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Feb. 14th, 2011 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camwynSo I've started doing the six weeks to two hundred situps workout at http://www.twohundredsitups.com. Tried the exhaustion test last week, got a total of twenty, all with my arms in front of me. Have since decided to go with my hands behind my neck instead. My initial set was week 1, day 1, column 1, but at the end of the first set (three) I realized I could do better than that- esp. since I had my feet hooked under the footrest of one of the weight room's pieces of equipment. (Appropriately, it was the footrest of the weighted ab crunch machine.) I went with column 2 after that, which had sets of 9, 6, 6, and 'personal max (but at least 8)'. Personal max was 15, determined not by exhaustion but by the point at which I felt myself starting to stall and engage the wrong muscles partway through.
I can feel muscles in the iliopsoas area complaining of use at the moment. Since they are not supposed to be engaged in situps, I clearly need to concentrate more on deliberately engaging abs. Also I need to be careful about my lower back. I could feel a little bit of a click when I lowered myself down. I'm trying to do the full 'touch your elbows to your knees' situp that appears in the Army standards rather than the 'just raise yourself 35 degrees' version on the two hundred situps page, mostly because without a really big protractor or a paint marking on the wall or a laser or something I can't tell when I hit the right angle and when I'm just going 'yeah, that's good enough'.
I'm also doing more static core exercises. Specifically, planks. I did them first, before the situps, because they're isometric and they hurt. Isometric exercises are your body's way of telling you that you suck and it hates you and if it could strangle the brain for forcing the body to do stupid things it totally would. Planks are when you get down on the floor like you're gonna do a pushup, only you put your elbows directly under your shoulders and your hands out in front of you. Then you raise yourself up so your whole body is off the ground and your back is neither arched nor dipped beyond the natural curve of your spine. Then you stay there for thirty seconds. Then you fall on the floor and wonder what the hell is wrong with you that you even thought to do that in the first place. Then, forty-five seconds later, you do it again. I did five today. I'm told that people work their way up to doing them for a full minute. Based on how things started feeling around plank #4 at the 20 second mark all I can say is AHAHAHAHAHAH WHYYYYYY.
... probably gonna try for that anyway, though, just because it's ab work and I need it.
I can feel muscles in the iliopsoas area complaining of use at the moment. Since they are not supposed to be engaged in situps, I clearly need to concentrate more on deliberately engaging abs. Also I need to be careful about my lower back. I could feel a little bit of a click when I lowered myself down. I'm trying to do the full 'touch your elbows to your knees' situp that appears in the Army standards rather than the 'just raise yourself 35 degrees' version on the two hundred situps page, mostly because without a really big protractor or a paint marking on the wall or a laser or something I can't tell when I hit the right angle and when I'm just going 'yeah, that's good enough'.
I'm also doing more static core exercises. Specifically, planks. I did them first, before the situps, because they're isometric and they hurt. Isometric exercises are your body's way of telling you that you suck and it hates you and if it could strangle the brain for forcing the body to do stupid things it totally would. Planks are when you get down on the floor like you're gonna do a pushup, only you put your elbows directly under your shoulders and your hands out in front of you. Then you raise yourself up so your whole body is off the ground and your back is neither arched nor dipped beyond the natural curve of your spine. Then you stay there for thirty seconds. Then you fall on the floor and wonder what the hell is wrong with you that you even thought to do that in the first place. Then, forty-five seconds later, you do it again. I did five today. I'm told that people work their way up to doing them for a full minute. Based on how things started feeling around plank #4 at the 20 second mark all I can say is AHAHAHAHAHAH WHYYYYYY.
... probably gonna try for that anyway, though, just because it's ab work and I need it.
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Date: 2011-02-14 04:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 04:47 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 08:13 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-02-14 09:12 pm (UTC)... hn. I was going to say something about wanting to one day be able to say I climbed the Space Needle under my own power but I just looked it up, and the GE Tower that I've already climbed is two hundred feet taller than that. So, Empire State Building, maybe the John Hancock or something....