exERcise

[twaddle]

Sorry for the weird title: Exercise in ER.

Some people seem to get into the habit effortlessly. This thread is not for those people.

You already know that it's good for you, so pep talks are useless.

You're thinking "can't," "I'll get hurt," "I don't enjoy it?" Right?

Or maybe you're like the ex-president who made up totally absurd excuses.

Anyway, I didn't enjoy it, I would often get injured when I tried, and I never really got into the habit. I did a little self-analysis and tried to fix my bugs.

I stopped doing Tabata because the speed of movements led to injury. I stopped doing yoga because I wasn't noticing any benefits. I hated weight lifting because I would get fatigued too quickly. I tried running, but I developed shin splints. Biking was great, but constrained by the weather.

I fixed the shin splints issue by pushing myself a bit less in the beginning, and I've been running (more or less) for 7 years now. I found that signing up for the occasional 5K early on motivated me to "train" and stick with it. Those races were also a lot of fun. My pace dropped from about an 11-minute mile to a sub-8-minute mile.

So for running: training for a specific goal (race) and the positive feedback I was getting from metrics (time, distance, effort) helped a ton.

I also wanted to increase muscle mass, and running isn't ideal for that, so I started with body-weight exercises with the hope that I'd minimize injury that way.

Push ups, pull ups, squats, and dips. Anybody can do them (except for pull ups apparently!) and you can start out slow/easy and make them progressively harder, which is the key to increasing muscle mass.

 

[Nemo2]

I found that signing up for the occasional 5K early on motivated me to "train" and stick with it. Those races were also a lot of fun.

I used to hate 5Ks....never get a chance to catch your breath, (although I did manage to break 20 minutes......once (and only once)).

 

[twaddle]

20 minutes is a great time! I'd always read the race results, and I'd reset my goal each time. At first, my goal was to beat all the 80-year-old grannies. Eventually, I'd pretty consistently place in the top-10 in my age class, which was a good feeling.

 

[Nemo2]

20 minutes is a great time! I'd always read the race results, and I'd reset my goal each time. At first, my goal was to beat all the 80-year-old grannies. Eventually, I'd pretty consistently place in the top-10 in my age class, which was a good feeling.

Never once managed to break 40 min for a 10K, and my one and only marathon, (in Jeddah 37 years ago last month), which I ran with tensor bandages before my knees gave out, was a disappointment.

Two friends, whom I'd beaten at every other distance, had crossed the line together on one at 3 hours 20........so I figured 3 hours 15 would be a breeze. Naah....3 hours 46.

(I blamed it all on a recent alcohol fueled R&R. )

 

[YakGrl]

After too much sitting in front of a computer and in meetings I decided I needed to do aerobic exercise. I found a program with a podcast called Couch2 5K. I used that to begin slowly learning to run and enjoy charity 5K races to keep motivated. If I take a break from running I use the Couch2 5K program to get back in training. I don't try too hard for speed, mostly just for endurance and aerobics. I've kept it up for most of the last 10 years. I'm looking forward to 5K's coming back after the pandemic.

 

[twaddle]

I just got back from a run (after butt-sitting via Zoom).

45F and sunny.

@YakGrl, I miss the organized events too. I was training for a trail run just before it was canceled a year ago.

And, yeah, C25K is a great program. No app needed:
Couch to 5k - C25K Running Program

 

[savory]

I am one of the people who do not need motivation. But I wanted to say that the advice you provided was terrific, especially the body weight exercise. During the 'stay at home' period, I began to do the 7 minute workout of body weight exercise. What a great approach to take so little time and add some decent strength.

Harder for me to judge how those who do not dedicate time to fitness will feel about it but given the limited time/effort for the outcome, I thought it could apply to anyone.

 

[braumeister]

After too much sitting in front of a computer and in meetings I decided I needed to do aerobic exercise. I found a program with a podcast called Couch2 5K.

Congratulations!

