Sharla's Log

[Sharla]

Im curious what your diet is like Sharla. What you eat, especially pre and post workout can have a big effect on your bodies ability to recover.

Ouch busted! I plann cook ups etc and healthy main meals but I really don't plan enough for the times I'm stuck late at uni or travelling. I was reading a bit about amounts of recommended protein and calcium for women. I probably need a little more protein than I get and DEFINATELY need more calcium!

The last week has been good!

I have a whole week to think about here so I'll try to break it down into doc points:

• Recovered from long run within 2 days which was good. - took Sunday and Monday off exercise and since it was raining and wet sheep are not shorn there was no work then either. Complete recovery - did me good I think.
• Tuesday I worked as a rousabout. We were a little understaffed so it was a long day. Stayed out in a little town called Moulamein and had to travel about 60 km out to work each day.

This country has big properties and the guy were working for has no less than 120,000 ha! he's a private land owner too - it's completely a family business no big investors so obviously i don't want to embarass my bro by being incompetant working there!

Let's just say it's been a while since i did this kinda work and my intial reaction was to want to dry reach when i was faced with a particularly festy bit of wool i had to sort on that first day. Soooooo glad i took work gloves! Anyway my point it I didn't want to embarass my bro so i dealt with it and it gradually got easier. it was much easier with the radio on to dissociate, wearing gloves and thinking about how good it must be for the sheep to have that wool off. it also became easier as I learnt to work faster and feel like i knew what i was doing.

It made me think of the sports psychology equivalent - if i feel like I'm progressing and improving and getting somewhere i'll be able to put myself through so much more. Perhaps also explains how you can fall into the trap of taking a hard punch to land one sometimes - a little success is a huge pain killer!

The equivalent of the work gloves would be my mouthguard - something familiar that subconsciously tells you you're ready. Music - well i think i underestimate it's effect for training - don't usually care much what's on the radio in the gym but now i'm sure it has a big effect!

Anyway left at 6:15 am and didn't get back until after dark that day so no run but lots of physical work - i never stand still for moer than 15 seconds doing this work!

Wednesday - a full day again but not quite so long - my bro is shearing to make up numbers though and he's fast so i'm flat out trying to keep up with my work. At the end of the day I'm stuffed but they have to pack up the trailer (portable shearing set up) so my bro lets me set off running while they do that and they picked me up on the way back. I get in a 30 min tempo run.

Thursday - it rained - oh no - that means a day off and I'm sooooo dissappointed ! I got in a monaghetti fartleck that day when it eased off a bit and it felt good - really felt like i was blowing off the cob webs!

Friday - another really long day since we have to shear at 2 different locations and help round up sheep in between. only running is after sheep and it's pretty dark by the time we get back. Not to mention i'm stuffed!

Saturday - no work - got in my long run. 31.9 km in the following intervals:

10.5 km, 13 km, 5 km, 1.5 km, 500m, 500m, 400 m, 500m.

I did the 500 and 400 m intervals as fast as i could pump out since i read in a womans health magazine (great rainy day amusement ) that burst of intense cardio in between weights sets can reduce muscle soreness by boosting circulation etc.

I was really hurting by the end of the run but was really suprised to wake up Sunday with no soreness! Had Sunday off anyway since it's about 4 hours to get back to Melbourne and then an overnight bus trip back to Adelaide so spent all day travelling.

I'm very pleased with how much my rate of recovery has imporved though! Next weekend's long run with decide whether or not I register for the full or half marathon in September now - fingers crossed!

[Sharla]

Ok so I haven't posted here for a while and I'm about to get back into it since I should have the internet connected at home! Yes that''s pretty monumental for me since it actually meant getting a home phone aswell!

One day I might even have to get a TV that I can hook up to a VCR or one of those modern DVD player thingies!

So to update - i didn't do the marathon - I became stupidly busy the final couple of weeks before i had to leave for my trip to the UK since uni did pay for it and I had to prepare a lot plus finish off a heap of experiments i had growing - which unfortunately you really can't pause with plants growing!

