Fitness Catch-All

I tried a crossfit class that my company is offering on Friday. I panted my way through the nightmarish hour, gasping like a beached trout for most of it, and then collapsed on the couch for the rest of the night. Yesterday, I was so sore that I got stuck on the toilet. I tried to put on deodorant and had trouble lifting my arms high enough to do so.

Why do people exercise, again?

An hour of CrossFit? Way too much to start.

trichy wrote:

I tried a crossfit class that my company is offering on Friday. I panted my way through the nightmarish hour, gasping like a beached trout for most of it, and then collapsed on the couch for the rest of the night. Yesterday, I was so sore that I got stuck on the toilet. I tried to put on deodorant and had trouble lifting my arms high enough to do so.

Why do people exercise, again?

The trite answer is so that that doesn't keep happening.

The truth is that there's a hump to get over, and you're currently on the wrong side of that hump. From that side of the hump, it's real easy to work out like you're on the other side, then pay the price.

I have a beef with CrossFit in particular (despite it being what I'm currently doing for fitness) - it's marketed as beginner-friendly and it's really not. The lifts are suuuuper technical, the emphasis is on really going for it hardcore, and those things require experience to gauge what level of exertion is appropriate for your own level of fitness. Knowing yourself well enough to scale how hard to work is a learned skill, and based on what you said, you're still very much in the process of learning it. Slow down, offload the bar, listen to your breath and rest when you need to (not when the coach or your classmates think you need to), and don't let your pride push you harder than you should be going. Do the "easy" versions of exercises if you need to (e.g. push-ups with your knees on the ground).

The good news is that the hump doesn't last for long. If you were to keep doing that exact workout for 3-4 weeks, you'd be getting off the toilet just fine.

Your body gets used to fitness. I still can feel sore the day after a HIIT but my body can do a lot more then when I started.

Top_Shelf wrote:

An hour of CrossFit? Way too much to start.

To their credit, they modified the workout pretty heavily to accommodate me as a beginner, and one of the trainers was next to me the entire time, correcting my form and encouraging me to take breaks and not overdo it.

Jonman wrote:

If you were to keep doing that thing for 3-4 weeks, you'd be getting off the toilet just fine.

I don't know that I've ever seen a statement as simultaneously disheartening and encouraging at the same time.

trichy wrote:
Jonman wrote:

If you were to keep doing that thing for 3-4 weeks, you'd be getting off the toilet just fine.

I don't know that I've ever seen a statement as simultaneously disheartening and encouraging at the same time.

The hard truth is that you're unfit, and you're going to stay that way unless you do something about it. And doing something about it is going to suck for a short period of time. The Hump Struggle Is Real, yo.

The good news is that fitness responds really quickly. Waaay quicker than your bathroom scale suggests it does. It takes months/years to lose weight, but it only takes a couple weeks to tangibly feel fitter (particularly as a beginner). If you can stick it out the first few weeks, that first time you notice it, when you get to the top of the stairs barely out of breath, is the sh*t.

The other great thing is that you keep a part of your fitness even if you slack off later on. The first time is always the hardest. If you get unfit again, getting your fitness back is right quick.

LarryC wrote:

The other great thing is that you keep a part of your fitness even if you slack off later on. The first time is always the hardest. If you get unfit again, getting your fitness back is right quick.

So true!

I started this year as an intermittent runner, maybe doing 3-5 miles a week, and sometimes training for a 10k or a 1/2 marathon once or twice a year, but time to train has been tough to find with two boys under 10 to take care of, and a busy wife. I wouldn't say i was in great shape, but i could manage to get ready for a long run with time. Beginning of this year, i was feeling pretty down about myself, and getting older. One of those high intensity interval training workout places opened in my neighborhood, and was offering a 5am 60 minute class, which seemed crazy early, but workable into my home/work life. So i tried a couple. And got hooked. I was soon doing 3 days a week, then upped it to 5 days by March. I combined it with a Whole 30 month in January, and by April, I had lost 20 pounds, and was feeling great. Then, the gallbladder happened. Started having attacks, and couldn't stand it anymore, so i decided to have it out. Had to lay off the exercise for 2 weeks while recovering, then i hit my first class again yesterday. It hardly felt like i'd missed a day. Slowly ramping back up, with a couple of classes a week for now, but i should be back to 5/week by August.

It's weird, too. I'm not a class guy, but something about this being so close to home, so early, and being able to just switch to autopilot and burn through each hour has kept me going.

I’m still going with my 30-minutes of daily exercise streak. I hit Day 70 last night. It’s starting to feel like a habit now. There have been a few times where my mind has decided to skip a day, but my body just seems to take over and all of a sudden I’m on the way to the gym.

