Days 20-22

Days 20-22 of 90 Day Nutrition/Fitness Challenge:

My Workout Tidbits Page is full of links on how to's and what for's ... For all the newbies, here is an insert from that page:

Workout Tidbits

Proper Warm Up  If you do stretching, even brief stretching, before high-intensity workouts it may actually inhibit the ability to achieve full intensity during your workout.  This is attributed to the fact that stretching improves muscle elasticity (decreasing tissue viscosity), which lowers the force-generating capacity of the contractile proteins of the muscle.  Moreover, the practice of stretching before performing any warm-up is not justified either and may potentially be harmful.  The warm up may be subdivided into a more general cardiovascular warm-up followed by a more exercise or event specific dynamic warm-up based on unique muscular elements that are to be performed during the workout session.  For these reasons is why you want to do Spiderman Crawls or Squats or Lunges or Jumping Jacks or a handful of exercise specific dynamic moves before workouts as opposed to static stretches…..Save the Static stretches for your cool downs and in between workout days.

Proper Cool Down  The cool down post workout should be of approximately the same duration and intensity as the warm-up (i.e., five to 10 minutes of low to moderate intensity activity).  As opposed to the warm up, the cool down is an excellent time for stretching of your worked muscles.  The cool down is directed primarily toward preventing the tendency for blood to pool in the extremities, which may occur when exercise ends.  An active cool down also helps remove metabolic waste from the muscles so that it can be metabolized by other tissues as well as reduce the potential for muscle soreness and stiffness. (American Council On Exercise 2010)

  

Count Your Tempo  Your muscle gain is in the eccentric movement and not as much in the concentric movement.  The concentric movement is away from the pull of gravity and moving the joints closer together (e.g., in a bicep curl the concentric movement is when the wrist moves towards the shoulder joint).  The eccentric movement is toward the pull of gravity and moving the joints further apart (e.g., in a bicep curl the eccentric movement is when the wrist moves from the shoulder joint back towards the floor).  Note, that delayed onset muscle soreness (the soreness you feel a day or two following exercise) is mostly associated with eccentric actions, especially during higher-intensity exercises (e.g., deadlifts).  You should never just let your eccentric movements fall, meaning you should never let gravity do the pulling without you controlling the movement.  Rather, eccentric contractions should control the rate of motion, slowing the downward movement against the pull of gravity.  There are numerous reasons for this, not the least of which is prevention of joint and muscular injury.  During your next workout, see if you can focus on your control of both the concentric and eccentric contractions by counting your tempo.  The commonly recommended movement speed of six seconds per repetition is broken out as 2-3 seconds for the concentric muscle action and 3-5 seconds for the eccentric muscle action.  How on track have you been between contractions?  What have you noticed in focusing on this? 

  

Rest Intervals  You should have very little to no rest between repetitions within a set.  However, rest between sets allows your anaerobic energy stores to replenish, but you need to be careful with how much of a rest between sets as this affects both the workout itself as well as the outcome of the workout.  For the types of workouts we do, the ideal length of rest between sets is 30-90 seconds and no more.  With 30 seconds being an ideal target.  Shorter rest intervals increase cardiovascular and metabolic responses both during and after the exercise session.  

  

Law of Facilitation  The body subscribes to the law of facilitation, meaning that the body will achieve the desired movement following the path of least resistance.  If your body has any mobility-stability compromises, you will end up with dysfunctional movement causing inevitable breakdowns at your weakest link.  This is corrected by focusing on moving correctly as opposed to just moving.  A great example is the squat and the push up.  If you just move through either of these movements regardless of incorrect movement just to say you got the move done, you are actually causing layers of damage to muscular and joint function which will impede your progress to moving correctly in those and other movements.  An excellent way to get in touch, stay in touch, as well as improve your mobility-stability issues is to STRETCH.  Yoga is an excellent way to accomplish this.  When you are stretching, regardless of what modality you use, pay attention to what is tight and what is overcompensating for your “weak links” and communicate those findings to me during our sessions.  We can work together to improve your movements so your body doesn’t have to “compromise” to move.

Day 20-22 Reporting:
*Sleep is good at 7-8 hours.....Eating isn't bad, just not pristine. Cataloged my medical history (fun stuff let me tell you) & did some research. Found some interesting information on fighting inflammation that I will experiment with and pass along stuff that works as I go. I continue to try and find balance between what I know and what my body responds to. I am doing better than I was a couple of days ago (mostly because of rest and not stressing)....I haven't worked out which isn't great, but am ready to get back on all cylinders and try, try again!!!!