DW also got turned on by the Couch to 5K program (and possibly some gentle hinting from me). She was truly a couch potato and very overweight when she started nine years ago. She eventually got so much into it that she began walking half marathons and now has done something like 80 of them. Took off a lot of weight and really toned up.

I'm more of a (slow) runner and my goal has always been merely to finish in the top half of my age group.

 

[Ronstar]

I started running in 1979, ran several marathons, 10k’s. Also did a little weight training. After I retired in 2014, I had enough time to dedicate toward training for another marathon, and for more bike riding and weight training.

That’s the good thing about ER - a retired person can set aside a block of time almost every day for exercise. I don’t run anymore, but I very seldom go a day without hiking, biking, treadmill or weights.

 

[twaddle]

@braumeister, congrats to your DW!

I originally started running to lose weight. I'm not sure it helped much.

If I were to do it over again, I might focus on weight loss first (strictly via diet), and then start exercise at a lower weight.

There are several reasons for this, but for me the biggest is that exercise is simply easier and your performance will be better with less weight. Especially pull ups.

 

[Aerides]

After too much sitting in front of a computer and in meetings I decided I needed to do aerobic exercise. I found a program with a podcast called Couch2 5K. I used that to begin slowly learning to run and enjoy charity 5K races to keep motivated. If I take a break from running I use the Couch2 5K program to get back in training. I don't try too hard for speed, mostly just for endurance and aerobics. I've kept it up for most of the last 10 years. I'm looking forward to 5K's coming back after the pandemic.

C25K is a great program. I've used it more than once when coming back after an injury or something. I tried longer distances and ended up with bigger injuries, and found the training too time consuming.

Now I lift heavy weights, and jog or walk on recovery days, while looking forward to the next day when I can lift again.

 

[1242Vintage]

I’m not much of a runner, my exercise of choice is on two wheels. Have what my wife calls a “stable” of bicycles (road, mountain, cyclocross, gravel) in the garage. Ride at least one of them every day.

What motivates me more than anything else to get up off the sofa and train is a race looming on the schedule.

Have a scary bike race on the schedule for August, a mountainous four stage race. I can climb hills all day long no problem, it’s the high speed descents down a twisty mountain road that scare the hell out of me.

 

[Born2BRetd]

I don't like to feel like I'm exercising and won't do anything that feels like boot camp. I actually walked out of a class once where the teacher was making the whole class do more of an exercise because someone couldn't.

So, I go for a walk to see what is going on in the neighborhood and it turns out that our neighborhood has a lot of hills so I get a good workout. I also like Hatha Yoga because there are pauses between each pose and it covers strength, flexibility and balance.

 

[twaddle]

Good point. If you want to sustain it, you need to (eventually) enjoy it. Getting outside and being able to do the body-weight stuff anywhere/anytime are huge factors for me.

Yoga has some great strength moves. I'm trying to get there slowly.

Goal:

 

[tmm99]

I cannot seem to motivate myself to exercise just for the health benefits. Well, I can, but only for a very short time. I only seem to be able to continue doing the kind of physical activities that I really enjoy doing, like volleyball, tennis, ping pong, pickle ball, etc. Most of them, I cannot do right now.

 

[Born2BRetd]

Goal:

My yoga practice is very slow but after two years of consistent practice I can do things now that I didn't expect to ever be able to do. Maybe I can do that "flying and ready for take off" pose when I'm 90!

 

[Animorph]

I want to stay aerobically fit so I've always used a stationary bike for 40 minutes a day.

I want to be able to keep up with DW when we travel, so two days a week I hike with her 2.5 miles to 5 miles at a time. I still don't keep up with her, but I can participate in short hikes when we travel.

I may have to add other exercises as more stuff atrophies, but so far this has been enough so that I'm not prevented from doing what I want.

 

[jollystomper]

I admit that part of the reason I exercise and try to stay fit is pure vanity.