Starting Weight: 217
Current Weight: 212

A recent ten-day vacation was tricky because at one point I had to run in high heat three days in a row, which wasn’t fun.

On a good note, my life has settled down quite a bit now, so I’m thinking I can add weight-training and more deliberate stretching sessions.

On the whole, I’m pretty happy with how this has gone. I’ve had issues in the past few years with hot-cold exercise patterns where I exercise a ton then burnout and stop, or only exercise once or twice a week for a month or so. During this streak, I’ve had to hold myself back from wanting to do more at times or adding so many things, but by focusing on just this one thing it’s been sustainable even in crazy busy June and the results are starting to appear.

That’s epic! Awesome work GB.

charlemagne wrote:

That’s epic! Awesome work GB.

Thanks! It's a start. Just need to keep going.

After Friday's workout (again in the Crossfit gym), I woke up Sunday morning, and instead of being horrifyingly, agonizingly sore, I was only agonizingly sore! Yay, progress! I think.

trichy wrote:

After Friday's workout (again in the Crossfit gym), I woke up Sunday morning, and instead of being horrifyingly, agonizingly sore, I was only agonizingly sore! Yay, progress! I think.

Jonman wrote:

The good news is that the hump doesn't last for long. If you were to keep doing that exact workout for 3-4 weeks, you'd be getting off the toilet just fine.

Right on schedule!

Currently on vacation. Belly feels huge. Can't wait to go back home and workout again. I know about callistenics but some things I'm not coordinated enough to be effective.

trichy wrote:

After Friday's workout (again in the Crossfit gym), I woke up Sunday morning, and instead of being horrifyingly, agonizingly sore, I was only agonizingly sore! Yay, progress! I think.

Yeah, it's always nice when something that killed you in the past is now not as bad. I started going to an OCR gym for hour-long workouts once a week and after the first one I told my wife that it felt like my entire body had been beaten by hammers for the following three days. Now I have no issues aside from maybe a little soreness. Of course, I pretty much live in a state of perpetual soreness of some kind to some degree.

Who makes good weight lifting gloves these days? I don't do heavy lifting but workout with free weights and bands 3 times a week. Wrist wrap or support definitely required.

My 10 year old pair of Harbingers have tears that are getting out of hand. Looking at Amazon reviews all the gloves look a lot cheaper. Much less leather and poor stitching.

I like these: Contraband Black Label 1001 Weight Lifting Wrist Wraps

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WVJ82YV...

A lot.

I posted this in the 'questions you want answered' thread but I think it may fit in better here...? Hope it's ok to double-post. I'm feeling a bit desperate for replies I guess.

Does anyone have experience with dry needling? Did it work for you?

I'm about 6 sessions into physio for some knee problems and we've seen little improvement. The physiotherapist suggested dry needling for next session. We had a bit of a chat about acupuncture etc. being pseudoscience, but it seems to work for some people so he wants to give it a shot.

I've had some downright traumatic injections in the past (e.g. cortisone in my heels for one!), so I've developed a pretty bad phobia of needles. On one hand, I'd do almost anything to fix my knees, but on the other...Pushing past a phobia for pseudoscience has me second-guessing.

Would love some advice, or even friendly words of encouragement. I'm more than a little bit scared.

I’ve had dry needling done on my calves before. It felt pretty weird, slightly painful, but very tolerable. I honestly don’t know if it really helped. It was pretty cool how when the needle was in I could feel the effect right up my leg, but afterwards I don’t know if I really felt any different.

Anyway, I reckon it’s worth a try. I also hate needles and was pretty skeptical, but on the scale of scary-needle-things it was very mild. Helped that I couldn’t see anything that was happening.

My wife is TCM-trained (4 year graduate program) and practices acupuncture, herbal pharmacology, and more. She's very outspoken against the dangers of dry needling. It's called dry needling (and not acupuncture) because the latter requires a graduate program through an accredited school. Dry needling requires a weekend seminar. The majority of "acupuncture-related injuries" come from dry needlers puncturing lungs by accdient, according to my wife.

Now, that's not to say all dry needle practitioners are bad. I'm sure there's plenty of quality healthcare practitioners. I do think it's important to understand what's required to practice it.

My recommendation is if you're interested in this realm of healthcare, take a look into traditional Chinese medicine practitioners. Depending on where you live, that may or may not be an option.

Top_Shelf wrote:

I like these: Contraband Black Label 1001 Weight Lifting Wrist Wraps

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06WVJ82YV...

A lot.

