Suggestions appreciated

Discussion in 'Health and Fitness' started by Frodocious, Aug 25, 2011.

  1. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    It's taken me several years of trolling round ebay to accumulate that stuff - the multigym cost me £40 and I only bought it for the dip station!

    Deadlifts are fine, I can't rear squat at the moment, but front and zercher squats are ok. I can't overhead press and am avoiding benching at the moment, reduced range floor presses are ok and I'm sticking to neutral grip and dumbbells for the time being. Pulling moves are much less of a problem than pushing.

    My aerobic capacity is just crap in general, I get out of breath running for a bus. However, this is actually for medical reasons. I had major abdominal surgery for a diaphragmatic hernia a couple of weeks after I was born. This has left me with really tight stitching/scar tissue across my stomach and as a result my lungs can't expand to their full capacity because my diaphragm doesn't work the way it should. I've had lung function tests that show that my lungs are strong, but their expansion capacity is limited. It also means that building up general aerobic fitness takes me a lot longer than a normal person. I just get out of breath really quickly.
     
  2. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    Well id suggest just one day of strength work deadlifts, floor presses front squats keep it simple and between sets do lots of band rows, face pulls, pull downs etc just maintain the strength work whilst you focus more on conditioning

    Rest of the week id suggest working on you aerobic fitness: start gentle keeping in mind your medical history (I would have thought you could still improve your hearts ability to pump blood and oxygen around the body and your muscles ability to use said oxygen), use a heart rate monitor to monitor progress. start slow and easy for the first 4 weeks than add more intense aerobic work the second 4 weeks

    As I said if you want a 8 week programme drop me an e-mail and ill write one up for you and send it across
     
  3. mattt

    mattt Valued Member

    Are you using water to help the shoulder? Not sure if you could with the surgery mentioned above, but when I have had big injuries I find that running through range of motion exercises help, first in the gym but later in the water for a little all round resistance.

    It wouldn't help the cardio side, but if you are trying to push just cardio whilst injured its going to be tough - from when I had a recent shoulder injury sprinting and shadow boxing would be out of the question as I couldn't even move the arm..
     
  4. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter


    Cheers!

    The problem I have with cardio is I know I can improve my capacity if I stick at it, I just tend to run out of motivation because progress is so slow. I see friends start running from scratch and build up to 5km at a decent pace really quickly, yet it took me a couple of years (admittedly not continuously training) to be able to do 1 mile in under 10 mins. Part of me realises that given my medical history I'm doing pretty well all things considered - the long term problems associated with the hernia could have been a lot worse - but another part of me gets fed up with the lack of progress I make. It's one of the reasons I've stuck with lifting - I get to see weekly progress.

    I'm currently doing 3 days a week strength work and 3 days cardio (a mix of cycling, walk/runs and higher intensity work).

    I've got to a point with the shoulder rehab where sprinting is fine, as is shadow boxing if I'm careful (and skipping). The surgery was 38 years ago so doesn't affect my training, aside from the reduced aerobic capacity issue.
     
  5. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    Get yourself a HR monitor it will enable you to see the progress you are making without having to compare yourself to others and it also makes your training a did more outcome focused and less of a scatter gun approach, for me training without one is like lifting weights without looking at the poundage, I mean my mates put on the bar, I mean it might feel heavy but how do I know if im making improvements?

    here are a few tests that you can do at the start of your training and again every few weeks or months to show you you are improving and keep you motivated.

    Firstly take your resting heart rate, do this before you begin your training and again a few weeks in, this will reduce as you train and show you you are on the right path, secondly do a 5 minute round of bag work, sparring or round on a piece of cardio equipment (you can even run), rest 1 minute and record your average HR during the round and also record how quickly your HR drops during the one minute break, reset your monitor then repeat this test three times in a row, so do 3 rounds recording your average HR during each round and your recovery HR between each round. As your conditioning improves you will see you not only recovery between rounds quicker (your HR drops quicker) but your working heart rate will either increase or your output during the round will increase, all measure showing you are making improvements. If you take the average HR of the three rounds this will give you a good working estimate of your anaerobic threshold, which can be very useful for conditioning

    Finally make the cardiac work fun, you don’t have to just run anything that gets your heart rate in the required zone for the required amount of time will work, I shadow box, do band work, do jumps, stair runs, ab work on a ball, etc as long as my HR stays where I need it im happy
     
  6. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Thanks! I have a heart rate monitor, it's just that the battery on the watch has run out and it's going to cost loads to get it replaced (if I get it done properly). I might just take the risk and see if I can replace it myself and not worry about it being waterproof.
     