The compliments I have received over the years about my look and fitness (particularly as I never thought myself handsome, and also being shy around women) are a motivating ego boost.

When DW has joked that I need to be "banned" from the college she used to teach at, or from gym, due to comments she has received from other women, that more than makes up for the pain and time of exercise .

 

[twaddle]

Yeah, the data is clear that strength/muscle-mass is a huge factor in QoL as you age. But the real reason is to look good naked.

 

[twaddle]

I went for a run today (sunny and 49F -- woohoo!). There was a bicyclist stopped at the side of the road when I ran by. He yelled out "go, daddy-o!"

I'm not sure how to interpret that. Did he think I was a beatnik because of my goatee? Was it like a catcall? Or was he cheering me on like "go, gramps, go!"

 

[1242Vintage]

Hit the gym this morning for core and strength training and then outside on my bike for an hour in the afternoon grinding up my favorite quiet gravel roads. That’s the typical daily workout.

My race next weekend is a mass start mountain bike event. Will switch up afternoon rides for the next week to go be out on technical dirt single track to tune up rusty skills.

 

[blueskyk]

After a recent hip replacement, I started swimming to get back range of motion. My other hip was also arthritic and painful and I limped to the pool at first (new hip was pain free a month after surgery). After a week of swimming, I was walking normally and after a month I was walking pain free not to mention at a far better pace.

I adore swimming now and look forward to it. When I get home, I take my dogs out for 3-4 mile hikes. That pretty much takes up the morning so I’ve adjusted my schedule to make any appts or errands after lunch.

 

[DrRoy]

I just try to walk about 2 mi/day. If I mow the lawn or do some other equivalent chore then I skip it. On trips I do some hiking and can get to 5-10 mi/day, with elevation also.

 

[Rambler]

I started running 13 years ago. I hated running, but my doc said “do something! Anything!” My daughter had gotten into running and my wife had been an on again off again runner, so I thought I’d give it a shot. I literally had shin splints for a year because 1) I was wearing “running shoes” off the clearance rack of the discount shoe store. I was living in Japan at the time, and American size shoes are hard to find. Anyway, when we visited Hawaii on vacation, I got myself fitted for proper running shoes and the shin splints were gone within a week. The next year, my company started a program thru which for every 5k that was run by employees during a group run, a buck was donated to a children’s charity somewhere in the world. I was head of a division with a lot of employees, and ended up organizing these runs several times a month in my territory. Most of the employees walked the 5ks, but I did my best to train and keep up with the runners, and after a while, I was able to outrun most of my 20-something employees.

Fast forward to 2016...I had been running for 8 years, retired for almost 4 years, but was still on the low end of the obese BMI. I decided to get serious about diet and exercise, and got down to “still overweight but happy here” territory. I shaved a few more minutes off my 5k time and got down to 23:15 (7:30 pace) and did trial half marathons at around 1:50-1:55 (around 8:30-8:45 pace). But before I was able to make it to the event I was planning to do, my right ankle collapsed and developed into PTTD, and then my left ankle collapsed as well. So over the last 4 years or so, my pace has gotten worse and worse, and my weight has floated back up. I finally got some proper orthotics from the ankle doc earlier this year, and my runs are improving again, but he told me to limit my number of weekly runs, distance per run, and speed, if I wanted to be able to continue to run at all. I’m back down to 11 minute miles, but it had gotten so bad that I couldn’t run more than a quarter mile without a walk break, pushing my pace into the 13:30 territory...more of a slog than a jog or a run.

In the meantime, I’ve tried the stationary cycle, the rowing machine, weight training, and a couple other things, but I can’t keep myself going with them because I get too bored or it hurts too much (when your feet don’t work well, nothing seems to work well).

 

[twaddle]

Ouch, Rambler. Sorry to heat about those tendons.

I strained mine doing hill sprints. Now I take it pretty easy. 5 miles max. No more hill sprints. And I've shifted more towards strength workouts. Extra bonus: they don't take as long as a run.