It's not a good thing or a bad thing, just your individual variation.

Interesting that you brought this up Vito. I have a similar question/situation. A few months ago, I had a severe allergy attack after a very intense (and longer than usual) HIIT running session. Unlike you, however, I was at the gym on a treadmill. I have a slight allergy to eggs normally and had eaten something like 1/2 or 1/3 of an egg in a recipe earlier in the day. I kicked some butt during my run and felt great. After I finished up and cooled down for a minute or two, I started to feel dizzy and faint. My face puffed up like Quasimodo (!) and I had rashes all over my body, especially on my chest and neck. It was really scary! I took a bunch of benadryl and took a cold bath. 24 hours later, I was pretty much better, but if I had health insurance at the time, I definitely would have gone to the hospital.

Like Vito, I read that this may have been caused by increased levels of histamines after really vigorous exercise. I still don't know if the fraction of an egg was the culprit or if it was something else. Thankfully, this has been a one-time thing so far, but I would really like to avoid anything like it in the future. That episode has caused me to avoid going "all out" (especially when running) and avoid eggs and exercise within a day or so of one another. This is unfortunate, because I really enjoy HIIT and I also enjoy eggs (though I don't eat too many to begin with).

Have you ever seen this with anyone else? Any insight into what is actually at fault? Should I just cough up the dough to see an allergist (I only have major medical insurance now)? Just stop eating eggs completely and run a ton? Or not run as hard and enjoy my precious eggs once in a while?

Thanks for any ideas!

Sailor Doom, from this article.

I joined a new gym, 15 bucks a month as I also pay a personal trainer and have to watch my funds.

The highest free weight is only 30 pounds. For my bent over rows for example, I normally use 55lbs with the trainer.

My question is this. If I tense my muscles and never let the tension off and keep the motion real slow will that be just as beneficial as lifting the 55lb weight.

Or, should I concentrate on high reps for the gym and do the heavier weight with the trainer.

Don't worry about tensing the muscles, just lift (real) slow until failure. It won't be as good as lifting the 55 but better than nothing.
High reps work endurance, not strength.

What is the gym equipped with?? I could probably suggest alternate exercises to do with what appears to be limited equipment .

Strength Training Question
 

I started exercising at the beginning of Jan. Right now I am just doing fast walking for cardio 5 days a week. I have also (the last couple of weeks) started doing strength training on the machines. I am a woman and just trying to maintain muscle as I lose weight. For now I plan to just do the weight machines twice a week, but eventually want to work up to 3 times a week.

The few times I have done the machines I have just gone through the circuit and done all of the machines on the same day. (3 sets of 10 reps). I have read in the forums that some people recommend doing upper body one day and lower body the next time. If I have 3-4 days in between doing strength training do I still need to split up working the upper and lower body?

I have also seen some recommendations to not even use the machines. For me the machines seem to be the best option. On my arms I can barely do 20 pounds on some of the machines and can't imagine myself trying to do free weights. Why would it be bad to use the weight machines?

Thanks!
Terri

Welcome aboard!
Doing upper/lower together is fine at this stage. Doing a split routine is for when the workout gets long enough that the athlete is unable to give a full effort through the entire workout.

Even working the whole body each workout can be done up to three days a week. Muscles need 48 hours for recovery. (Calves and abs can be worked each day, lower back- twice a week.)

In general, free weights are better than machines since machines can lock you into a range of motion that may not suit your joints/body proportions.
The need to balance and control the weight benefits many small muscles and gives a better overall workout.

Example: A lat pulldown machine that uses a cable is better than a fixed arc pulldown.

Free weight bench press vs. chest
press machine

There can be advantages to using machines.
An injury to a shoulder muscle can make bench pressing impossible but the chest muscles can be isolated by using a chest press machine.

In general though, free weights and cables are preferable to fixed arc machines.

However, at this stage, establishing the habit of lifting is the most important thing.

ExRx has an extensive directory of exercises illustrated with small videos.

It's a ladies gym and is average in equipment.

They have a the cable machines such as seated row, push down, lat machine.
They have the deadlift unit and the obligatory circuit machines which include pec, preacher curl, chest press, shoulder press, seated row.

They did bring me a 45lb plate that has a handle incorporated so I am getting up there.

Thanks for doing this for me.

Instead of bent rows with a bar, you could do one arm cable rows. Since they gave you a 45 lb plate, try this: Do a bent row lift with both arms than lower the plate with one arm, alternate arms. You can lower (under control) 20-30% more than you can lift.(Bodybuilders call these "negative reps")

Depending on how the machines are set up, you should be able to do one arm reps and get more work from the limited weight.

Since you really are limited in the free weight option, using the machines is a viable option as long as they have enough weight to be challenging.

You can also check out this exercise directory for bodyweight options for each muscle groups. If your gym has a pullup bar, that's all the equipment you need for bodyweight work.

I've got some interesting news to report, Coach.

I've been riding the mountain bike pretty hard since July. Somewhere around last October it felt like my legs were burned out and I just couldn't recover from my workouts (even after a rest of 5 days). So I started running again (didn't want to run with all the extra weight at first). Up until last week, I laid off the biking for a good two months.

The weather has been real warm lately, in the 50's and 60's, so I figured why not? I took the bike out last week and my legs felt amazingly fresh. In fact, I felt like an animal out there. I had power and endurance like I haven't had since I started getting back into exercise hard core.

Yet, I couldn't break a personal best I set in the fall. Going from point A to point B on the bike, on a dirt trail, in 32 minutes was my PB (in July the number was 45 minutes). I biked 3 times in the last week, all of them coming in at 32-33 minutes for this clocked part of my 1.5 hour ride. I was getting seriously concerned thinking here I feel great, but WHEN if ever would I break the 30 minute mark?

Well, yesterday I pushed it, and didn't even overdo it. And I came in at 29 minutes flat, shattering my old PB by 3 minutes!

Moral of the story for me? When your legs burn out doing one exercise, lay off that exercise for a month or two but continue working cardio doing something different. :)