This is really fun

[John V]

You are very lucky! We all have to make the best out of our situations.

Still, I'm sorry you were seriously injured. Please don't mess around with it until it's ready or you'll set your self back.

focus on upperbody strength exercises the next couple of weeks and you can gain a lot of strength there by focusing on it

I just started running again after over a year because of my knee, as a result my upper body is stronger than any time in my half century.

[vivalasvegans]

thanks for the get wells. i'm gonna heal fast.

 

John, that's really good advice. I keep telling myself this is an opportunity to learn new things about my body, train in ways i wouldn't normally, focus on things to make me stronger, break out of old patterns and try fresh things. It's true, all those things will be great. But I'm still pissed off about this and i'm a motion junkie and this stasis is driving me nuts. everything has to be so slow, stairs, walking, standing up. ugh. trying to see the opportunity in this. i am very lucky. this is just a little bump in the road.

 

sorry about the foot sister! I bet you can use a rower at the gym. Just keep you injured foot out of it. Also does your gym have an arm bike? you could do that too. Try to focus on upperbody strength exercises the next couple of weeks and you can gain a lot of strength there by focusing on it for this brief period. And it you live heavy and fast it can still be some met con for you.

 

i'll try the arm bike... i keep forgetting to. hopefully it can give me something. im in decent cardio shape (or at least i was before this happened) so it's been hard to get my heat rate up so far and then sustain it.

 

a wise man suggested i play with elevation changes to help get my heart pumping.

 

i've tried a few things over the past two days... got a decent workouts in, i'll keep trying out more stuff i can do to work around this foot and knee.

 

one challenge is to keep my lower body relatively balanced.

another is to keep my hips from getting any more effed up than they already are from walking and stairs.

 

trying to go super fast with weights is challenging because if i go too heavy i can't sustain it for very long, and if i go too light, i end up flailing around in a way that seems like i could injure myself. it's hard to find that "Sweet spot" (thanks for that phrase, my friend)

 

here's what ive done so far, i'll try and remember everything, i'll try and be better about logging stuff after i get going.

 

monday:

warm up sets

 

superset seated cable chest flies, db bi curls

tried a bunch of variations, what seemed to get my heart pumping the best was:

flies 15#x250 with 7.5#x50 with like a minute or so between sets

did that for like an hour

 

nautilus chest press

20#x a gazillion, nothing

 

got a little DOMS not much

 

tuesday:

warm up sets

 

strip set seated db mil press (6 sets i think)

25x 15/10/7.5/5

i tried to superset them with bent over delt flies but my rot cuff wasn't having it

 

high seated hammer iso lateral row

bar x200

bar x200

10/10x200

15/15x100

15/15x100

 

a light set of lat pull downs

 

assisted dips

10,10

superset with assisted close grip chin up

10 & 10

superset with assisted wide grip pull up

10 & 10

this worked to get my heart rate up but my wrists are wobbly on the dips, cant do them for long, ima see about using straps for them

 

 

hanging leg lifts

5x20

this hurt my foot, still did em, tried to keep it relaxed

 

double crunch/side crunch

100 100/100 100

 

then i went back to shoulders/tris but i had absolutely nothing left, which is great, but i didnt get the cardio i wanted

 

leg machines coming up and more upper body variations. on home days i think i can get a heart rate doing ab.

[MaryStella]

no way this is keeping you down. do you have access to a rower? that will keep up your cardio just keep you injury out the rower and do one leg in. You can scale your weights nack based on what your usual max lifts are. you don't want to go light the point is to really get your heart rate up so you don't want to go so heavy where your taking breaks but heavy enough that it is really hard. I would say about half of your max but if that is too much go to a quarter until you get used to it.

[vivalasvegans]

Mary, you're pretty right on with that. I worked with a trainer yesterday (the greatest around, for real) and he had me working with 1/2 to almost my max weight in some situations. I could never have started like that without the external motivation and confidence it gave me to have a trainer right there with me.

 

I'm hesitant to use a rower with one leg. I'm trying to minimize the imbalances this is gonna cause, in your experience, how much will the rower build my working leg if anything?

 

i did use the arm bike, for 2x30 minutes. It wasn't as boring as i thought it would be and it did kind of get my hr going.

 

we did chest/bi/leg circuits for an hour. then i screwed around for a couple hours with some more circuits and the arm bike. it was ok, better than the previous 2 days.

 

reminder: keep working old knee injury on leg press with light weight.

[MaryStella]

so happy to hear your getting it done! whoo hoo 4 u!

