The Fitness thread

Phil Young said:
The reason why anyone would feel less tight is because they are engaging those muscle spindles and promoting slightly more flexibility.

If the muscle has sustained damage during a workout, this will have little effect after a couple of hours max.

If you think it is more effective, I would suggest the damage wasn't that great to give a delayed muscle soreness anyway.

In other words, nothing will help the soreness over the proceeding days (apart from applied heat after a workout which will speed up repair time).

Hope that helps give some clarity.
Click to expand...

As I said Phil, I doubt it has much to do with muscle recovery.

However, the benefits towards maintaining and increasing mobility (reduced CWA Syndrome) are undeniable. I think that's all that Reidy was getting at.
 
Skipping over the stretching issue, I got back into the gym after effectively a two week break. I have to admit that drinking some lucozade sport lite before setting off for the gym helped me with my treadmill performance.
 
Plyocide this morning for me. 4 toe taps so I got to do 8 plyo pushups as forfeits......

Supposed to be a rest day tomorrow but that seems unlikely.
 
jacob12_1993 said:
Just finished week two of insanity, sprained my ankle though so will have to see how that develops...
Click to expand...

D'oH!

Now you can't do the fitness test :( Well you can, but the power jumps ain't gonna be great.

I'm really getting the hang of these push up to one arm balance on med balls. Positioning of the balls is key......
 
JonathanRyan said:
D'oH! Now you can't do the fitness test :( Well you can, but the power jumps ain't gonna be great. I'm really getting the hang of these push up to one arm balance on med balls. Positioning of the balls is key......
Click to expand...

Yeah really disappointed but woke up today and still sore so can't really risk it will try and squeeze it in at some point next week I think. Job for today is go out and buy some decent cross trainers
 
At the risk of opening old debates.....some people like to do Insanity barefoot. Focusses the mind on landing the jumps properly. I think you'd definitely need a soft floor or jump mat if you wanted to do that.

Some good advice from the man himself here - http://shauntfitness.com/insanity-shoes/

Apparently basketball shoes can also be good. I use cheap Nike general purpose trainers and some rubber mats off of eBay.
 
JonathanRyan said:
At the risk of opening old debates.....some people like to do Insanity barefoot. Focusses the mind on landing the jumps properly. I think you'd definitely need a soft floor or jump mat if you wanted to do that.

Some good advice from the man himself here - http://shauntfitness.com/insanity-shoes/

Apparently basketball shoes can also be good. I use cheap Nike general purpose trainers and some rubber mats off of eBay.
Click to expand...

Anything done barefoot will be more stable than a shoe (unless it's a boxing shoe which laces up high and provides additional support).

Adding in a surface between your foot and the ground usually just increases the instability of a move...9/10 times we are fine but the risk factor will be less in a minimalist shoe or even as you said, barefoot.
 
Basketball shoes are designed for jumping. I bet they are worth a try.

But a bad landing is a bad landing. You might want to work on that ;)
 
Nhs couch to 5k week 4 complete... Hell yeah baby!
Still fat but feeling good
 
Week 5 :lol: First day is three sets of 5 mins, second is two of 8 mins and, I'm told, day 3 is a 20 minute jobbie.

Got a new pair of trainers so it wasn't as comfortable in terms of what I'm used to, but it was different rather than difficult.

As an aside, my mrs is currently out doing her first run from the same plan.
 
Last edited:
Ok, so disaster. While playing with the baern last night, ten or so minutes after she was supposed to get home, I got a call from the ambulance service saying she'd been found by the road unconscious and weren't sure if she'd fallen and clonked her head, or had some sort of fit.
They asked about diabetes which suggested to me she'd had another seizure as her blood sugars always plummet when she has one.
Thankfully she's ok, few scrapes but nothing major. She's more disappointed, saying she's let me down because she's 'abnormal'. Obviously I'm doing my best to convince her otherwise.

Couple of things we're not sure about; normally when she has a fit, her muscles are murder almost immediately, whereas today she's got no muscle pain at all, so we're wondering if perhaps she collapsed from exertion, rather than had a full blown fit, since she hadn't eaten since a very light lunch and hadn't drunk much for a few hours.

She's now wondering if there's an easier route into running, maybe doing couch to 5k at half pace, start on half of a session until she's a bit more comfortable, rather than pushing herself from the get go.
 
