes and need a well rounded plan to stop it becoming a long term thing.

I think ultimately this is part of the reason i'll always try to be active. I think training somewhere in a bad environment without feeling like you achieve your goals might add to stress but i think people are meant to be active. We are not built to be sloths.

Plus i can even see a reason why depression might have evolved as part of the human condition. Imagine a drought. If you were part of a hunter gatherer society you'd first put a little more effort into hunting and gathering. If that was rewarded with food you wouldn't become depressed but if it wasn't you might consider miggrating.

If you did that but found the drought was widespread and there was no more food in your new location you may have been under stress for a while. You would be skinny and probably a few people in your community would have died.

At this point you've tried everything but mother nature says no food for you! It does not serve your survival to burn up a lot of energy. If you were too active trying to a resolve the situation you would just starve at a faster rate. You need to be lazy and conserve energy to ride things out.

Even if a few people were depressed enough to jump off a cliff that would be bad but it would increase survival chances of others living on the little there is available. When it rains again you'd be so happy that would break your depression.

So rather than being ashamed of depression i'd consider it as a natural chemical thing everyone can experience to varying degress and how you face it as soon as you seen the early signs will determine whether or not it becomes severe. I don't have anything severe at all but if i ignored my flagging sense of vitality i think i would be more likely to decline so i'm facing it as honestly as possible.

I think shame around these subjects and the idea people should just be able to tough things out aggrivates the situation when what people sould be saying is - get some exercise, eat good food and watch a funny movie and take action rather than ignoring any feeling of flagging drive and weariness which might lead to a decline.

:flowers:

I got these lovely flowers for you.

They promise nothing, but offer only a hope to maybe make you smile a bit for when you are feeling low.

(p.s. they are guaranteed not to wilt)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Youngblood

:flowers:

I got these lovely flowers for you.

They promise nothing, but offer only a hope to maybe make you smile a bit for when you are feeling low.

(p.s. they are guaranteed not to wilt)

---

Aw shucks thanks Youngblood! :)

These new non wilting flowers are fantastic! :o

I'm fine really - just mindful that i would cease to be fine if i let things get on top of me and ignored the fact that i can get a bit run down.

Plus I'm pretty chuffed I now have been told officially that i NEED to exercise for my sanity and it's not a luxury only to be fitted into small windows of time when I'm not chained to the lab bench!

My supervisor can take that and shove it up his a***! ;D

Having said that it didn't quite work out that way yesterday. I'm meant to be part time at uni now but i didn't get home until 11 pm last night and 2am the night before and i haven't had much time for job hunting this week. I've only applied for one job so far this week but had heaps listed so i have to get a hold of this now 'part time' study!

Didn't manage to get any exercise in yesterday but i was walking around a lot at uni and i'll definately try to get a swim in today. My flatmate had a heap of swim passes paid for which she has transferred into my name since she's moving so that is really nice of her!

My flatmate is here this week to get all her stuff moved by truck and her car moved back to her parents by train. I'm gonna miss her because it was really quiet here without her!

Literally half an hour after the truck has taken all her stuff her ex partner called and said he think he made the wrong decision and he wants her to stay. He wins the TWAT of the year award in my book!

I have a new flatmate lined up now which takes some financial pressure off my shoulders too. I won't be stuck paying full rent for the apartment alone!

I did manage the swim :)

One hour, moderate intensity. Worked on freestyle catch up for 25 m up the pool and backstroke back wearing fins. Freestyle catch up is something my soon to be ex flatmate Sarah showed me (she used to be a competitive swimmer).

Basically freestyle catch up is a drill that involves touching your hand with the other one when it is in front of you before you stroke. It helps create a better line in the water as a drill because you don't have so much water resistance in front of you. I find it harder work than normal freestyle and it requires a little concentration for me right now so the backstroke was good to break it up.

I also used the backstroke return to keep my chest stretch open. Then i did some kick on my back holding the board to my stomach. I think this balanced all the kick on my front from the freestyle which feels like it tightens things a little.

Then also did a few hundreds of breastroke and a few hundreds of freestyle without fins and repeated the whole lot again so i essentially did two sets of all this.

