workin' it

[xela]

I just did 30 minutes solid on my Concept2 at 25 strokes per minute, averaging 40.8 watts, pulse 125. That probably means nothing to you; it's a big deal to me. A half-hour in my aerobic range is what I was doing on a typical day in 1996, arguably the year I was in the best shape of my adult life — the year a woman actually picked me up with the line "Where did you get those muscles?" Stupidly, it was also the last time I was was exercising regularly. Today was not just the first time since my stroke that I've done 30 uninterrupted minutes of aerobic exercise, but the first time in over ten years. I'm really pleased about that. (It doesn't hurt that I'm writing this fresh out of the shower, still on the endorphin high.)

Back in March, I posted rather giddily about walking a mile mostly pain-free. The next day the pain was back, and I can't tell you how discouraged I was. But it wasn't as bad as it had been, and I worked through it, and gradually over the next few weeks, while the pain would come back after I walked any significant distance, it would come back a little less bad each time. I also got a new home-therapy device that seems to help immensely (so much so that I wonder why I wasn't given it in the first place). At the end of April, I moved out of the "temporary" storage place I'd moved all my stuff into when Jen and Robby and I stopped sharing a house in 2004. I moved most of that into a different (long term) storage place, but among the stuff I brought home was some exercise equipment. By early May, the only thing keeping me from taking up a regular exercise regimen was inertia. I finally overcame the inertia on May 15^th.

The walking had clearly helped my aerobic conditioning. I remember the first time I started using my NordicTrack, when I was in outwardly much better shape than I am now, five minutes in my aerobic range was all I could take the first session, and it took me a month to work up to half an hour. This time, I was able to do fifteen minutes my first time out, and reaching thirty after only ten days has me really quite chuffed.

Comments

[motodraconis.livejournal.com]

Coolness! Good to hear it's all starting to come together. New and uncharacteristic exercise is a bit of a shock at first. I remember when I first day I walked to work (in Liverpool) I had to stop halfway there, I was so dizzy and sore I thought I'd faint on the pavement, but it was just me being so unused to walking that far in one go, a few months later and it was easy.
Once it starts to come together, it comes together really quickly!

[eccentrific.livejournal.com]

Congratulations! That is awesome.

There is really nothing better one can do for one's health than regular exercise (well, eating right is probably up pretty close).

I've been trying to get an hour of exercise at least 5 days a week lately. I fell off the wagon this week, but this weekend maybe I'll get back on it.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I have a long slog in front of me — I had let myself get into absolutely horrible shape before I had my stroke, and haven't been able to do much to improve it since, being limited to what dieting could do for me. But, as Lao Tzu said, A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

I find it all to easy to get into the habit of not exercising, so I'm trying to make a point of not taking more than one day off a week.

One thing I'd like to do is figure out a way to calculate a single number to represent the amount of work a given exercise session involved, so I can graph my progress. Being the kind of geek I am, the prospect of the curve climbing would provide positive feedback for doing a little more each day. I haven't yet figured out what all I can get out of the Concept2's computer, but I bet one of those numbers would be suitable for that purpose, as far as work on the C2 goes. Coming up with a way to quantify the value of a walk or time on the NordicTrack would be harder. I suppose I could do minutes * pulse as a sort of rough-and-ready number, but that seems really lacking.

[eccentrific.livejournal.com]

Keep in mind that you should take at least one day a week of rest to give your body a chance to recover. So don't take any less than 1 day a week off either.

How about distance? It's the metric I like to use. It's a number that increases both with time and with increased effort. Alternatively energy. I think the C2 will give you either calories or joules. It's sort of like distance, but it also takes into account the resistance setting you're on. I like to look at both, so that when I increase my resistance, my distance number goes down but I can see my energy number went up and I feel good.

Heart rate isn't a good improvement metric, because part of the goal is to get your heart rate to be lower for the same amount of work. Although I guess initially the number of minutes at target heart rate is a good metric, but once you reach your target time you'll need a new one.

[darlene-ford.livejournal.com]

Good job!