 

I wouldn't be worried about the imbalances in my experience if you keep working the good side the non working side will continue to grow although not as much as the working side but the point is that it is not going to athrophy as much as if you don't. Rowing is going to be metabolic conditioning not strength so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

The arm bike isn't the most fun this in the world but it will work on your shoulders. It is something you can do on this down time that will help improve things like your swimming.

[vivalasvegans]

I tried the rower with one leg, couldnt really manage it at this point. I might be able to do it in the future. But idk I could never really manage the rower with 2 feet, I'm not really that coordinated.

 

I keep thinking I can't wait till this is done with, but I know there are some great lessons and opportunities here. I just have to find them. Right now I'm ok with looking, idk how long before I get too sick of it to go on.

 

 

Thursday-

worked 13.5 hours, no gym

 

Friday-

 

Warmed up on the arm bike, then did an hour with my wicked awesome vegan trainer who kicked my ass and stomped my grumpiness into the ground. I didn't really have more after that session, but I reached and found a few more drops after we were done. I'm still not feeling that good heart racing face flushing cardio pound. my grip is gonna be killer after this is over.

 

arm bike 10 mins

shoulders and triceps 1 hour, break, 30 mins

arm bike 20 mins

 

Food:

2 scoops protein

tomato/celery juice w/ 1 tsp miso

200 cal oats

coffee/soy

WORKOUT << 2 scoops protein

300 cal tofu, salad greens, tomato

go free bar

 

 

 

 

 

 

reminder: ask about straps for wrist support

[Tasha]

Heeeeey long time no chat. How are you sweetie?

Sorry about your foot I re injured my shoulder and it's not fun to have a set back like that. It was so bad that It made it hard to change my gears in my car, and I would keep waking up in the middle of the night if I was lying on it. Some things I got out of this, It help me strengthen my side of the body. (ambidextrous now) So really now I'm even. I also was just killing my legs each time I wasn't able to do as much exercises on my upper body. So there you go. I can no longer do fly, lateral, chin ups, dips, or push ups, or anything pulling and anything open. But there's so many other workouts you can work around you know. Solutions for everything lol With a little bit of physio and a little bit of rehab.

I'm right back to were I was a few months ago. Just non of those exercises for a little bit longer. Never doing flys again though. I hated doing them anyways lol

You have to be patient it's the only way your mind and body will heal faster. And before you know it you'll be back on track and learn from you mistakes. I bet you'll be a rocket when you get better.

Go VV Go!

[MaryStella]

sounds like your working around it pretty well. You can add some more plyo upper body in like plyo pushups, throwing medicine balls etc.

[Tasha]

Thanks Mary yeah it's healing quick. Thanks for the tip too.

But for now I'm going play it safe and stick to my trainer's schedule. I DO NOT want to tweak it again. No more set backs for me.

It's really not a good idea. just want to be smart. I'm so grateful that I've gone this far. I just started doing with the bar chest press and close grips with the bar and just raise my weight on squall crushers. I won't be doing push ups. It applys too much pressure and no throwing things either lol.

How's is your healing?

[vivalasvegans]

I was actually planning on doing some medicine ball sit ups today

 

saturday-

 

sore lats and tris

 

65 mins arm bike

 

Food:

2 scoops protein

kale/tomato juice with 1 tsp miso

200 cals oatmeal

coffee/soy

WORKOUT

2 scoops protein

250 cals tofu w eggplant, cabbage, parsley, tomato, celery

some lollipops

2 go free bars

Edited November 9, 2009 by vivalasvegans

[Tasha]

haha and here i thought it was all about me lol Just kidding

[MaryStella]

hee hee Tasha! Good luck with your recovery too. Mine has been slow and painful. I am still doing the rehab thing.

 

vv - i can't believe you spent that much time on the arm bike! good for you!

[vivalasvegans]

yeah i can't believe it either, it's getting more boring. it helps there are 2 tvs right in front of it. i will be needing a heavy duty new playlist for it for sure and maybe some opium to ease the boredom

 

so tasha! did u do those med ball sit ups?

 

recovery is such a process. is there even such a thing as full complete recovery? don't most injuries fundamentally transform us?

 

Sunday-

legs shoulders abs w ed, then more, then 20 mins arm bike

 

 

 

Food:

2 scoops protein

200 cals oatmeal

coffee/soy

WORKOUT

2 scoops protein

a brazil nut

250 cals tofu w artichoke, cabbage, tomato

some lollipops

go free bar

[MaryStella]

your dedicated for sure. nice job.

[vivalasvegans]

meh. thanks.

 

Monday and Tuesday

 

I did two really similar workouts, i was bad. I didn't plan it that way, it just kind of happened, mostly cuz the gym was insanely crowded and it was all i could manage hobbling around. there was even a line for the arm bike. why the hell do people use that thing if they don't have to?