I ran a 20 km training run earlier in the week of the marathon and it just didn't feel right so i decided I had lost some condition in those insane 2 weeks and wasn't quite fit enough. I could have finished but I would have been so sore the run would have put me back in conditioning and probably reaggrivated old knee and back issues wheras when fitter and well prepared I still like to think I can do it.

Instead of running the marathon I spent the weekend learning a few things from Scrap and got to see Donny in action training plus met Mrs Scrap and Adam GB and saw the Plonks fight his pro debut. One day everyone will be talking about him and I'll be able to say I saw his debut bout and I trained with Donny (also bound to be a big thing) and Scrap for a weekend!

It was a really worthwhile weekend and I learnt a lot. I then enjoyed the rest of my trip visiting labs etc and learnt the true meaning of relaxing whilst seeing Scotland with Bilbo (evolution is a banned conversation ).

Now I'm back and have just recovered from a cold I caught on the plane back I am getting organized to have a structured training program again. Fingers crossed I might be starting a new job soon and I have my PhD to finish over the next few months too so I'm budgeting 2 hrs of exercise a day plus transport cycling since we're coming into summer and the days are brighter for longer and the weather good for it.

So basically that's 2 hrs exercise plus 1 hr 40 mins cycling a day except on weekends which will have Saturdays off and not much cycling.

I've decided this is a good time to have a kind of reset which I think I'll do every year for about 1 or 2 months. I'm planning one hour of stretching first thing every morning with wobble board work throw in. I'll do 5 mins of wobble board balancing blindfolded, 15 mins of stretching X 3.

I am going wobble board nuts. The reason being I don't believe my hips stabilize me very well and I think that's the main source of any aches and pains I tend to get. I'm doing it blindfolded because I find that pracitcally impossible right now so need to develop it and i can understand that I am too right eye dominant.

In the evenings I am doing three nights a week cardio (half running including intervals - speed work, half swimming - mixed intensity) and three nights a week resistance work. Again with the resistance work I'm going wobble board nuts incorporating it wherever possible eg ander my toes while doing pushups with push up bars, under my feet for dumbbell squats etc.

I'm throwing in some ideas I got from Scrap provided I get organized with equipment which I won't describe. He can put those up when he's ready. I'll also be doing some shadow work and perhaps simple judo moves these nights at home. The things i'm relatively confident I can practice unsupervised although I will get my bro to spot me sometimes when possible.

I seem to have had great luck with people lately and it turns out that my flatmate used to be an elite swimmer. While i've known this for a while I've always had my own trainings at nights and never been to the pool with her until recently.

Damn it she KILLED me! But in a good way - stretched everything out and worked muscles I didn't know how to use without someone elite like her to make me do it correctly.I didn't even realise how tired she was making me until afterwards. It was such different exercise it really crept up on me!

I'll be using what she taught me and trying to get her to check my form every few weeks since she found things which I think also combat key weaknesses I have holding me back from enjoying other more high impact things as much as I'd like - such as running, judo and boxing etc.

I'll describe the sessions a little more as I do them.

I haven't worked out if and when I'll be getting back into the clubs yet. I suspect I'm better off leaving it until i have my PhD mostly wrapped up since juggling everything has been a bit too challenging for me at times.

Organization has never been my strong suit so to deal with this I've had my flatmate's help reorganizing my room. I mean a COMPLETE do over! So far it's working well - things are easier to find, get out and put away and trip me over less. Howwever, managing my time is the real challene as always.

I've bought an A3 size whiteboard which is my version of a poor man's personal organizer except I've decided it's better because I can layout everything on it ans see it all at once rather than just looking at one part of my life at once. I'm hoping that i'll be less likely to forget things in areas of my life I'm not thinking of in the moment. I've split the board up into parts - career/uni, Sport & Health, Domestic Chores and Finances.

I kinda wish I'd bought a bigger board but perhaps the limited space makes me keep things simple and I have managed to fit everything on there. It's magnetic so I can use fridge magnets to pin up specific stretching routines on a slip of paper too. I have 4 different coloured pens I use for heading like goals, To Do lists, Rosters etc for each section which make it clearer to read and less likely to just be a mass of black and white scribbles when I look at it. Fingers Crossed it works!!!