Felt a bit nautious - made the mistake of eating something with cheese on it too close to before the swim. I have cheese since my flatmate leaves in 2 days and needs to get rid of her stuff out of the fridge before it goes off. I can usually eat before a workout without any problems but i think I'm not used to all the extra fat in cheese. I won't say i didn't like it and I can't rationalize it since i'm female and therefore have a really high dietry calcium requirement though! ;D

Saturday 2 hr walk and a stretch

Sunday i didn't manage anything - i had paid cleaning work at someone else's house for 4 hours plus my own afterwards. Then had to be at mum's for a BBQ afterwards.

Again I should have done it in the morning but my flatmate was flying out back to her parents interstate and i'm unlikely to see her again for a long time so i felt it was important to farewell her. Was also awake fairly late Saturday night hanging out with her.

I have to confess i have let my sleeping pattern slip a bit lately. All it takes is one or two late nights in a week to upset my sleepnig pattern. I can usually reset it easily enough but i hate the disruption to my routine in the first place.

Anyway on a positive not i'm trying out some new ideas from a strething book i ordered for my birthday. It has some stuff in it about treating fibroid tissue etc which might prove useful but i'm still nutting out what to do with it.

I've decided i was onto a good thing when i was stretching first thing in the mornings. I think the way i like to sleep curled up in a ball is half my problem. I misinterpreted what Scrap suggested about stretching after contraction - i should have recognized my sleeping style as being a source of contraction.

I slept last night on my back which was better than my side and felt a little better upon waking up.

So I plan to stretch when i wake up, then exercise and stretch again - 2 stretching sessions per day minimum so they will have to be individually shorter.

I've known for a while that i need structure in what i do but i'm just in the process of working out a new timetable.

I think a major mistake I've always made in the past is dropping a timetable immediately as soon as it doesn't work and then having this slack useless time while i nut out another one.

Ultimately even an imperfect timetable is better than none!

I think that's what i dislike about my PhD too - it's just chaotic and with equipment issues and plant growth stages etc it's not something I can pick up and put down whenever.

I'm still working out how to manage my uni work and job hunting but i'm going back to 4:30 am mornings because i think I feel like i've achieved something just by getting up at the time and finishing some exercise before i tackle the rest of my day. That in turn makes me feel more productive and motivated with everything else too.

So this is my initial program for the mornings and I'd LOVE any input I can get. It is still being developed obviously and more specifics will be added as I go.

Mon

• Wake Up Stretch
• Running sprints - 200 to 800 m intervals with walk or complete rest recovery
• Banana and strength training
• Post Exercise Stretch then cold shower

Tues

• Wake Up Stretch
• 1 hr moderate intensity cardio
• Post Exercise Stretch

Weds

• Wake Up Stretch
• Swim sprints
• Post Exercise Stretch then cold shower

Thurs

• Wake Up Stretch
• Monaghetti fartleck
• Banana and strength training
• Post Exercise Stretch

Fri

• Wake Up Stretch
• Long Swim
• Post Exercise Stretch

Sat

• Wake Up Stretch
• Strength training and boxing technique
• Post Exercise Stretch

Sun

• Long stretching session

You'll notice i've put in cold showers on days after i do sprint training. That is because i have read recently that people recover better from sprint training when they have cold showers a lot more than hot ones. This might be for a couple of reasons I could think of.

Perhaps it stops inflammation of tired muscles, perhaps it causes blood vessels to vasoconstrict and channels nutrients etc to the areas most used so they are more concentrated there?

I don't know I'm just hypothesizing but my point is i think it could be worth giving it a go even though I HATE being cold and I LOVE a good hot shower - and when i mean hot i mean almost scalding! :)

I think I'll keep the wobble board in all strength training where possible even though it means i am not able to do much - i figure the harder it is the more it will benefit me in the long run.

I think of it as being like doing good pushups versus those little chin dipping things people do when they think they're doing a set of 100 but haven't managed one yet!

As for the anti-depressants the psychologist recommended I haven't had an appointment with my GP to discuss it yet.

Another friend who is also a PhD student started on them two weeks ago. She hasn't noticed any change yet except a little nausia which is predicted to go away after a while. From that i wouldn't think they are addictive or too extreme in any way.

She used to be a state funded kiacker and has an amazing sense of humour. She's the first one to make everyone else laugh and cheer everyone else up but I think she's really worn down. Her supervisor is especially loud and domineering and i guess it has just gotten to her over time. I think she has it worse than me though.

I think i'm happy when i exercise and i'm not 100 % sure I need to be on anything. I'm going to research more supplements etc like vitamin Bs which are associated with stress.

