2020 Health & Fitness Thread

[Accumulator]

HR monitor - I started with the strap (Polar) and it never bothered me, but I can see how it could. I have a co-worker with a fancy Garmin watch that tracks HR, not sure how accurate it is. My main goal is to get back to a resting rate of 60 bpm.

I`m admittedly weirdly sensitive to things that bug me, if only because of how they`re *distractions*. After beating myself up about it and trying to change I`ve finally just accepted that "that`s how I am" and that`s working great. I had a HR watch too...wasn`t bad but never got consistently reliable readings at higher HRs..then it quit giving readings altogether.

I`m *NOT* saying everybody oughta just ditch them the way I did...they`re beneficial! If only to get some objective baselines...I thought I was *really* working hard at about 155bpm...kept pushing and pushing and it kept going higher...at the "oh man, I`m gonna die!" point I *still* had more left. It was a real eye-opener.

I read the same thing with the guy that is credited with the HR max. My main goal is to get back to a resting rate of 60 bpm.

Hey, maybe the truth about that "220- age" thing is getting more attention these days.

Yeah, having a good low resting HR is a good goal and getting to 60bpm oughta be doable for most people.

I need to add a few minutes (5 or so) of treadmill running a few days a week. I got back into shape 7 years ago when I was asked if I was interested starting a softball team, and realized I was too out of shape to play! Once I got in shape on the stairs, I found I was pulling hamstrings easily. I guess all my years of sitting at a desk, combined with a restricted leg movement of stair climbing was making them worse. Adding a few days of a full stride workout I think will help...

I`m gonna play Devil`s Advocate..so please don`t misinterpret this as some kind of criticism or argument, OK?

Why (specifically) do you think 5 minutes of running would be beneficial for your Hamstrings?

Why would stair climbing involve a "restricted leg movement"? Maybe the unit you`re using is very different from mine (StairMaster PT4000), but I get a good range of motion and credit decades of regular use with my complete lack of Hamstring/knee issues. (I was told, back in the `90s, to expect knee replacements by now, especially on the right, and the x rays were scary..but nope, building up my Hams and not driving a stick coincided with all my issues going away.)

What else are you doing for your Hamstrings? Besides the Squats/etc. that work them indirectly, I do one set of Leg Curls and one set of Good Mornings (with what some would call light little baby weights), and mine are *SORE* for days. It takes me about three weeks to recover enough to do that again. Those two movements cover the two things the Hams do and IMO you need to cover both.

And just to throw it out there for comparison - 6` 1", currently 230, and was 58 at the last BDay. I got down to 205 lbs. 7 years ago, but will be happy to be close to 210 this time.

I wish I had a better idea about what`s "the appropriate weight" for a given height. I go by Bodyfat % pretty much exclusively..."am I as lean and muscular as I want to be?" Which is an admittedly vague standard compared to when I was having my BF% tested all the time. Close enough for *ME* because I set the bar awfully high, but I dunno whether it`d be a smart approach for others.

I have never tried the AirDyne, but I see they are adding to them at the gym. They are repurposing 2 of the 4 racquetball courts to create a `Orange Theory` type area, and there are 6 AirDynes waiting for that.

Absolute torture if done in the Sprint Interval Training ("SIT") manner and still [darn] unpleasant for steady-state work. So much so that I never do the latter on it even though I acknowledge how beneficial it would be.

I can say that being in shape makes it much easier to spend a day detailing a car. I don`t do it often, but it is not a problem spending 8-12 hours cleaning and polishing.

ABSOLUTELY! I have never found Detailing to be physically demanding. Period. If I can do something for a while, it`s not that hard; what`s "hard" in my book leaves me trashed in a matter of minutes and anything else is just "activity" that I can do for hours.

[mc2hill]

First off, thanks for all the information you are supplying!

I`m gonna play Devil`s Advocate..so please don`t misinterpret this as some kind of criticism or argument, OK?

Why (specifically) do you think 5 minutes of running would be beneficial for your Hamstrings?

Why would stair climbing involve a "restricted leg movement"? Maybe the unit you`re using is very different from mine (StairMaster PT4000), but I get a good range of motion and credit decades of regular use with my complete lack of Hamstring/knee issues. (I was told, back in the `90s, to expect knee replacements by now, especially on the right, and the x rays were scary..but nope, building up my Hams and not driving a stick coincided with all my issues going away.)

The action of the Matrix is just like the Stairmaster, but the steps may be slightly taller or shorter (my gym used to have them both). What I mean by "restricted leg movement" is more like `less range of motion`. With the stairs (real or a machine) you just lift your leg at about 90 degrees - not like the full motion you get when running - extending your leg forward and back. I was getting hamstring pulls when sprinting around the bases, so my theory is the lack `full range of motion` was contributing to to the muscle pulls.