So I start my program officially tomorrow - just going to the pool tonight for a half social swim with my little sis and have done a bit of stretching today. I've been doing some cardio, resistance work and stretching over the past couple of weeks but not really had a structure to keep track of so now I'm organized hopefully I can make more use of my annual 1 or 2 month "reset" phase!

[pikey dave]

Sharla thank you for your kind words,if you need help with any thing give me a call, no strings no cost' Dave from the Cove Boxing Club.

[Sharla]

Thanks Dave! I attempted - big emphasis on attempted since I didn't really mange - to keep up with the program Scrap was posting of your training and it damn near killed me!

The dedication, hard work, brains and balls required to keep up with all that and what Scrap has you learning (i won't say teach since i think he likes to encourage people to work things out for themselves a bit and he doesn't strike me as a babysitting coach) really justifies respect.

I'll take you up on your offer of advice when I've worked out what Qs are important for me and I'll consider it a privelidge!

[wesrman]

Dont worry about being nosey, i dont mind.

A wrist roller is a thick bar (or pipe in my case) with a rope attached to it and you roll it up and down using your wrists. A couple of these links have a demonstration (the best i could find, although they arent great imo), but i prefer to do it one way and then turn the roller around and do it the other way too.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxN-AemiW4k

Wrist Roller Forearm Exercise

Wrist roller - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hopefully that helps.

[Sharla]

Interesting thanks Wes.

Have you noticed an improvement in something(s) in your training since starting the exercise?

I'm trying to picture how it might improve boxing function and I'm sure it would since rolling up and down does both directions evenly plus it sounds like a compound exercise according to the Wiki link.

Also wondering what these kinds of exercises mean for people prone to carpel tunnel syndrome - would it be overworking those muscles or preventing the problem?

[wesrman]

I love the wrist roller, but ive also done lots of palms up and palms down wrist curls, behind back wrist curls, leverage bar curls and twists etc. I have weak wrists so i have to work extra hard to strengthen them.

Forearm Training

Bodybuilding.com - Forearms Articles!

Im sure a strong forearm would help a boxer greatly by reducing the amout of injuries to the wrist.

If you're prone to carpal tunnel you will have to be cautious, but id image that it could help if you dont over do it. Im not a doctor though so this is only speculation.

If you are going to train your forearms, use high reps (15-100 per set), use a variety of exercises to make sure you dont cause an imbalance and make sure you use a full range of motion and never cheat. You dont want to injure your wrist (this is especially true for a boxer).

Bruce Lee trained his forearms all the time and used all kinds of equipment and exercises includingthe wrist roller, and he had the best forearms ever imo.

[Sharla]

Thanks Wes I hadn't thought about forearm training but I guess I'll have to look into it. There's always something activity or diet wise I haven't included in my training yet which I should - one day I'll catch up!

I don't think I'm prone to Carpel tunnel but i had noticed odd stiffness in my wrists occasionally so i think i might want to look into prevention just to be on the safe side.

Ok to update my log:

My training plan has changed yet again! Basically because of my uni workload over the next few months meaning I won't finish my days in time for night trainings. Also my membership for the aquatic centre expired and while I'm not sure of whether or not I got the job i was going for yet i don't want to fork out the money to update it.

They do have some casual positions coming up for work over summer at the pool which might be my solution since hopefully I'll be able to work hours which won't interfere too much with my uni work and I'll get free membership. I think i'll be absolutely stuffed at the end of every day but i'll manage especially since it's so close to my house.

Another thing I've noticed I have to be strict with is my stretching time. It's the first thing I do so if I have to do some other exercise afterwards I'll run out of time to do it if I stretch too long. However my 1 hr stretch sessions have turned into 1 hr 30 or 1 hr 40 min sessions. It just seems there's always another spot to stretch. I think ultimately I'll never finish a session feeling one hundred percent loose and stretched - at least not for a few more months anyway.

I've also discovered I have a fobia of doing weights without a cardio warm up so doing them from home means I need to run first. This week I haven't done any resistance training because after my stretching and run i run out of time. I have been cycling to and fron uni 5 days too so I guess that maybe counts as something (but not really).