I am on vitamin B2 supplements because i was getting a lot of mouth ulcers associated with being run down by stress. My mum took me to a pharmacist one and she recommended vitamin B2. Now as long as I take them I don't get any ulcers. The second I forget though they come back which tells me i'm likely to be prone to those kinds of deficiencies.

Plus although it's not related there must be something in my blood which is different to that of most of my family. I attract mosquitoes - the other night at my mum's BBQ i got bitten no less than 14 times on a little bare patch of skin on my foot. My sister got bitten once (she was sitting next to me) and everyone else not at all! Little discriminatory targeting AHOLES! :mad:

Gotta hate those mosquitoes. I had a holiday in Aus a couple years back and didn't realise the bastards had got me good til the link in singapore on the way home when my feet just started burning. Had to take my socks off where my feet were covered in red blotches, I was lucky airport security didn';t look too closely or I'd have been quarrantined for sure;D

I've heard the cold shower thing as well and it makes sense....I just can't bring myself to do it. Let me know if you notice a difference.

Sharla see if you can get hold of Feroglobin, use it a lot when Fighters are peaking. It was brought out at first to help women with energy problems while having heavy periods. A chemist put me on to it many moons ago ;D.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Scrap

Sharla see if you can get hold of Feroglobin, use it a lot when Fighters are peaking. It was brought out at first to help women with energy problems while having heavy periods. A chemist put me on to it many moons ago ;D.

---

Thanks Scrap will do! :)

I think you've suggested it to me before but never got around to hunting it down because it was only in selected stockists and my mum gave me a different brand of iron supplement but i'll get my arse into gear and have another look. :)

Did my run this morning with post sleep and post exercise stretch.

Used standard back stretches a side stretch and a few hamstring stretches on waking up. Did the side / back stretch where you are lying down with your legs at a right angle and very slowly let your legs go to one side while not allowing your back to arch.

Usually i get a little click in my lower back when my legs fall to the left and nothing to the right although it feels like it wants to go. This morning i got the usually little click to the left and 2 big clunks when they fell to the right. Perhaps my lower back was out and i put it back in?

Then I did the run. I took 15 minutes to find my clothes - stuffed around getting the drawer string back out of my tracksuit pants and hunting for my heart rate monitor being the super organized person I am. :rolleyes:

Then I decided for time's sake to do a 45 mintue workout instead of 60 mins which i think is ok for this first week while i'm getting back into a new routine. Hopefully i'll be organized enough next week.

5 minute walk warm up followed by 45 minute run. Did most of it on grass around a nearby oval.

Came home and did post exercise stretches. Roughly followed running exercise stretches in my new book. I like the gastroscenimis stretch. Oddly i feel it in my right side but i think something else is limiting it in the left.

Doing the Soleus stretch i feel it more in the left than the right.

Feel the piriformis stretch (sitting on a chair with leg bent at right angle over knee) in both sides. Actually just getting into position feels like a stretch and i have to be careful to make sure my spine is lengthened properly.

Trunk rotators seem fairly inflexible so i'll have to work on those. Also definitely have a tighter right hip adductor than the left.

Overall my back likes me for my efforts this morning. :)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Bomp

Gotta hate those mosquitoes. I had a holiday in Aus a couple years back and didn't realise the bastards had got me good til the link in singapore on the way home when my feet just started burning. Had to take my socks off where my feet were covered in red blotches, I was lucky airport security didn';t look too closely or I'd have been quarrantined for sure;D

---

Yes they are EVIL little Bastards! ;D

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by sourpuss

I've heard the cold shower thing as well and it makes sense....I just can't bring myself to do it. Let me know if you notice a difference.

---

I know what you mean! I've already decided it doesn't count for the hard swim now since I do that in cool water so inflammation is not a problem especially since it's relatively free of impact so i'll only be doing it once a week after running sprints :) Excuses, excuses! ;D


Not long after finishing my session yesterday i noticed a soreness in the back of my right hip. I continued to feel it though most of the day but it let up in the afternoon and is completely gone now.

I'm actually thinking ti was a good soreness. Maybe some fibroid tissue giving way. Maybe a reaction to my lower back clunking back into alignment.

