Tag Archives: exercise

Understanding my limits

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I’m dealing with a form of sciatica down my leg that is triggered from standing up. I spent the majority of my adult life avoiding sitting, and now it’s sitting that gives me relief. I’m also dealing with golfer’s elbow, which is easy to aggravate in the gym, but doesn’t usually bother me in my day-to-day activities.

I know the golfer’s elbow has lingered because I use it a bit too much in my workouts and I don’t always stop when it bugs me… in other words, I don’t really know my limits for what I can do with my elbow, until I do too much.

My leg is keeping me humble. I’m really being careful and that’s because I’m tired of this pain lingering. I’ve stopped walking on the treadmill and I ride a low seated stationary bike for my cardio, I am avoiding leg exercises for now, and I’m choosing to sit every chance I get. And of course I’m actually doing the physio exercises I’ve been given… every day!

Still, I’ve now gone to a doctor and I have painkillers to help me reduce the leg pain. My challenge now is to still understand my limits and not try to do too much just because the pain isn’t as bad. It’s hard to do this, despite the fact that I need to be smart and patient. I’m just stubborn, and always feel like limits need to be pushed all the time. I need to remember that there is only a small gap between stubborn and stupid.

More rest

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I’m going to physiotherapy. I’m going to massage therapy. I’m doing my stretches and exercises. And I’m still dealing with leg pain that gets triggered from standing. Until a week ago I could just sit for 5 minutes and the pain would fade. I could walk on the treadmill or up/downhill, and even run, and felt no pain… but after 3-5 minutes standing in the shower, shaving & brushing my teeth, or making food, the pain returned.

For the last week and a half, the pain has crept into activities where I’m mobile and moving, and then has been slow to subside, even when I sit.

So, I’ll keep doing my stretches, keep going to physio and massage, and even seek more medical help. What I’m also going to do is give my legs more rest. I’ve been pushing hard, I’ve seen amazing gains… but my body is telling me that it needs a break. I’m going to go easy on my legs, and give this issue some time to heal.

Cardio time

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Last year I wanted to do one Max VO2 training session a week, but I really did it only every 2-3 weeks. This year I’m committed. My activity of choice right now is 8 one-minute sprint intervals. My interval timer is actually set to 1:15 high intensity followed by 1:10 low intensity. The reason for the additional time is that it takes about 13 seconds to get the treadmill from my low intensity walk, at a 3.4 pace, to my high intensity pace starting at 8.6 and progressing to 9.4 on the final one (I skip 8.7 for those that are math inclined).

I thought I’d share the stats from my watch for the last 3 runs, and then I can see how I compare closer to the end of the year.

January 11, 2025

January 14, 2025

January 20, 2025

I’m actually not trending well, with my average and overall heart rate going up, but fluctuations are to be expected and that’s why I decided to share the last 3. There are two big challenges ahead. The one I have control over is dedicating to doing this at least once a week. The one I have less control over is seeing how quickly I can get my heart rate to recover and if I can decrease my overall peak heart rate doing the same activity… this challenge should be achieved just from the commitment to do this weekly.

Time will tell, and the data doesn’t lie.

I wasn’t quite prepared

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Today I learned a good lesson. I’m in pretty good shape, but almost all of my cardio training has been under an hour. The only exception has been training to Everest The Crunch, (climb a local power line hike 37 times in two days this coming August, to exceed the height of Mt Everest). Two weeks ago we did 4 times up and ended with one trip down the crunch.

This week we did one more trip up for a total of 5 up then one down.

It was a gorgeous day. We got started by organizing cars and help driving at the top, then headed down to the base and started walking up around 7:45am. At that time the sun wasn’t out yet and I was dressed warmly, but not appropriately. This was my first mistake. I was wearing heavy, fluffy long underwear under water resistant track pants, and a cotton shirt under a hoody and a rain shell.

By the end of the second trip up the hill I was a hot mess. My long johns and cotton shirt were soaking wet. I felt either too warm or chilled from the sweat, there was no happy medium.

My second mistake, and the bigger of the two, was that I didn’t eat enough. I brought no snacks, and only had a protein shake about 45 minutes before starting. There is a stairs section of the crunch that always gets my heart rate up pretty high, and on both the fourth and fifth trip up the hill my heart rate didn’t really go down after the stairs. Basically, I was running on empty.