I could get hold of my mums' windtrainer and start cycling as part of my warm ups again. I also have an idea or two of Scrap's I'll put into practice once I have the equipment sussed. I need to think about the best way to do that and keep my eye out for the right stuff at a reasonable price though so that could be a few weeks.

I'm still nutting it out but I plan to allow 3 hours to workout in the mornings - 1 hour stretch, 1 hour cardio, 1 hour resistance, ab work and skill and balance stuff.

Aims for the next few months:

• Improve hip stability and balance (I always feel my hips tilt too far forewards)
• Reduce all my flexibility limitations
• Strengthen my weakest links - i think my lower ab & hip muscles involved with balance mainly to begin with
• All that will hopefully help me build a base which will make it easier for my body to tolerate long distance running because I want to get back into that again and if when my PhD hell is over with I'll look into club activities like boxing and judo again and make some decisions.

The reason i think my lower abs might be weak is when being shown how to do a proper dolphin kick the other week I found i wanted to do a sit up in the water and I found it impossible to bend at my hips to kick my legs.

While sorting out papers stacked up in my room I found something I had printed out from a website Donny recommended. One of those things I fully intended to get to but didn't - now I think he was really onto something.

It is an ab exercises which also gently stretches the iliopsoas and does not allow you to bend the wring way called an "assisted heel slide" so I'm going to look into doing that and see if I can get it working correctly.

The other thing i've resolved to do before but will be more serious about now is to drink more water! I have now found things on the web which link lower back pain to dehydration since the iliopsoas will contract in response to dehydration!

In a way it's not unlikely for me since I'm a coffee addict and brought up on a farm with bore water never drank a lot of it. Plus before hurting my knee when i thought i was unbreakable I relied a bit too much on dehydration to make weight for fights sometimes.

I might not have known a few extra aches and pains could really be related to that which is scary because while everyone tells you to drink water no one ever teaches you to recognize the symptoms of dehydration other than feeling thirsty which can be misinterpreted as other cravings sometimes - like food in my case.

So I think i'd give myself maybe 6/10 for this last week - a bit crap - need to get my arse into gear and keep on track. I think my organization skills are developing though so hopefully it will get easier after a while. I'll be getting up at about 4:15 am to allow me 3 hours exercise before uni (leave at 8 am to get there at 9) so that will be the biggest challenge this week.

I might need to impose a weekend curfew on myself which sucks but I'm a daylight person and prefer to go out during the day than at night anyway.

[Sharla]

It's Tuesday and while the week started off well (got up ar 4:30 Monday and Tuesday without pressing the snooze button) it looks as though tonight will be a late one which means my early start tomorrow will be extra difficult as will fitting in any training.

I'm at uni late finishing off some work so I can say it's done in a meeting with my supervisor tomorrow. There's never any sort of explanation accepted for something taking longer than expected so it's just more appealing to kill myself finishing it than to listen to him chuck a hissy fit over it.

I will say that I am beginning to feel the difference with the stretching and with different stretches. After a good stretch my back just feels good and I'm beginning to feel like my hips are not always tilted forwards. Probably nothing to most people but it's a great victory for me.

I'm also getting an idea of what does and does not put pressure on and tighten up my lower back. I'm becoming pro stretches where my back is fully supported and against ones where it is encouraged to arch.

I have realized that Scrap whilst modestly showing me a couple of stretches in September had taken all this into account fairly well. Plus his ball hamstring stretch seems to - if i understand the theory - stretch the ilipsoas and work the correct abdominal muscles mre effectively than the heel slide exercise I found on the web!

I am nutting out ways to incorporate safe strength training now since when my hip muscles do start to release my midsection feels strangely weak. Perhaps I am paranoid - i have not pushed it yet - but I feel if i was to do real challenging resistance work straight after stretching I might reverse the effect of the stretches.

Perhaps I should have one week of stretching and very limited resistance work + cardio and gradually bring the resistance stuff back in once the stretches have had time to work.

[hfahrenheit]

keep at it.

[Sharla]

keep at it.

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!

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?

[Salty]

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

[Sharla]

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!

[Salty]

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!

[Sharla]

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 ).

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!