VirtualAdept said:
She's now wondering if there's an easier route into running, maybe doing couch to 5k at half pace, start on half of a session until she's a bit more comfortable, rather than pushing herself from the get go.
Click to expand...

something like this , medical advice has to be key - a doctor is far better placed to tell her what she should and shouldn't do than any of us
 
VirtualAdept said:
Ok, so disaster. While playing with the baern last night, ten or so minutes after she was supposed to get home, I got a call from the ambulance service saying she'd been found by the road unconscious and weren't sure if she'd fallen and clonked her head, or had some sort of fit.
They asked about diabetes which suggested to me she'd had another seizure as her blood sugars always plummet when she has one.
Thankfully she's ok, few scrapes but nothing major. She's more disappointed, saying she's let me down because she's 'abnormal'. Obviously I'm doing my best to convince her otherwise.

Couple of things we're not sure about; normally when she has a fit, her muscles are murder almost immediately, whereas today she's got no muscle pain at all, so we're wondering if perhaps she collapsed from exertion, rather than had a full blown fit, since she hadn't eaten since a very light lunch and hadn't drunk much for a few hours.

She's now wondering if there's an easier route into running, maybe doing couch to 5k at half pace, start on half of a session until she's a bit more comfortable, rather than pushing herself from the get go.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify: does she have diabetes? Which type if so.

If not, any other abnormalities?
 
Yep, you're right.

On the plus side, there was some proper comedy in A&E, and we thought the weirdo's only came out at weekends.
 
Phil Young said:
Just to clarify: does she have diabetes? Which type if so.

If not, any other abnormalities?
Click to expand...


No diabetes, no, but she has an underactive thyroid which, when her medications change for it, seems to lower her seizure threshold.
She's on the phone to the dr at the moment.
 
VirtualAdept said:
No diabetes, no, but she has an underactive thyroid which, when her medications change for it, seems to lower her seizure threshold. She's on the phone to the dr at the moment.
Click to expand...

I'm not medically trained so can't give you any advice except getting her to take it steady. Maybe even wait until you have finished and you could go out with her for a few times. Anyway I hope she is better soon!
 
Cheers Jacob.
Dr isn't sure if she had a fit or just collapsed given that she's not feeling the usual aftereffects of a fit.
She has said she's fine to keep doing it, but needs to make sure she's eating properly and takes someone with her
 
About three hours beforehand, but looking back, not much, and only a small ham sandwich
 
VirtualAdept said:
About three hours beforehand, but looking back, not much, and only a small ham sandwich
Click to expand...

There's two things that would cause her to faint.

1) not enough oxygen to the brain. This could be low blood pressure, a blood clot or some other problem in her circulatory system.

2) not enough glucose to the brain. Typically you're looking at not eating properly before hand and exercising beyond the speed at which we can make glucose. This would also be the cause in hypothyroidism because not enough glucose will be created, hence, not enough available.

With her history of thyroid problems I'd suspect the likely cause to be the thyroid gland/levothyroxine medication not producing enough energy, but she should have an up to date blood test followed by any change in dosage to her medication.

With her muscles aching: I'd imagine that's probably happening due to all glucose being diverted to the brain and heart - effectively turning off unimportant muscle action, although I wouldn't suspect this to last longer than an hour at most if this were the case.
 
Last edited:
VirtualAdept said:
She's now wondering if there's an easier route into running, maybe doing couch to 5k at half pace, start on half of a session until she's a bit more comfortable, rather than pushing herself from the get go.
Click to expand...

I'm guessing the couch to 5k plan is similar to the one I followed in so much it is time based and not distance based. As such the pace should be what the individual is comfortable with. This type of fartlek based plan should leave you feeling challenged by the end of a session, but not exhausted. The important bit for development is the variation of pace between slow (walking) and faster (jogging/running). This develops the stamina gradually while giving the body a chance to gently adapt to running.

When I started a good friend who is a very seasoned runner (the sort of guy who is practically always marathon ready) gave some simple but very useful advice, no matter how fast you are running - slow down a bit. Also, if it hurts, stop.

You can work on outright pace later once you can manage the time (and distance) on your feet.
 
Sound advice.
Mrs is gonna give it a few days to be at her best then give it a go with me accompanying her.

With regards to week five, it's looking like it'll be a challenge, particularly run 3.
 
Phil Young said:
She should start to feel faint and dizzy before she collapses so as long as she just sits down, she should avoid the scenario again.
Click to expand...

Sorry, thought I'd said - she got an aura which has always preceded an episode but she tried to 'focus and push on' thinking she'd be ok
 
Haven't been able to train for over a week now :(

Frickin' manflu that's gone to my chest, just walking up stairs has me panting like I've just done max cardio :lol:
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top