Sport results (and side-effects)

[akk]

Completing your doctorate is good for your career, but sadly not so much for your shape. To correct the physical result of my degree, I started doing body weight exercises regularly since last summer (thirty minutes on four days a week). By now I can sum up the results:

on the plus side:

1. my scale shows approx. 10 kg less (yay!)
2. I can run up the stairs up to the 3rd floor without getting out of breath (never could that before, so - wow!)
3. I actually manage pull-ups instead of "hanging limp like a dead pig"s (double-wow!)
4. my back aches are gone
5. my knee aches are gone (and I haven't stumbled or lost my balance anytime since last Autumn)
6. I've got a posture that (a) tempted my physician to compliments and (b) gets people in the supermarket to stay the step back required not to bump into me, my bags, or the produce I'm examining without me having to growl (wow-yay-finally!)

on the down side:

1. I learned that sore muscles can hurt like hell even when you don't move!
2. because my upper body circumference changed, I have to replace my blouses a size larger (whine for the money)
3. because waist and thigh circumferences changed, I have to replace my trousers a size smaller (whine for the money)
4. I have yet to find the courage to try on the (expensive) graduation suit and see if a good tailor can salvage it!

Overall, a thumbs up. I've finally found exercises that (a) work, (b) require a manageable amount of time, and (c) don't bore me to death. I'm going to continue them. Next target: consecutive pull-ups instead of single ones.

Comments

[akk]

Basically, it's a tough form of full body gymnastics. A 30 minutes exercise consists of 4 sets of different exercises (7.5 minutes each). The first day trains arms and shoulders, the second day body core and legs, the third arms and shoulders again, the fourth arms and legs again. Then you have three days rest for the soreness to ease.
At first each set consists of ladder-repetitions of an exercise that trains as many muscles as possible: ladder means you do the exercise once, rest as long as the exercise took, do the exercise twice, rest twice the time of one exercise, do the exercise thrice,... until the 7.5 minutes are used up (when I did push-ups the first time, I did them standing against a wall (easiest version) and those were the longest 7.5 minutes of my life!) and the next set begins. I use a kitchen timer to measure the 7.5 minutes. There are more intense options to increase the effectiveness, but I haven't reached those. There is lung volume for me to consider.

I do the exercises at home on my carpet, sometimes using a windowsill or a door frame for support depending on the exercise. That means I really need only the 30 minutes to do the work out (and probably 15 minutes afterwards for panting) and then I'm done. No to and fro, no nothing. And also nobody to see and comment about the first few sessions of awkward struggling (which are always so embarrassing)!
Regarding what type of exercises and how to adjust the difficulty and how to vary the training, I really recommend you get M. Lauren's book "You Are Your Own Gym" (I got it via Amazon). While I knew some of the exercises beforehand (like push-ups, squats, etc. - the boring ones) I learned many options of how to effectively start when you are so out of shape that you don't manage the movement at all in the beginning and the precise descriptions of what not to do and what to avoid so that you don't hurt yourself were really worth the money. Plus, there are a lot of exercises I never heard of before, which allow for a lot of variation in your workout and keeping it flexible to your daily condition and avoiding boredom altogether. And since you work with what's in your home, you don't need any expensive equipment etc.

It's tough and the sore muscles in the beginning are evil, but you see results already after the first or second day if you don't chicken out, and that made it easy for me, because you see the benefit even while it still hurts (actually, the sore muscles are what keeps you in posture, because that's the only posture that hurts LESS ;) ). By the second week, I actually noticed that I miss the work out, when something prevented me one day (20 hours business trip; even I wouldn't exercise in an ICE). So there's a compulsion to continue, once you get going. Quite the opposite of what I experienced with aerobics, gym exercises, yoga, etc. It's not as if I didn't try those. Best alternative so far was Tai'chi, but after a stressful office day, I had issues getting the necessary calmness for it. The exercises I do now are a bit like fighting. You can run up and throw yourself against something, calmness be damned, I'm calm when I'm tired - works a lot better for me. :)

I hope this helps. If you are interested, I really recommend the book. It also includes a exercise program, if you don't want to create your own training regime. And the descriptions are definitely better than what I could write here. :)

[solo]

Thank for this - just checked the book on Amazon and it does look good, so on the basis of your recommendation, I bought it. :) Will let you know how I get on!

[akk]

:) Just expect to be sore in places you never thought you had in the beginning. Good luck!

[solo]

Okay, the book arrived today. And I did half an hour and OMG am I not fit! But you're right, it's not boring.

Question: what do you use for the dips? I have nothing really in the house between knee and hip height - I ended up using two chairs (roughly knee height) but they were kind of wobbly.

I love the door thing! (Eh... let me ins)

[akk]

:) I started with push-ups standing against a wall and I didn't make a ladder to five and back, so I know how you feel. After 3 months I started doing the push-ups from a windowsill (approx. my hip height), but I'm still far from going down to knee or even the floor. One of the targets for 2013!

I do the seated dips with our kitchen / dining room table. It's pretty heavy and reaches up to my mid-thighs. It's the same place I use for the let-me-ups (though for almost 5 months those were more like "lying under the table for the last set", because I barely got a hand's width upwards. It changed rather abruptly just before XMas, so I assume there's some "critical mass" to be reached to actually get off the ground there.) I don't recall your furniture enough to give suggestions for you, sorry.

Let me in's are fun, my favs are the RDLs (from the 2nd and 4th day sets).