The Limit

My older brother told me I should blog every day, and I have to listen to my brother. I went to spinning class for the first time in 2 weeks. I could feel the effects of the lay-off, or at least I told myself I could. I didn't feel like I could keep the same cadence (pedal revolutions per minute) that I had the last time.

I did get my heart rate up into the 160's regularly, though, and averaged 144 beats per minute. I have this idea that I would average 149, because that was regularly my average when I was training for a rollerblading marathon. I think it will be hard to get to that average, though, because my training sessions on rollerblades typically lasted 2 hours or more. When I start spinning, even if I don't record my warm-up time, I'm usually starting around 120 bpm, and It takes a certain amount of time to get my heart rate into the 140's, 150's, and 160's. So when I'm only in spinning class for an hour, there isn't enough time at the higher rates to make up for the initial time when my heart rate is lower. Besides, the articles I've been reading about training talk about the benefits of periods of intense training, followed by periods of less intense training, which is what Peggy does in spinning class, bringing my heart rate down. I was probably training at too intense a level when I was rollerblading, which may have limited my progress.

I think I discovered my upper limit for aerobic training today. I went into the 170's for a brief time, and that felt qualitatively different. If that's the case, my maximum heart rate is probably 200 (assuming people go into anaerobic training at 85% of their maximum), rather than the 160 the standard formula gives for my age.

Head Games

I was excited about going to spinning at the Y today. The class was with Peggy, who really leads tough rides. Peggy led the class on Monday, where I was able to keep my heart rate in the 160s for some of the second half of the class. I wanted to see if I could could keep my heart rate that high for a longer time today, and see what it felt like to hit the 170s.

It didn't happen for a couple of reasons. First, Peggy decided to do an endurance class, focussing on keeping our heart rates at a lower, but constant rate throughout the workout. That meant that we weren't doing the heart-racing combinations of standing for 8-sitting for 8, standing for 4-sitting for 4, and standing for 2-sitting for 2 (with many multiples of each). We did a few 8 counts, but spent much more time standing for a minute or more, sitting for the same length of time.

But probably more important, my legs were dead! While I was able to walk up the stairs after my workout with Brandon yesterday, that workout was tough. I felt discomfort in my quads when we were warming up, but knew I'd get past that. But once I got past the discomfort, there was nothing there. And that feeling of have nothing there spread to my brain--I felt mentally dull, like both my brain and my legs were slogging through mud. That's when I knew I had to start the mind games.

I know from many years of working out that here's a big mental component to being exhausted. I think everyone has had the experience of being completely exhausted, and then something really interesting happens, and suddenly you're awake and have lots of energy.

I went to my old standards to get me going. My favorite is remembering a racket ball tournament I played in nearly 20 years ago, before I blew out my knee. I was in the semi-finals, and had played one or two matches that same day. I was dead in the final game--completely exhausted, dead legs and mind, absolutely nothing left. I started falling behind, and my opponent and the people watching all thought the match was over. Then I started putting everything I had into each point. Between points, I looked like a rag doll, but I wasn't conceeding a point. As I started moving ahead, I think the mental burden moved to my opponent--how can I be losing to this person who is close to dead? I went on to win! Unfortunately, the final match was shortly thereafter, and I was slaughtered.

My second favorite for mental toughness was remembering a playoff game between the Celtics and the Nets in 2002. The Celtics were down by 26 points in the second half and 19 points at the start of the fourth quarter. They never gave up and kept plugging away, and ended up winning the game. I'd never seen such an inspiring example of what it means to give everything and not give up.

So I thought about both of those situations while spinning today. My legs never did stop being dead, but my mind did. I got excited about just doing what I could do. My heart rate was generally in the 140s, not the 160s, but I enjoyed myself and had a good workout.

Taking the Lunge

I did my first workout of my new training program today. The first thing I learned is that when I'm working with a trainer 3 days a week, we really focus on specific muscle groups each session, as opposed to the whole body workout I'm used to with once a week training.

After warming up, here are the two things I did:

160 lunges. That is a lot of lunges. I am anticipating problems sitting down and standing up tomorrow. My quads, hamstrings, and glutes were burning by the time we were done. Here's a picture of me doing a lunge while Brandon makes sure I have no form breaks.

I can't do lunges without the pole yet because of the stiffness and soreness in my left ankle and foot, but I can reassure you, it didn't make it easier.

I also did 71 presses, alternating between 10, 12, and 15 pound dumb bells. That's a weird number, isn't it. My triceps already are sore, and I didn't even know I used my triceps to do presses. Here's a lovely picture of me exhibiting classic signs of muscle failure.

I love feeling sore after a hard workout, so tomorrow will be a good day.

I also did an assessment of my overall fitness. It's the 7th assessment I've done since I started working out at Fitness Together in 2007, and my last one was in April, right before I broke my arm. It's really interesting to see what sitting around for 6 months has done to my fitness level. I read once that you lose the effects of training in 1 month, so I thought after 6, I'd be completely out of shape. My overall fitness level is 63 (I have no idea what the top of the scale is). That's down from 71 in April, but is still above average, and higher that my fitness level in 2007 and the beginning of 2009, despite being at my highest weight!

The most surprising result is that my resting heart rate is 62, which is well below the average rate, and the lowest I've tested. I'm attributing that to the excellent job I did resting in my chair for 6 months Here I am, with the boot on my leg and splint on my arm, working away on my resting heart rate. Look at that--I'm wearing my same workout clothes!