Fitness Update: Lessons and Realizations

A short history of Indian Clubs and their use in exercise. They are mentioned in the post below.

I started this portion of this Blog in the hopes that I would share discoveries and revelations and realizations and lessons learned and gains made after every single workout. Then it became every week. Then it became...eventually, like today.

I am realizing that my 60-hour work week, with "free time" taken up by helping my mom (who is "at that age," as they say), spending time with my GF (which MUST be prioritized!) and sleeping allows little time to do this at all. The best I can hope for is a slow period at work where I can squeeze this in. that being the case, here are some observations and achievements of the past few weeks...

I finished the first month of Sean T's BeachBody "Insanity" program (from a ten-year-old DVD set). It only took me six weeks because I could seldom get more than three or four days of workouts in per week, while it was designed for five days a week. Sometimes I threw in the "Upper Body Weight Training" workout during the "off" day of the rotations because the regular program does not do much in that regard. That specific workout has left me dizzy and even a slight ringing in my ears the way it mixes lifting weights with cardio in 4-part supersets done at high intensity, often working more than one body part per exercise.

Because I still need to focus on my surgically repaired shoulder, I would occasionally follow up a workout with a half-dozen shoulder-focused exercises from a Wai Lana yoga DVD I found in a thrift shop. There are some things that shoulder will never do again, and I am coming to the realization that I am going to have to work that shoulder out more often to get it to do certain things that it can do to do as well as the other shoulder. 

These and other workout, fitness, and yoga videos are available on Amazon.com. I get a small percentage of any purchase you make if you click on any Amazon link to get there.

 

 Mostly, right now, the trouble is the strength and the endurance. For some movements I must recruit my shoulder blade and my abdominal muscles to get the shoulder to go places it used to by itself. Those muscles are not used to working that hard to do that, and even simply rotating them tires out the new shoulder faster than the old one. 

My fitness gains are sort of a competition between my muscles and my cardio. When I started, I found that my muscles gave out before my cardio did. Maybe this was from the jogging I had done a few times? Or perhaps my base-level of fitness and the way my body has become accustomed to cardio work has stayed with me better than the muscle strength I used to have? But my muscle strength is coming back, slowly. 

 I have incorporated my Indian Clubs into my workout. While their total weight is probably less than the natural variance of my body weight on a busy day, they do add just a touch of weight resistance hen moving my arms in running- and jumping-type exercises. Adjusting how I hold them gives different effects to the act of moving them, lifting them, swinging them. Sometimes they even encourage me to do more shoulder-focused movements, which I need. 

You can shop for Indian clubs and books and videos on how to use them on Amazon.com. If you buy anything after clicking one of the links below, I get a small percentage.

 My abs are weak, but a lot of abdominal exercises in Insanity really are all about the hip flexors, those muscles that lift the legs. Mine are also pretty weak. It turns out that lifting one leg over and over again is a tougher workout than marching, or moving your legs in the same manner alternately. I guess that is because when you walk or march you give the hip flexor time to recover between each rep (or step). 

I have worked my way down from my starting max weight of 205 lbs to a minimum weight of 198, with about a 3-lb variance over the course of a day. My goal is to get comfortably under 200 with some solid muscle and less fat around my middle. I am capable of "sucking it in" with the best of 'em, showing some abdominal definition, but when I relax there is a significant pot that "dun-lopped" over my belt.

My ultimate goal is to have a functionally strong body that looks it, and to return to armored combat, grappling, and stage combat. I am a little concerned that my shoulder won't be ready and that my non-surgically repaired knee, injured last winter in a slip-and-fall, my need surgery before I return.

MORE TO COME...