TIME TO GET RRRIIIIIIIPPED!!!!! - the exercise thread

I sprained my left pectoral muscle doing some really heavy shield work yesterday.

Oof ouch my tiddy.

 

Super cushy thick yoga mat might help me be more encouraged to do yoga. Mm, bouncy.

 

I've been doing a lot of carrying heavy boxes indoors and hauling around compost outside! My biceps hurt but they haven't looked this good in years :D

 

Got my step count up to roughly 4k a day, which hauling around the weight of my body is enough to make a noticeable dent in the calorie decrease I'm supposed to be going for. Not bad!

 

I just did a half hour boxing class with actual bag work for the first time! I wonder if I'll have arms tomorrow :P

I've also adjusted my diet to something I'm more happy with and I'm getting the results I want! :D

 

Oh, boxing is great! But yeah, you are likely to be left feeling like your arms are dropping off the first couple times.

 

Yeah, especially because this was my first time with the bag. I've been doing airboxing for the past few weeks, but when you have to do things with power without resistance it's always a bit of a mixed bag.

 

I’ve been noticing a real increase in my endurance lately!

For context, my main form of exercise is going for long walks. Almost every day, I walk from my house to a nice local park—a distance of around a mile, with the first quarter or so being down some steep hills. I used to have to take frequent breaks while doing this, but I barely need to anymore!

Plus I’ve managed the walk back a few times now—the hill is steep enough that it’s exhausting to walk up at the end of a decently long walk, but I’m at the point where it’s doable if needed, and I’m pretty dang proud of that. :D

Anyway my legs are getting MEATY and I love it, my goal of having Garnet Stevenuniverse’s lower body is coming along great.

 

Made it up to 6k steps today! Goal's supposed to be 10k, I can probably get there well within the few months the wellbeing course runs for. Mercifully, I realised I was reading it wrong when I thought we were supposed to walk for four hours a day.

 

What I need is a place where I can brag about my achievements and be encouraged to work on losing weight while also being told it's okay and I'm still a worthy human if I don't. I can't rely on anywhere to be like that... except here. You guys have all been great.

 

I've been working through recovering from achilles tendonitis, finally back up to being able to do ~1 1/2 mile walks without irritating my tendon, tho I'm having a bit of new arch pain that i'm hoping to resolve w/ my PT quick |:

The one nice thing about it is my PT also focused a lot on building core strength and i've reeaaaaallly enjoyed being able to see and feel muscle development, and now that i have established a habit of doing 20-30 minutes of PT twice a day I'll be able to transition it to general strength training over time, hopefully -w-

 

I’ve discovered the joys of microblogging my night walks, which has really gotten me out of the house. It’s been so good with my joints. My knees are practically singing kumbaya.

I’ve walked and jogged enough in the past week that my quarantine treadmill attempts have been completely put to shame. Walking on a steep slope seems like it was really good for cardiovascular health, and for walking up slopes obviously, but less for sheer muscle. And I wouldn’t be walking for hours on the treadmill like I might outside, so while my cardiovascular endurance is up for pretty much anything as long as I don’t sing too intensely while doing it, my legs are a bit sore. They feel heavy and potentially clumsy if I try to run or do any fancy footwork after I’ve been out for a while, so I’m taking it carefully on that. If I did something normally harmless in that state, like step off the edge of the pavement by accident and roll an ankle, I wouldn’t completely trust that I could catch myself like normal before I got hurt. No cramps though, so I’m not exhausting my electrolytes or becoming dehydrated.

I’m drinking plenty of water and eating probably better than I ever have and significantly more than I was recently. It’s been a slow task of getting comfortable with cooking and getting to where it feels less arduous through exposure. I seem to just have more energy available for things like having the zooms at night. It’s really nice.

Tweeting about things I see or do while walking at night has a surprising amount of audience, which is pretty motivating tbh. Maybe it’s because it’s a little different? I guess no one is likely to have ever ninja’d any particular tweet, because who would have been looking at any given weird arrangement of lawn furniture (the things people do with chairs) under similar circumstances with a similar frame of mind? It’s literally outside content. In any case, it’s really cool that people wanna read it. It makes it matter more. I love where I live, and if I can get exercise and also explain to people why I love the fucking Midwest suburbs of all places, why they’re interesting, then party! I’m not likely to run out of birds and skunks and construction and abandoned shoes to describe any time soon.

 

Ordered a pair of wrist weights so I can add resistance training to my cardio without using up more time.

 

@Verily , ngl i'd love to follow that account

I made a beautiful discovery that a lot of my trouble building distance back up was partially that the path i'd been walking, though pretty, is also like, crap and very uneven side to side, i went on some different, flatter paths and i'm beating 2 miles without pain during or the morning after!!! i'm so excited that i'm finally gaining distance, i want to start trailside camping/backpacking if possible, and if the trail i'm planning to hit sometime this weekend goes well i'll finally be well enough to book my test camping trip at the local state park :D they allow one night stays at some wild campsite about 2- 2 1/2 miles from the parking lot, it's peeerfect and i'm so pumped to finally test all my gear for real

 

I got a hammock and it has been a fucking REVELATION

I haven't slept this comfortably in literal years - I haven't been woken up by my hip OR shoulder since I started sleeping on it and it's the most comfortable I've been since I can remember

Question, though - does using my foot planted on a wall or the floor to swing in it count as knee exercise, or am I fooling myself?

 

It certainly counts as a range of motion exercise, and it is probably somewhat of a strengthening exercise too. Using your feet to pull yourself around in a wheeled chair counts as knee exercise and that's a similar motion.

 

Much later but, I did my test camp!! I did it like a month ago now cx; just kept forgetting to talk about it.

I ended up, according to my phone, walking like 5 miles the day I hiked in, then just 2.5 hiking out the next morning- I only got like, six hours of sleep out there because getting used to sleeping bag and overheating cause it's summer in south carolina, but I reaaally enjoyed it and felt super accomplished -w-

i went on a bigger hike like two weeks ago with my dad that irritated my left achilles again, but it's pretty much settled again by now, which is at least reassuring that I can handle if I irritate it again without having to go back to physical therapy, though annoying that it's still something i have to worry about, it hadn't really hurt at all for over a month so i was hopeful...

either way, i'm starting to work my physical therapy exercises up to a higher intensity and working to incorporate more hiking up and down hills into my walks to help strengthen it, and i'm hoping in september to do some proper backpacking!! It depends a bit on work stuff but it's looking... preeetty likely i'll have a few weeks between jobs to enjoy

 

Hey, that's awesome! Hope you do get the chance.

 

Been doing 20 minutes exercise a day for a while, knocked it back up to 30. It's easier to do it first thing when I wake up so I can't put it off.

 

I'm not able to do much right now. I'm a fragile flower and my heart doesn't like the punishment I give it by being very active, let alone being :gasp: upright.

But lately I've been doing different lifts with my little dumbbells to get my arms stronger. And I've been doing at minimum 20 sit to stands every day.

I'm still at the "nearly faint and die in a pile of sweat" stage with everything, but I'm hoping that come Springtime I'll have gained at least a little bit of stamina for when I go to class again. It'll take walking, catching three connecting buses, and walking across a campus and then being strong enough to sit upright in class for the whole time and then repeating in reverse to get home afterwards. And if not... well. Maybe I'll have figured something out that'll help take the edge off by then. I'm hopeful and I'mma keep pushing bc hey, exercise can't hurt when I'm not pushing myself to a bad point. I'm being very careful of my limits and being safe.