 

Workouts:

30 mins arm bike

~1 hour chest bis abs endurance circuit

30 mins arm bike

 

tuesday the abs were hanging leg lifts, so really hip flexors and psoas

monday there was some back mixed in

 

Food:

took a lot of carbs both mornings. i'll do keto today hopefully, back to carbs thurs/fri, maybe do keto again sat/sun

 

looking back over this entry i can see i'm grumpy. i'll try to get over that today. no use in being grumpy about this anymore. it is what it is.

[MaryStella]

arm bike is good for opening the shoulders - some people get really tight in there from lifting. not my favorite either though.

[lobsteriffic]

Hmm if it's good for the shoulders maybe I should give it a go. I didn't realize I had tight shoulders until I started taking swimming lessons and we were doing the back stroke...the one at our gym just sits in the corner unloved - I don't think I've ever seen anyone use it.

[vivalasvegans]

most of the people in my gym that i see using it aren't weight lifters, they're more like drifters. i think they just do it cuz it's there and it looks less intimidating than some of the other equipment, it doesn't take much to figure out how to do it. but it's all i have, aside from my awesome personal trainer, who is pretty damn awesome. idk lobster, if i was you i would stay as far away from that relic of the hellmouth as i could. it's pure torture. well maybe it wouldn't be so bad if you weren't relegated to that and that alone. do you do yoga for your shoulders at all?

 

wednesday

 

started out ok i guess, but i got so hungry

a couple of people at the gym were like, damn girl, no doubt you're gonna come back stronger

 

Workout

30 mins arm bike

workout w/ ed shoulders abs legs

20 mins arm bike (ipod died)

 

Food:

2 scoops protein, tsp flax

tomato, tsp flax, tsp miso

200 cal oatmeal

coffee/soy

WORKOUT

500 cal tofu, cabbage, red pepper

2 go free bars

 

then i went to sleep hungry

then i woke up in the middle of the night freezing cold, starving, couldn't go back to sleep so i ate a builder bar, it put me out

then i woke up and before i knew it i ate a bunch of bread

gonna take it easy for the rest of the day even tho i'm workin

this is all mind over matter

[lobsteriffic]

No, I stopped doing yoga...I find that I don't really have time to work those classes in anymore. But I should learn a few poses and just do them on my own. I have a DVD but it sucks, the lady is really annoying and it's mostly just warrior poses and forward bends.

 

Those people at the gym are so right on, you are most definitely going to come back stronger! Glad you found a great trainer.

[MaryStella]

@lobster - I would give it a go - just use it as a warmup instead of a cardio. Balance out the time on it for pushing forward and pulling back. It is also used a lot for rehab for building stability in the shoulders. It won't hurt anything to use it to loosen up a bit.

 

@viva - u can totally do this. Consider this time you training yourself mentally for how to deal with an injury. Getting hurt is pretty much unavoidable but dealing with it you can control. So go get it sister!

[vivalasvegans]

Lobster, yeah try it. Maybe you will like it.

 

Mary, wise words. It is very good training.

 

Thursday-

no gym, 14 hour workday, carbs in the morning.

 

Friday-

A lot of carbs in the morning, i'm sure there's an emotional component to my morning eating. I should note that all those carbs didn't add to my energy level. So it's no longer valid reasoning behind that kind of eating.

 

Gym

25 mins arm bike

back & tris w/ ed

30 mins arm bike

 

 

I was just looking at my legs. My left calf is atrophying. I'm looking forward to healing this break so much that I'm drowning my sorrows in calcium bears. I hope I dont get some weird kind of stones from them.

[Vegan Joe]

What's with the violent avatar?

[LocalBrada]

What's with the humorous avatar?

[vivalasvegans]

lb, you are the best.

 

Saturday-

 

I was planning on following my cardio circuit with 30 more minutes of arm bike, but i just could not deal with it. so i did some heavy lifts instead, which was hella fun, espeially cuz i was tired. i really tested myself. plus i was feeling a little angsty so it felt great.

 

Gym:

30 mins arm bike

timed cardio circuits: chest, bis, abs

heavy chest presses and flies

 

Food: munched on calcium bears

2 scoops protein, parsley

200 cal oatmeal

coffee/soy, a few macadamia nuts

WORKOUT << 2 scoops protein

500 cal tofu, eggplant, green beans

2 entire builder bars

lunabar

[LocalBrada]

I just close dated two boxes of cliff bars and a handful of builder bars. Down to like 91 cents a piece...so buying the entire lot. You know you want me to share.