  7. icefield

    icefield Valued Member

    Using a HR monitor makes a lot of sense, it can help you determine where your HR should be in relation to what you are trying to accomplish, like I said if you want anything specific, ie HR ranges to work in order to develop aerobic capacity or increase aerobic power, how to structure a training block for aerobic fitness number of sessions a week etc just PM me and ill send you some stuff
     
  8. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.


    didnt see planks for abs in there. Shame on you. also, no plyometrics for conditioning? Standing high jumps, long jumps and stair jumps are AWESOMELY brutal, lol.

    I'm also a big fan of squats to high knees. With no weight, squat deep as you can safely, stand and immediately raise your right knee as high as you can. Retrurn to ground, stand firmly and as close to immediately as possible squat again. Stand and repeat with left knee. Try a set of 50 (right and left being one set), rest and repeat. Great stuff!! It helps with balance, leg/hip strength, coordination, core strength, conditioning.... love it!
     
  9. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    I've been avoiding planks because they put pressure on my shoulder. I will start including them at some point, but I'm just easing back into the shoulder use at the moment. Same with some of the jumping stuff, I haven't been able to swing my shoulder without pain for a while, but things are getting better.

    I'll try the squats to high knees, they sound like a good idea! :)
     
  10. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.

    aahhhh... I suspected that was the reason. You are forgiven and still my favorite :D

    As far as jumping goes, its interesting how much our arms help! Ever try jumping high or far with your arms at your sides? First it feels ridiculous, lol, second its not very effective... but mostly just feels ridiculous :D
     
  11. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Phew! I thought for a moment there our beautiful relationship might have been on the rocks! ;) :D


    It is interesting isn't it.

    Quick question about planks - are the straight arm versions as good as the bent arm versions? I can do the straight arm version with less shoulder discomfort than the bent arm version. Once I get to push up supports on my rings these include a plank version as well, so it's 2 birds with 1 stone.
     
  12. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.

    Yeah, they can be. problem you run into is that your arms/shoulders may tire out before your core fails. One way to minimize that is to force the core to stabilize more actively so assuming pushup position on a medicine ball or something to that effect will GREATLY increase the effort the core puts forth trying to keep you from rocking side to side. Rings will do the same thing.
     
  13. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Cheers Mikey. I'm going to give my shoulder another few weeks to adjust to the increased pulling I'm doing and then start adding in the stabilisation work with the rings. I'm trying to be really patient here as I'm dying to get back to more stuff including BJJ and Judo, but really don't want to risk setting the injury off again by over doing it. With the weights I have more control over what I'm doing that I have with martial arts, so I'm starting with lifting and then will think about getting back to strangling folk!
     
  14. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.

    LOL! :D

    I think you're being REALLY smart and its refreshing to see. So many rush a return to any activity and end up injuring themselves worse and missing MORE time than they would have had they just shown a bit of patience. I know in my younger days I was guilty of the same thing a time or two before I figured it out.

    And there is never anything wrong with spending a little extra time hitting the weights. Strong chicks are HOT and I'll verbally taunt anyone who says differently (while not disrespecting the ToS of course) :D
     
  15. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    pssst... mikey...

    "otherwise"

    :evil:
     
  16. Frodocious

    Frodocious She who MUST be obeyed! Moderator Supporter

    Cheers Mikey! I'm finding it really difficult not to rush into things again and do too much (that was part of what set my shoulder off initially). I just keep telling myself that it's either waiting another month or so to get back to MAs or risking another 10 months of not being able to do very much at all.

    It's also pretty difficult to get a balance between doing too much too soon and getting over the fear of aggravating my shoulder again and so doing too little! :bang:

    I'm really keen to get back to my Olympic lifting but right now snatches are completely out and even power cleans are dodgy!
     
  17. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.

    lol, 'otherwise' is acceptable... I'll not tolerate "DIFFERENTLY" however! :D

    Oh I HEAR ya! Remember you cant GET 100% from your body if it doesnt have 100% to give. So taking this time now will make your eventual return all the less frustrating. For now, just do what you can do safely. Anything will be better than nothing. There will be plenty of strangling to be done in due time :D
     
  18. Fish Of Doom

    Fish Of Doom Will : Mind : Motion Supporter

    what if i say otherwise... but DIFFERENTLY!
     
  19. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.

    Well in THAT case... I say fisticuffs at dawn!
     
  20. Bigmikey

    Bigmikey Internet Pacifist.

    except it'll be night time here when its dawn there and then it'll be nearly lunch there when its dawn here....

    Perhaps I'll just email you a stern private message and call it a day?
     

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