I suspect it had something to do with the gastrocenimis stretch. I didn't use a strong enough band to actually stretch the gastrocenimis. I was just following my book like a zombie without actually working out where i was meant to be feeling the stretch. :-\

So when i said i felt it in the right but not the left I think i was not actually stretching the right gastrocenimis but other muscles higher up all along the back of my right leg up to my hip.

In this book they stretch it sitting down with the right leg extended and left leg bent and put the band around the right foot. I also parked my back against a wall to support it and not allow any pressure there.

Now oddly enough I feel straighter than I have recently - don't lean towards the right as much. The soreness in the back of my right hip reminds me of a soreness i used to get when running a lot of kms but i haven't felt soreness in there for a long time. I felt stiffness in my quads and pectorials etc but not there. Perhaps i did have a little tear or something back then and didn't know it and it settled into a muscle adhesion.

This morning when i did the same thing where i laid on my back and slowly let my legs fall to one side and my spine clunked again. Not as loudly. I think it adjusted a little further up but it is so different to the feeling like it would not move I used to have. I remember my chiro saying it wouldn't adjust that side when she tried to do it either.

I tried to gastrocenimis stretch again but didn't feel it at all in my hip or along the back of my leg. Now the right side feels the same as the left.

Anyway I'm rambling because I think this is all a good sign and I'm excited basically! :D

I didn't get to my swim sprints until the evening today.

I managed a reasonably early morning at about 5:30 am yesterday. The plan was to drop it back to 4:30 am today but had a late night at my bro's talking software for my PhD. he gets up late and works late and since he's helping me out i won't complain about that.

I didn't get up when i planned to this morning though and felt like I'd wasted a big part of the day before it began. Didn't feel very productive at all for the rest of the day. didn't really feel like swimming but feel great now I've done it.

Strange how that works really. Exercise is what i need to do to feel like exercising in the first place! :confused:

Did a few moderately fast laps warm up freestyle and then got straight into it since I had limited time before the pool closed.

Then did 5 sets of sprints. Each set included 4 X 25 m sprints (1 butterfly, 1 backstroke, 1 breastroke with dolphin kick and 1 freestyle) with 30 seconds break between sprints and 1 min break between sets.

All of the above wearing fins then a few laps cool down of easy freestyle and backstroke without fins.

The whole workout was a bit less than 40 mins but the sprints were hard. I wasn't as explosive as i was last time I did this but i was swimming more often then and had stronger arms from boxing etc so i think that is to be expected for a few weeks.

I'm not sure I was fully recovering in the breaks either like i should to train explosiveness but i didn't have my heart rate monitor to show me the cold hard truth so I was able to operate in denial. I will have to be sure to remember it next time.

I also need to come up with some swimming stretches I can do at the pool stright afterwards because by the time i get home and shower it seems a bit too long.

I think i have a swimming book somewhere which might have a good basic set of stretches i can do after these workouts.

Right who here has been writing my horoscopes!

I recieved this as one of these little spam emails i get.

Other times it has usually said complete BS which i would ignore or stuff about work which has guilt tripped me into trying to be more productive but now:

"An invitation to a social event given in your near neighborhood could put you into touch with artistic and/or spiritually-inclined people. Some fascinating exchanges could take place, Sharla, and the event might continue on into the night. No matter how late, no matter how tired you are when you get home, try to get just a little exercise in order to clear your head and quiet your mind. Otherwise, you might have difficulties getting to sleep."

There is a guitar festival on near my house soon and everyone I know is aware of how I have to exercise ........................

Ok I have things to do now so I won't procrastinate anymore tonight but seriously! Andre? ;D

haha, did they put your name in there as well?

Yes they did ...... :)

I put off my fartleck all day yesterdaybecause i was nervous in the morning. I had a meeting yesterday to show my supervisors the new software we made up to look at wheat root traits. It went well and actually I should have gone for my run. I felt like i should have been preparing something but Leonard was organizing a PDF presentation with images off of his grunt machine which he's been running the software on. There was not much i could actually do so the run might have been great to stem the nervous energy i had. I might not have said a few things with a little too much expression the way i did! :-\

In the end though Leonard did most of the talking and since he knows so much more about this kind of thing than either of mysupervisors he had the upper hand and it went very well. It's a good feeling after having to do so much using crappy techniques etc enforced by my supervisor - except for a couple of things I've really had to argue for - to have this fly without needing any great defence from me. :)

Later on I spent most of the day clearing space for my new flatmate who is moving in this morning. I felt like ti all had to be clean etc since i think the example i give sets a precident and i couldn't expect her to be clean if I'm not.