My buddy, Dave, who is doing this adventure with me (it was actually his idea), appropriately lectured me. And, I’ll be wearing quick dry layers and bringing more sustenance than half a water bottle of flavoured water the next time we are doing 3 (and more) hours of exercise. Lessons learned.

The good news is that 5 trips up still felt completely doable, and I’ll be prepared to get to the next level in a few weeks when we go for 8 trips up. We are still a long way from being ready for 37 trips up in 48 hours, but I’m confident Dave and I will be ready when the time comes… especially since I’ll be a bit more prepared.

Slow to go

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My resting heart rate will often drop to around 50bpm when I’m lying down and below 55 when sitting still for a while. I just checked my pulse on my watch and sure enough it’s showing 55bpm right now. When I don’t start my day with exercise, like today, I find it hard to kickstart my day. It’s almost 6pm and I haven’t done 1,700 steps yet.

The good news is that I’m about to get on my exercise bike and that will get me going. It’s the holidays and I don’t mind having a lazy day, but this is a good reminder that morning exercise doesn’t just invigorate me, it prepares me for a far more active day.

Essentially, I’m like an old car, needing a bit of time to warm my engine up… slow to get going but reliable as can be once I’m on a roll.

Tracking training

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I’ve got to say that I love my new watch, the Garmin Venu 4. I’ve been very interested in tracking my training, but have only been tracking my number of training days until getting the watch. Now I get to see what my speed and heart rate are during my workouts, among other things.

I try to do most of my workouts in Zone 2, but my watch says I’m actually in Zone 3. My next bit of research is determining if I’m going harder than I should or if I am just in good condition for my age. More data needed before I decide.

Today was my second time with my watch on an interval run. I do a warm up walk then 8 intervals, high intensity for 1:15 and low intensity for 1:10 eight times, then a cool down walk. The high intensity is really just for a minute and about 3 seconds because it takes 12 seconds to get the treadmill from 3.4 at low intensity to a range between 8.6 to 9.4 for my progressively faster high intensity intervals.

What’s really awesome is getting the data about my workouts from my watch. Here is just some of the data:

This is just my second data point for intervals so I’m creating a baseline from which I can hopefully see progress. Until now my only data has been how tired I feel. Now I can dig a lot deeper and actually see gains. I can also make sure that I’m training at the right pace. High intensity intervals aren’t exactly fun. Collecting data on them and getting results to compare over time will make them just a little bit more enjoyable.

To be ever better you better never…

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In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear shares the idea of getting 1% better. What’s fascinating about this is that the evidence of improvement is not something you see early on.

Going to the gym 6 days a week for 2 weeks will not have your muscles bulging out of your previously loose shirt, but 2 years later you might need a new wardrobe. Reading just 10 minutes a day doesn’t make you an avid reader in 2 weeks, but 2 years later you’ve read a couple dozen books.

The idea of working to be just 1% better is fantastic, and it has some great long term benefits, with no downside. However, there is one thing to consider and that is avoiding pitfalls that set you backwards. The simple example is that you are making great progress in the gym then you push too hard and get an injury. Now it takes months of rehab before you can get back to where you were before the injury. That’s a lot of days not getting 1% better. Sometimes these injuries are from pushing too hard, sometimes it’s from a simple movement that your body wasn’t expecting. These are understandable, and not always avoidable.

On the other hand, sometimes these injuries fall in the ‘you better never’ category, fully avoidable and preventable.

You better never pick up a football and throw it to almost your maximum distance without warming up with a dozen or so short passes first.

You better never challenge someone half your age to a race and go from zero to full speed in 12 seconds.

You better never do that Instagram challenge where you contort your body and try to pick something up off the floor with your teeth.

Essentially, you better never do dumb shit that your body used to do easily when you were half your age, letting your ego get ahead of your current abilities.

On a journey to be ever better, you better never choose to do something where 10 seconds of misguided effort sets you back months of consistent progress.

What I need

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I’m going to be joining a gym. I feel that I need to.

Sure I have a pretty good home gym. Sure I have been disciplined, working out on average 6 days a week. Sure it’s convenient not to leave the house early in the morning, and not add 25 minutes in my car getting to and from the gym. These are all wonderful perks of working out at home, and they’ve served me well for almost 7 years… but I need something else.

I need the camaraderie of working out with a friend.

I need a facility that will provide me with machines that I can work my legs without putting pressure on my back.

I need a place where I’m motivated to do more than my one-muscle-group workouts I’ve been doing at home.

