dmartz

Wow, I wish I had a place I could go rowing @ dawn! For now I'll stick w/ Pilates/TRX/hand weights indoors, which has been working really well for me.

JaimeMWS

How much rest do muscles need? I am rowing and also trying to do weight training - both make my muscles sore. Should I leave a day in between? (I'm 56, if age makes a difference in how fast muscles repair themselves. Eating a lot of protein.)

rpmcduff

Your muscles need to rest at least one day and preferably two. (Your protein will help speed their recovery.) One way to do this without giving up whole days to workout is to do what is referred to as split routines. I do this by:
Day 1-- Biceps (arm curls) , Shoulders (front Lateral Raises), Back (T-bar & machine), Abs ( Ab machine), Cardio (elliptical)

Day 2-- Triceps (seated tri-cep press), Chest (Bench press, reclined flys, laying pull overs), Shoulders (military press), Abs, Cardio (elliptical)


Day 3-- Legs (Squats, Deadlifts, leg extension, leg curls, leg press), Abs, Cardio (elliptical)

This way each muscle group gets at least 2 days rest before I stress it again. Abs are a large muscle group and I am able to work them daily without over stressing them. You may also see that I do different Shoulder exercises on both day 1 and day 2. The shoulder is actually made up of 3 different muscles and these hit different ones each day. I also do cardio all three days but Leg day is always slower because I have already worked my legs.

Let me know if you have any more questions!

rpmcduff

Hope everyone else is doing great and staying motivated!

Last night;
Biceps; Curls 3 sets of 6 at 35#, Burn downs 40,35,30,25,20,15
Shoulders; Front lateral Raises 3/6 at 25#
Back: T-bar 3/7 at 110#, Seated cable row 3/6 at 140#, Burn downs 140,130,110,90,70,50,40
ABS; 2/10, 1/20 at 130#
Cardio; Elliptical, 5 min warmup before weights, 40 min HIIT post weights at level 5 (and it felt easy).

Hadena

A great day for me, the resistance bands came and I had a chance to try them out. I'm still getting used to judging which tension to use, but the muscles were really working! Hopefully results will start coming through in a couple of weeks. All in all I've done 30 mins running, 25 minutes of resistance work and 40 minutes of yoga. Feeling awesome right now.

JaimeMWS

Good job Hadena!

Thanks, Ron, for the info about muscle rest and the idea of split routines. I think I will make an appointment with one of the trainers at my gym to figure out which muscles are used in rowing and get a routine to complement it.

dear_abby

Jamie – I love dawn, this time of year it is as I am leaving the house, and it is a great moment, can only imagine it on the water!

Ron, sounds like an impressive go at those weights!

Pam, you live up to your screen name don’t you? I’ve never done much real biking, but it sounds like a great experience!

MzMiNi – Welcome – that’s a nice long run!

Dmartz – sounds like a great workout!

Hadena – sounds like steady work – you will see results!

Jaime, I love the trainers at my Y - once they get to know you at all they get invested in your progress, and stop by when I am working out to root me on, time my plank, or correct my form – it is awesome – do it.

Yesterday was a nice run before bootcamp, which had some good heavy weight work

Today I did the video game bike (Exresso Bike) for 25 minutes before yoga – these are fun, you ride through an area, with hills and other riders, and you can chase your personal best, or someone else’s time – not boring.
Yoga was very challenging, but what a great teacher!

Going to The Cape (Cape Cod) this weekend, I hope to get some early morning trail runs done.

Have fun everyone

RunbikeSki

Have a great time on the Cape, Abby. What part are you going to?

Nice work everyone.

Jaime, I agree with Ron, although I am not that much of a gym rat. What I do is switch-up my activities. Run one day and lift, or yoga the next.

Since you and I are the same age I can tell you from experience that the older we get the more our muscles need to recouperate between hard workouts. When I am training for a race I only run 3 days a week. Each day has a different goal. 1 day is intervals, short (200, 400, or 800 meter), fast runs with walk breaks inbetween. Day 2 is a tempo run: usually half the distance I am training for, or half the distance of my long runs at a hard, but do-able pace. Tempo runs are something that take a bit of trial and error to figure out what a "comfortably hard" pace is for you. The 3rd day is a long run at a fairly easy pace. I say "easy" meaning that it is easy at the beginning, but as the run drags on, the last couple of miles are challenging just because of the distance.

I love Bill Pierce's book, Run Less, Run Faster and recommend it to any runner... especially us older (and wiser) runners.

CrossFit for me this morning. Today's insight was that at last my arm strength has caught up with my core and leg strength. I have always had a pretty strong core - can out sit-up most mortals at the gym. But being a girl, my arms and shoulder were relatively weaker. Today the coach and I figured out that the limiting factor (and there is always a limiting factor)in deadlifts and snatchs was no longer arms but was core strength and endurance. hmmmm

rpmcduff

You're welcome Jamie,
Thank you Abby!

Last night- Leg Night
Squats: 3/6 110#
Deadlifts: 3/6 105# (a Personal Best(PB) but I am still working up slowly)
Seated Leg Press: 3/6 162.5#
Leg Extensions: 3/6 100#
Leg Curls: 3/6 80#
Abs: 3/20 120#
Cardio (Elliptical) : 5 min, level 5 warmup before weights, 35 min, level 4 HIIT after weights. But the High and low were not very different.

rpmcduff

Forgot ,
Shoulder Shrugs: 3/6 80# Dumbell in each hand.