When i was finally ready to go for my run it was late, dark and raining. In the background while cleaning I had the TV on and there was a documentary on about unsolved Australian murder cases so while I would often go out to train in the dark I didn't want to! :-\

So I did the monaghetti fartleck this morning and will swim tonight.

Monaghetti fartleck is:

2 X 2 min
2 X 90 sec
4 X 1 min
4 X 45 sec
4 X 30 sec
4 X 15 sec

Those are all hard intervals followed by equal easy periods. I used to only jog in the easy intervals but this time after the fourth hard 1 minute interval I noticed the equal rest period was not enough to let my heart rate come out of the highest intensity level so I walked. :-\

Not as fit as I used to be but i think I can still push myself at least since i did feel nautious twice during the session.

When i got home I decided this type of workout warrants the cold shower thing. I was more of a dip because I'm a woss!

Having said that i think I'll make the next one longer because when I got out I felt like my face was burning. Obviously i warm my body up a lot more than i realise just during training and perhaps I have conditioned myself to have hot showers without really being aware of how hard I'm making my body work to regulate my temperature.

When I cooled down my body with a really brief cold dip I could tell my face was really hot in comparison. Perhaps it is actually possible to impede your recovery from a hard workout due to making inflammation worse with excessive heat. I have been told before that the heat I like my showers to be is way too hot.

Saturday did a 1 hr swim - 10 mins freestyle, to mins backstroke alternating. Notice my right arm had less range of motion than my left. Felt it in my abdominal region - perhaps still need to stretch the right psoas a bit more than the left. Find it easy to catch up the right hand with the laft but unless i concentrate i want to sweep my left away before the right reaches it because it's more work bringing the right up.

Sunday - spent all day threshing grain with my sister's help. Defeated it! No more Fing grain threshing! Had to start early - be at my sister's at 7:30 so i didn't get a workout in early. :-\

Finished late and had a job interview on Monday morning so i didn't get to train then either. The interview went ok i guess - not really sure. :-\

Monday night also nothing :-\ Can't even remember why now but i suspect i'm just a woss really.

Tuesday i decided playing catch up on missed workouts like i had planned to do originally last week was a waste and i do have more than one sprint type session and more than one interval type session a week.

From that point of view maybe living in the past and attempting to play catch up on missed workouts is a bit demotivating and pointless. I guess things will come up and sticking to a routine is not made any easier by playing catch up. i will endeavor not to miss any sessions but if i do then perhaps it is to be expected sometimes until my job hunting, uni and occasional work commitments are structured in a less chaotic fashion.

Tuesday i didn't get to do anything until the evening. I'm house sitting for my brother at the moment who has a dog less than a year old. She's a whistler - already just about full grown, jumps up to lick my face with ease (often) and is very very hyperactive.

I wanted to go for a run but his area is unfamiliar to me and just when i planned to leave there were a couple of ferals having a roudy arguement out the front. rather than risking a "what the f**k are you lookin at" incident i decided to run around te back yard with the dog.

His back yard is almost the same size as a basketball court plus there is an under cover car port which is empty we could run into.

Played for an hour with 2 X 3 min breaks.

Rules of the game:

1) who ever carries the bit of scrap rubber (used to be a ball i think) runs away from the other one.

2) I'm not aloud to stop moving but she does making me a fool for running around trees since she can stop and wait to see which direction i'm coming from but i can't do the same with her.

3) no wrestling - i figured it wouldn't be so aerobic if i grabbed her and wrestled to get the rubber. It would mean I'd have to stop running which was not the point.

I think I won. Sure i had to break it up into three intervals to survive but when i stopped for a drink so did she.

Sure i had to do that partly because there was no way I was getting that rubber but she never grabbed it off of me eiter.

Sure the only times I did get the rubber were when she decided to drop it to chase the cat but i think that comes down to concentration and keeping your eye on the ball. ;D

It was good, very tiring but not a really consistently high heart rate like a normal run. I think the continual changing directions worked my legs quite hard as well as the intermitant bursts of speed. Probably had a lot more benefits than a normal one hour run really and i had fun in a juvenile way. ;D

Sharla! Queen of rubber keep-away!!! :happy0931sb4:

sounds way more fun than a run

Yes it was fun and i probably looked exactly like that little yellow dude :)

Have just decided I'm going to have some offline time. A bit of net detox until i get into a routine again.