Those look nice but I would like something that has palm and lower finger leather as well. I used to get calluses all the time prior to buying those gloves.

Edit: It looks like the make gloves to, I'm going to look into those.

If you don't have calluses how will anyone know you even lift, bro?

I am currently on Day 73 of "get my ass in shape."

Starting weight: 270 lbs.
Starting waist: 49.5"

Current weight: 244.2 lbs.
Current waist: 44.5"

Ran my diet and exercise plan by my VA nutritionist. She approves. Just a few tweaks to my proteins, fats, etc.

A_Unicycle wrote:

I posted this in the 'questions you want answered' thread but I think it may fit in better here...? Hope it's ok to double-post. I'm feeling a bit desperate for replies I guess.

Does anyone have experience with dry needling? Did it work for you?

I'm about 6 sessions into physio for some knee problems and we've seen little improvement. The physiotherapist suggested dry needling for next session. We had a bit of a chat about acupuncture etc. being pseudoscience, but it seems to work for some people so he wants to give it a shot.

I've had some downright traumatic injections in the past (e.g. cortisone in my heels for one!), so I've developed a pretty bad phobia of needles. On one hand, I'd do almost anything to fix my knees, but on the other...Pushing past a phobia for pseudoscience has me second-guessing.

Would love some advice, or even friendly words of encouragement. I'm more than a little bit scared.

I've had dry-needling performed on me for a bad case of tennis elbow (I don't even play tennis!). It was literally tortuous and did not offer any relief for me. I eventually had surgery which did fix my issue. I'm highly dubious as to the merits of dry-needling at this point, but admit that that's purely anecdotal.

Speaking of remediation, I'm going to get my first appointment with a practitioner of Muscle Activation Techniques, tomorrow. If it goes well, I'll be able to start squatting again. If it goes VERY well, I'll let everyone know and drop some youtube links.

EvilHomer3k wrote:

If you don't have calluses how will anyone know you even lift, bro?

Unfortunately, in my case, probably true!

A_Unicycle wrote:

I posted this in the 'questions you want answered' thread but I think it may fit in better here...? Hope it's ok to double-post. I'm feeling a bit desperate for replies I guess.

Does anyone have experience with dry needling? Did it work for you?

I'm about 6 sessions into physio for some knee problems and we've seen little improvement. The physiotherapist suggested dry needling for next session. We had a bit of a chat about acupuncture etc. being pseudoscience, but it seems to work for some people so he wants to give it a shot.

I've had some downright traumatic injections in the past (e.g. cortisone in my heels for one!), so I've developed a pretty bad phobia of needles. On one hand, I'd do almost anything to fix my knees, but on the other...Pushing past a phobia for pseudoscience has me second-guessing.

Would love some advice, or even friendly words of encouragement. I'm more than a little bit scared.

I had two sessions done on my calves a few years ago as part of some rehab from a back injury. The PT who did it was highly skilled at it. I found it painful and unproductive. I called it off after the second session and stuck with more traditional PT.

I hit Day 84 yesterday on my 30-minutes of aerobic exercise streak. It's definitely feeling like a habit now. I start to feel the urge to exercise if I haven't done so by about three in the afternoon. Steady as she goes there.

Starting Weight: 217.0
Current Weight: 211.2

With exercise feeling like a habit, I decided earlier this week to also work on increasing my daily sleep average to at least 6 hours of FitBit Sleep (about 7-7.5 hours of traditional sleep). I've got four days in a row now and already I notice a difference. I'm thinking that this can be my next habit, Step 2 if you will, on the road to better fitness.

On the whole, I'm feeling good about how everything has gone. I was getting stressed out about my health, fitness, and weight before I started this plan of just working on one thing. Making sweeping radical changes all at once was too hard to sustain and I kept failing at it. Although I've wanted to go faster at times with this, the pace has been sustainable and I feel like I'm slowly but steadily morphing into a more fit person.

The gym has one of those body scan things in every so often.

The delta over 4 months was:
Added 2kg of muscle mass.
Dropped from 25.3% body fat to 22.4%

I am very happy with that.

I finished my 18th Spartan Race last weekend, the Asheville Sprint. I'm pleased with my prep, what with my running streak (sitting at 579 days today) and participating in an OCR workout at an OCR gym every week for the preceding 6 weeks. My knee, knock on wood, has been behaving and letting me run more than a mile for a while now. As such, I had my best finish ever, finishing 3rd in my age group and in the top 1% overall in the open division.

I've decided to start running my future races in the more competitive age group heats. I figure another 7 months or so of running and OCR training should get me pretty solidly into where I want to be.