Sammiejune gets back on the bike

[sammiejune29]

Back in October I fell off my bike and cracked my skull, had bleeding in my brain, spent two days in the ICU, all that fun stuff. I was physically unable to work out for a few months after that. I still get dizzy occasionally so I have to carefully plan my exercises so nothing requires me looking up or laying on my back. But this is me getting back in the game. I'm really excited about the NerdFitness community and the challenges. Even if I'm not literally getting back on my bike right now, I am getting back into working out, which is just as important.

 

 

This is my first challenge!

 

My default stats are:

STR: 1

DEX: 3

STA: 3

CON: 2

WIS: 2

CHA: 4

 

Goals:

 

1. Do a body weight work out 3 times per week

    - probably the beginner one, but I don't want to limit myself :-) 

    - 3 STR, 2 STA

 

2. Every time I do a body weight work-out I will do at least 1 more rep than last time

    - OR increase the difficulty of the exercise (decreasing the incline on my incline push-ups)

    - 1 STR, 1 STA, 1 CHA, 1 DEX

 

3. Do a real push-up with good form

    - Not on knees, not inclined (I have never been able to do this, EVER)

    - 3 STR

 

4. Do at least 15 min of cleaning, picking up, hanging up clothes in my apartment per day.

    - I tend to let the mess in my apartment built up till it hits "critical mass" then clean everything and let it build back up again. Granted, my definition of "critical mass" is really not that bad, but I want to keep my apartment cleaner, more consistently.

    - The number of days I clean matters more than the number of hours spent cleaning per week

    - 3 WIS

 

 

 

At some point before Monday I will post some starting stats for myself.

[chris_de_maas]

These are great goals!

Good luck and I look forward to reading all about your progress

[Wolverine]

First off, OUCH.

 

Secondly, your goals are most excellent and definitely attainable in six weeks.  They should be perfect for getting you back in the saddle again (see what I did there?  saddle?  bicycle? *crickets*) and some momentum in a good direction.  It will be awesome to watch you rock this challenge!

[chris_de_maas]

 They should be perfect for getting you back in the saddle again (see what I did there?  saddle?  bicycle? *crickets*)

 

very loud BUT laughing crickets! hahaha!

[Elastigirl]

Wow, that sound scary. Good for you for getting back on the fitness wagon!

[Aeryn]

Welcome to the assassins! And heck yeah for getting back into the working out routine. I'm looking forward to seeing how your challenge goes!

[sammiejune29]

Thanks for the encouragement everyone!

Crickets aside I have a quandary that I'm hoping you guys can help me with. I did the body weight work out on Thursday and am still quite sore today (Saturday). I don't want to overwork my muscles by not giving them adequate time to rest between workouts. I'm concerned that 3x per week may not be realistic if I need two days to recover in between work out days.

So I guess my questions are how sore is too sore to workout (I know this is subjective but opinions are welcome) and should I put some kind of stipulation into my goal about missing workouts if I'm too sore?

[Wolverine]

Unless your soreness = injury (which it sounds like it doesn't) I'd recommend working through it.  Your body will catch up really quickly, and you can re-evaluate in a couple of weeks.

 

If you're not comfortable with that, you can also keep the 3 days a week, but scale down the workout... less circuits or less reps.

 

I wouldn't give yourself a "get out of jail free" card if your sore, but maybe if you are REALLY hurting you could sub in a yoga or mobility workout instead of the bodyweight workout.

 

Just my two cents.

[chris_de_maas]

Unless your soreness = injury (which it sounds like it doesn't) I'd recommend working through it.  Your body will catch up really quickly, and you can re-evaluate in a couple of weeks.

 

If you're not comfortable with that, you can also keep the 3 days a week, but scale down the workout... less circuits or less reps.

 

I wouldn't give yourself a "get out of jail free" card if your sore, but maybe if you are REALLY hurting you could sub in a yoga or mobility workout instead of the bodyweight workout.

 

Just my two cents.

I'm with Wolverine on that one! Especially reg the REALLY hurting bit. Flexibility workouts are also really good when sore (although they can be painful) in the way that they force you to stretch

[Crazyhawaiian21]

I'd have to go with Logan too. Getting back into gradually is the way to go, pay attention to yo' body and do a gut check every other week to see if your really putting in the effort to meet your goals or just checking the box. 

 

Other than that I would focus on form more than increasing the number of reps. 10 perfectly executed pushups can be much more difficult than 30 sloppy ones.

 

Great challenge and welcome to the clan!