I'm going to be back online in a few weeks.

In the meantime don't think I've forgotten about your knee Youngblood and I'm gonna ask about it when i'm online again so don't go inventing some high impact knee and back thrashing workout program just to aggrivate me! ;D

Good luck with the knee treatment and good luck to you too Sourpuss. I'll be keen to hear about how things have gone for the two of you dealing with your battles when i return! :)

Um yeah my whole abstaining from the forum thing didn't last long! :-\

I think i'm going to stick to the Ask The Trainer Board for a while though and mostly on weekends.

The reason I'm posting is I'm coming up with some new (to me at least) ideas / understanding of exercise physiology and i'm keen to hear opinions from others who are into this side of things like Scrap and Salty.

1) I happened to read that women tend to increase their VO2 max more by increasing oxygen uptake capacity in their muscles by capillarization more so than men. Apparently men will increase their heart stroke volume more than women. That's over time as a result of training i think.

2) Acidity in the blood is a consequence of exercise and i think if i understand it correctly it will signal the process of capillarization (forming new capillaries).

3) Apprently a study with swimmers having a dose of bicarbonate soda pre-workout increased their performance by decreasing blood acidity. I think this is for one workout - sort of like taking glucose right efore a workout - not going to improve your ability to mobilize energy stores in training probably but great for a good one off performance.

4) Apparently stroke volume is limited when tested while cycling due to the way blood can be pooled in the legs. Apparently trained cyclists don't have this problem though and will show the same exercise induced increase in stroke volume during a workout as they will over activities

5) The supine position as in swimming (and Scraps thing :o) does not limit heart stroke volume at all.

6) Women begin to outperform men in ultra marathon endurance efforts beyond the 66 km running mark.. This is attributed to lipid metabolism but I'm also wondering if since capillarization is triggered more so by endurance training this has something to do with it.

Another observation was that women do not over-heat as much in these long events - perhaps because our heart is not generating as much heat due to increased heart muscle action associated with increased heart stroke volume.

I imagine capillaries existing in muscles which are able to allow more blow flow and therefore O2 reaching the muscles is a fairly passive mechanism not producing any real heat or using as much energy as increasing heart stroke volume. Perhaps part of the reason in ultra long running (higher heart rate than other sports) distances this mechanism of O2 uptake could become increasingly more important.

7) I never felt like endurance training decreased my power unless I was trying to make weight and not getting enough protein or suffering from te effect of impact. I would still make strength gains with resistance training and adequate nutrition. Apart from that i felt stronger for it .... coincidence or not?

So I'm trying to nut out basically if I should be tayloring my workouts to increase VO2 max in a couple of different ways in different workouts.

For example using either acidic or basic food/drink intake pre-workout and workout methods designed specifically to target or not target capillarization.

As a female capillarization will likely yield better results more easily for me. I'd definately aim to get the most out of that in some workouts.

Perhaps I should also try to design some sessions that will target my stroke volume more specifically since that is a weak point probably not well trained especially by me with my love of endurance training.

Ok enough blabbing from me! Thoughts, suggestions? Do you think it's possible to target these separately to a significant degree?

lol good idea sticking to the ATT forum. It can get ugly out there.

I too am thinking on a forum break. Hopefully I don't need to have myself banned again to make it happen...but I'm not above it or beyond another self-imposed intervention. Sorry...only read that far before responding.

Knee is feeling a bit better already, so ty for asking...and I'll let Salty and Scrap or someone else answer the other stuff I know nothing about. :)

Good to hear the knee is feeling better :)

I'm house sitting at the moment so it's an easier time for me to have a forum break than usual but still now while visiting my mum i manage to end up on the computer which i think is frankly a little sick!

As for answering stuff you know nothing about I'm not sure of what makes you think i know anything about it and i'm talking about it so why not you too?

If you have ideas, comments or just a guess it will all help because i'll have to double check the literature or try something to work out what i think about it and that will teach me more too. :)

I think it's easy to miss key things because you look at things from one angle so hearing other people's angles on things is always good. :)

no srsly, too weakbrained atm 2 even try 2 figure anything chemical related, and I want to hide in here for a while, or take a break. Maybe I should make u some kinda bet to see who can stay away the longest. Oh and Sourpuss, if you read this, quit wimping out :p

k im out.