I need to be around other people working hard to make themselves feel better.

But above all that, what I also need is to rebalance my morning routine to include longer workouts and travel time. I’ve loved my morning routine. I’ve developed great habits where my motivation to get going sits at zero and I still get everything done… it’s robotic, finish one task, immediately head to the next. Stacked habits that just happen once I wake up in the morning.

This morning I went to the gym for the first time and I’m writing this when I’m usually getting out of the shower to go to work. I’ll be arriving at work later than usual today, not late for work, just later than the norm. I also haven’t done my morning meditation, which will need to be moved to the evening. So already I see that things will need to change. And with that change, the autopilot gets turned off.

So, I need to create new systems, a different stacking of my habits, such that it gets re-automated. I’m sure I’ll have to pump up my motivation until that happens, but I’m so ready for this change.

This is what I need right now.

Give it a rest

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One of my mantras as I try to age gracefully is to avoid injuries. Honestly, I’ve done a pretty good job of exercising very regularly and not overdoing it to the point of injury. That said, I’ve had a few weeks of suffering some aches and pains that are wearing me down a bit.

I’ve been seeing a physio about a muscle issue in my butt that sends a painful ache down my leg. The bizarre thing about it is that it does not bother me at all when I exercise or even when I sit, which is usually my issue. Instead, this pain only shows up when I stand still. It can hit me in just the few minutes it takes to brush my teeth, shower, or do the dishes. But I can get on a treadmill, on an incline, with a weighted vest for 20 minutes and I don’t feel it at all.

Another issue that has crept up is, according to my massage therapist, golfer’s elbow. This persist pain is annoying because once triggered my workout is done for that arm. It makes no sense to aggravate it, and so I look for other things to do.

The leg pain is an annoying ache, physio/IMS seems to be helping, and exercise doesn’t aggravate it. The golfer’s elbow is different, it’s an issue of overuse and I need to give it rest. So if I want to avoid injury, I basically need to rest my arm and do other things in the gym.

Extra rest time as part of injury prevention is very hard for me. I’ll do physio, massage, extra stretching, hot tubs, I’ll do things to make myself better, it’s the not doing things to make myself better that I struggle with.

I need to learn to give my body a good rest as part of my injury prevention plan. It’s not good enough to just do things to prevent injury, I also need to learn how to not do things for the good of my body. This is a much harder lesson for me to learn.

Seeing gains

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It has been 6 years in the making, but I’ve seen some pretty amazing gains in my fitness and strength, especially in the past 2 years. The 4 years before that included gains too, but they were very small. Well, initially I did see a good drop in unnecessary weight, but after the first year my gains were small and hard to recognize. Now I’m seeing the results of my hard work.

The easiest place to notice this is my calves and arms. And why do I notice these two areas more than anywhere else? Because of the way my clothes fit. I have pants that used to fit loosely that now ride up my legs every time I sit down because my calves don’t allow my pants to drop back down. And my favourite T-shirts that used to fit loosely are now tight and make me look like I’m trying to show off.

What changed in the last couple years? Why have I seen these gains, when I hadn’t before despite working out as hard?

  1. I’ve been taking creatine for a few years now and the required recovery time of my muscles after a workout has decreased. (So has the 2-day later soreness that I barely get anymore other than leg days, which have always been hard for me.)
  2. I’ve increased my protein. I’m probably still not at the recommended 1gram of protein per pound that I weigh, but I’m now over 3/4 there rather than averaging less than half of that daily.
  3. Really pushing to max (hypertrophy). I push myself more working out with a friend, or at school. Not only can I lift heavier when I’m using machines I don’t have in my home gym, I can also lift heavier when I have a spotter (and motivator).
  4. Consistency. I’ve said it over and over again… the most important day in the gym is the day you don’t feel like going and you go anyway. These days my workouts are such a big part of my day (even though most are for less than an hour), that I struggle to convince myself to take a day off. Volume matters when looking to increase muscle mass.

I think I’m at my ideal weight now, but I have a goal to gain 5-7 pounds more by the end of this year. The way I see it, I won’t be at this ideal weight 15 years from now if I just try to maintain this current weight. But if I’m 7 pounds more now, I could again be at this ideal weight in 15 years, despite muscle loss that can come with aging.

So, I’ve got more gains to make, and I think I’m on the right path to gain the weight I want. The only challenge is that I might need to buy some better fitting clothing.