[sammiejune29]

I'm with Wolverine on that one! Especially reg the REALLY hurting bit. Flexibility workouts are also really good when sore (although they can be painful) in the way that they force you to stretch

 

Thanks for the advice :-) I was mostly worried about hurting myself out of ignorance. 

 

 

I'd have to go with Logan too. Getting back into gradually is the way to go, pay attention to yo' body and do a gut check every other week to see if your really putting in the effort to meet your goals or just checking the box. 

 

Other than that I would focus on form more than increasing the number of reps. 10 perfectly executed pushups can be much more difficult than 30 sloppy ones.

 

Great challenge and welcome to the clan!

 

The reason I  added the bit about doing at least one more rep than last time is that I know I have a hard time pushing myself hard enough to actually get anywhere. Even if this doesn't happen every single workout with every single exercise I do, it will help me push myself hard. And I am also working very hard on my form.

[sammiejune29]

So I did the beginner body weight workout today as to not lose my momentum from doing it on Thursday. Even though the challenge hasn't technically started yet, I wanted to post it.

 

Thursday's workout (Feb 21, 2013):

Warm-up - Stairs, jogging and jumping jacks for 5 min

2 Circuits:

Body Weight Squats: 20/10

Incline Push-up (kitchen counter top, 3ft tall): 8/10

Right Leg Lunges: 7/6

Left Leg Lunges: 7/6

Right Arm Dumbbell Rows (8 lbs): 15/15

Left Arm Dumbbell Rows (8 lbs): 15/15

Plank: 15 sec / 10 sec

Jumping Jacks: 30/30

Stretching at the end

 

 

 

Sunday's Workout (Feb 24, 2013)

Warm-up - Stairs, jogging and jumping jacks for 5 min

3 Circuits

Body Weight Squats: 20/14/10

Incline Push-up (kitchen counter top, 3ft tall): 10/10/5

Right Leg Lunges: 4/3

Left Leg Lunges: 4/3

Right Arm Dumbbell Rows: (10 lbs) 20/15/13

Left Arm Dumbbell Rows: (10 lbs) 20/15/13

Plank: 25 sec / 20 sec / 10 sec

Jumping Jacks: 30/30/30

Stretching at the end

 

My legs were too sore to do any more lunges with good form but I think I made excellent progress on everything else. I'm also still experimenting with the right amount of weight for the dumbbell rows. I'm especially happy with my plank progress. These are on the floor forearm planks.

 

Also, related to the challenge, I made a chart to hang on my wall to check off days that I do my allotted cleaning time. Since the goal of the cleaning part of this challenge is to better clean my own apartment, I'm not going to count the days that I am home visiting my family against myself.

[Aeryn]

Nice start already! Glad to see you went ahead and worked out even though you were sore - I often find that working out actually helps with soreness... For that day, at least!

For dumbbell rows, if your goal is strength, I'd try doing 20 or even 30 lbs. I know that sounds heavy, but right now you're doing 20 with 10 lbs, which means you're mainly working on endurance - if you'd rather build muscle, pick a weight you can only do 5 to 8 reps with, and then when you can do 3 sets of 8 with good form, increase the weight. Ditto for your push-ups - pick a number ( I like 8 for some reason), and when you can do 3 sets of that many, go to a lower incline. You may already be planning to do that - anyway, it works as a progression for lots of different exercises.

[chris_de_maas]

Well done on your workout and progress! And on doing 3 sets instead of two! That's really great! You're off to a really good start!

Are you keeping track of how long it takes you to complete the workout on top of the reps? That could also be quite motivational

 

Also I'm with Aeryn reg the dumbbells, it's about what you're focusing on, strength or endurance.

[rybo]

Pretty solid goals and you are off to a great start. keep it up.

 

Because you have good days & bad days for any individual workout, maybe look to step up something each week rather than one rep every time you workout.

[sammiejune29]

Nice start already! Glad to see you went ahead and worked out even though you were sore - I often find that working out actually helps with soreness... For that day, at least!

For dumbbell rows, if your goal is strength, I'd try doing 20 or even 30 lbs. I know that sounds heavy, but right now you're doing 20 with 10 lbs, which means you're mainly working on endurance - if you'd rather build muscle, pick a weight you can only do 5 to 8 reps with, and then when you can do 3 sets of 8 with good form, increase the weight. Ditto for your push-ups - pick a number ( I like 8 for some reason), and when you can do 3 sets of that many, go to a lower incline. You may already be planning to do that - anyway, it works as a progression for lots of different exercises.

