The door in my wardrobe*

*the door not actually being there was a disappointment - but at least I was allowed to play with the clothes

//// Exercise program

Posted on | January 17, 2010 | 8 Comments

Yep, one of my New Year resolutions was about exercise, how original. Anyhow I have been able to starting a consistent program — and I’m planning on staying this track, I’m feeling the benefits already.

My program is built around weight training. This little over two first weeks of this year I have gradually run towards exercise in every other day. And from now on I’m planning to have four day training cycles: weight train, aerobics, weight train, rest. Although I’m certainly not a morning person I like to exercise at morning or daytime. Evening sessions destroy my sleeping patterns. Fortunately my workplace has a gym — plus the atmosphere is very encouraging for us to actually exercise — and there is another very nice gym just one block away from my home. I’m conveniently using those both.

My program is fairly simple, and I have few goals. The main goal over time is fat loss, and the weight training sessions are designed for that, overall. The first weight train session is a metabolic workout, meaning a circuit training, the aim is to keep the pulse relatively high during the whole workout. I’m doing four circuits of five exercises with 12 repeats per exercise, under 2 min rests between circuits.

The other workout is more strength intensive, but even with this I want to keep both the intensity and the workload high, so that it really gives a metabolic boost. I’m doing 5 – 6 exercises, 6 repeats per exercise and five sets of those. And only half minute rest between sets.

My condition (arthritis) limits effectively all jumping and running, but fortunately there are many good options that do not involve too heavy knee & hip impact for my aerobics sessions: rowing, uphill walking, crosstrainer machines, cycling. Would love to swim, too, but that will happen only occasionally, I don’t have a pool conveniently nearby home or workplace. I’m planning on doing some sort of interval training, but back to that later.

I have quite long experience in weight training — and I know what I want to accomplish with it. I’m using free weights — in circuit even some bodyweight only exercises, and I want to target specifically to glutes (I have wide hips, but my glutes certainly lack roundness) and posture, the latter means some core activating work and upper back exercises. Core activation in my case is not necessarily anything pilates-like. Multi-joint movements with free weights, specifically unilateral ones activate core muscles like nothing else (deadlift variations, squat & lunge variations). I favor lunges over squats, just because I feel that over time it gives better results with “joint support” (don’t know if there is anything scientific behind that, but I feel that the extra challenge with balance yields to more stable joint areas) and the loads (weights) can be smaller, so the strain peaks for joints might be smaller than with squats. I might be wrong though, this is just how I feel, with my experience and this damn condition.

I have been curious why my glute area is so underdeveloped and found one article that might be quite useful for all people doing seated work — and feeling that their *ahem* posterior chain muscle groups could use some extra attention. Glutes that are in stretched position all day long, days after days might lose their ability to “fire” completely, the nerve impulses do not create the proper activation of the whole big muscle. That is exactly what has happened to me… …I’m starting my weight train sessions now with those simple activation exercises presented in that article. BTW the whole site is a treasure trove for decent training information, although the focus is strongly in athlete, body building and figure competition training. And they sell nutritional supplements. And I find the images of girls in microscopic bikinis, fake boobs and extremely low bodyfat levels quite disturbing (disclaimer added after re-reading the post: I don’t have a problem with athletic female build… …but I really don’t understand the connection between these sports and soft porn like imagery. Oh well, that is not the only thing in this world I’m not able to understand).

Right now I can feel already some positive changes in my energy levels, also I’m sleeping better than in long time. Bad thing is that my appetite has increased tremendously — but this is familiar phenomena for me and after few weeks it will be possible to control the energy intake… …now I just try to establish the exercise habit.

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Discussion

  1. kurarin
    January 17th, 2010 @ 5:07 pm

    it sounds like a solid plan. i don’t know much, but with my trainer, i’m focusing on a lot of balance because i have a flexibility and flatfoot problem. i don’t do lunges but i do jumps onto a bosu to readjust my foot grip from forefoot to midfoot and weighted squats for thigh strength. i’m not sure if this will help!

  2. Kamicha
    January 17th, 2010 @ 8:14 pm

    I have flat feet, too — but I’m hypermobile :-)

    About the flat foot thing… …when I was young my physicists seemed pretty concerned about that, I had some special exercises etc. But suddenly it just stopped being an issue. I asked about it once from one of my doctors and he said that it is not concerned as a flaw anymore: in population analysis flat feet people did not have more pain, injuries etc. than people with “normal” feet. Actually people with extremely high arch were more prone to some problems (don’t recall anymore to what). However this is true only to normally flexible flat foot, there is some sort of rigid flat foot syndrome/condition which surely causes severe problems — but it is not very common. Calcaneal and knee position problems were equally common within flat feet population and “normal” feet population (with flexible feet, that is).

    I guess that there even was a time when Finnish army did not accept flat feeted young men… …or put them to some B category at least. They don’t do that anymore…

    So I’m not giving any special attention to my flat feet anymore. But weighted squats… …I’m surely not abandoning those… …just working more in the lunge department for a while! There is no better masochistic pleasure than few decent sets of weighted squats :-D

  3. Kamicha
    January 17th, 2010 @ 8:37 pm

    Oh, I hope that I don’t sound like some sort of annoying know-all person. But I’ve had a generous share of injuries (8 broken bones so far) and other problems (one invasive operation because of the problems caused by hypermobility, and then this f***ing granny condition) — so I have been kind of forced to find out ways to heal — and cope with these things.

    Plus for a while in my life I thought that I could even compete in power lifting — or figure competitions, even had some coaching. I gain both strength and muscle mass relatively easily. But then entered the arthritis.

  4. Tweets that mention Exercise program : The door in my wardrobe -- Topsy.com
    January 17th, 2010 @ 9:27 pm

    […] This post was mentioned on Twitter by stephen r, waynehodges. waynehodges said: Exercise program : The door in my wardrobe: Yep, one of my New Year resolutions was about exercise, how original. … http://bit.ly/7zlY6I […]

  5. jenna
    January 18th, 2010 @ 11:25 am

    good luck, it sounds like a great program.

  6. Susanna
    January 20th, 2010 @ 7:18 pm

    Hienolta kuulostaa! Suosittelen lämpimästi kokeilemaan kahvakuulaa harjoitteluvälineenä. Sillä pystyy näppärästi treenaamaan vaikka kotona, koko kroppa 20 minuutissa :) . Ja se tekee todella hyvää corelle, ja treenistä saa helposti myös aerobisen. http://kahvakuula.fi/forum/index.php pääsee hyvään alkuun. Mä oon siellä omaperäisesti nimellä Susanna :)

  7. Kamicha
    January 20th, 2010 @ 10:35 pm

    Olen kyllä meinannut kokeilla kahvakuulailua, mutta en o perskules saanut aikaiseksi. Täytyypä käydä foorumia tsiigailemassa, Kotiin en kyllä kuulaa heti hommaa, siinä on pian vanhat lattiat lommoja täynnä…

  8. Susanna
    January 21st, 2010 @ 3:17 pm

    Monilla saleillakin löytyy kuula jostain nurkasta :) . Mulla ei ole tullut lattioihin mitään, en ole tiputellut kertaakaan vielä. Jos meil tulee taas jotain yhteistreenejä niin mä voin ilmoitella sulle!

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