 

Thanks for the advice :-) Currently I only have 8 lb dumbbells so I'm playing around with different ways to add more weight. I added some this last round and it turned out not to be enough but of course I didn't want to kill the momentum of the circuit to up the weight again and I figured building a bit of endurance would be good anyway. Lol. And thanks for your advice on push ups too. I'm gonna have to get a little creative with reducing the incline since I live in an apartment and don't have any in my apartment. 

 

 

Pretty solid goals and you are off to a great start. keep it up.

 

Because you have good days & bad days for any individual workout, maybe look to step up something each week rather than one rep every time you workout.

 

Thanks!! Its definitely something to keep in mind.

 

My goal is still going to be trying for that one extra rep every time  I want to strive for improvement. But I'm not going to be super harsh and give myself and A only if I improved by at least one rep on every exercise, every workout cause that's unreasonable. The purpose of the goal is to push myself to keep improving and to keep myself from getting stuck in a rut. Like yesterday I improved everything except squats. Not only did I improve them, but I improved them a lot. I count that as a major win.

[sammiejune29]

Update for the day:

 

No workout today but I did walk to and from class which is quite a workout considering the giant hill I have to climb. My fitbit says I've walked about 4 miles today and have climbed 13 flights of stairs. My thighs are also incredibly sore from the workout yesterday, but it makes me feel like I'm making progress. I already feel stronger.

 

In other news I decided to invest in a heavier dumbbell for my rows so I bought a 20 lbs one today. I will get to try it out tomorrow. It was pretty clear to my that my 8lb ones weren't going to do it for me.

 

I also did my allotted cleaning for the day. I was trying to figure out what happens when I'm home all next week, but I think I figured out a solution. I can't clean my apartment while I'm 200 miles away so I will spend at least 15 min each day helping my mom or grandparents with things, whether that is cooking or something with their computers.

 

Looking forward to my workout tomorrow. Hopefully my legs aren't too sore and I can get some good squats in. :-)

[chris_de_maas]

Well done!

 

I really like how you've reassigned your 15mins of cleaning for next week. And on top of helping people out, it'll give you some extra time with your family which is nice

 

I look forward to reading about your workout later on

[sammiejune29]

So my thighs were still super sore today but I pushed through my workout. I decided to go ahead and type it up while I cool down before my shower. Though my shower might end up being quite cold. (There was a water main break earlier today so I will just be lucky to have any water pressure at all. lol)

 

 

Tuesday's workout (Feb 26, 2013):

Warm-up - Jogging and walking (alternating) for 5 min

3 Circuits:

Body Weight Squats: 21/15/10

Incline Push-up (kitchen counter top, 3ft tall): 13/10/6

Right Leg Lunges: 8/6/1

Left Leg Lunges: 8/6/1

Right Arm Dumbbell Rows (20 lbs): 5/5/4

Left Arm Dumbbell Rows (20 lbs): 5/5/4

Plank: 27 sec / 21 sec / 15 sec

Jumping Jacks: 30/30/20

Stretching

 

Notes: I absolutely love my new dumbbell. Thanks Aeryn for the suggestion to go heavier and to Chris for seconding. I prolly wouldn't have pushed myself as hard. I think 20 is a good weight for now since I can almost do 3 sets of 5.

 

My third set of lunges were sad but I couldn't keep good form so I stopped.

 

Only got in about 5 min or so of straightening/cleaning so far today but the day is young. Plus I have lots of time now that Tues night trivia was cancelled due to the water main break. :-/

[chris_de_maas]

Well done for pushing through even though you're still sore! That's what this is all about, not letting yourself come up with excuses not to workout. Just make sure you listen to your body and don't hurt yourself.

 

I'm really glad you had fun with your new dumbbells, it's really great! Can't wait for you to tell us that 20lbs is actually getting a bit easy and you need heavier ones

 

And good luck with the cold shower! I guess you could even post that on Theanne's thread! hahaha!

[Aeryn]

Yay, heavier weight! Go you! And nice workout - awesome to see those numbers going up!

[Wolverine]

Are you doing your workout in a circuit or are you completing all the sets of one exercise before moving on to the next?

[sammiejune29]

Are you doing your workout in a circuit or are you completing all the sets of one exercise before moving on to the next?

I've been doing them in a circuit. It generally takes me about 30 min. I keep meaning to time more exactly but have remembered while stretching at the end of my workout. Doing them in a circuit is great though. Never done circuit workouts before and I love it.

[rybo]

Good job, making progress nicely.

[Wolverine]

I just switched from circuits to concentrating on one exercise at a time.  It's been quite the mind switch!  It's hard twiddling my thumbs while I wait for the rest timer to beep for another set!