The Real Life Fitness Journal

I’ve decided that I want to get in really good physical shape for next seasons Ultimate (or baseball – haven’t decided yet) play.  I’m 30, so it’s not as easy as it used to be and I may not be declining quickly, but the differences from when I was young (and invincible) are noticeable.

To start things off, I went to the physio today.  My list of ailments is not terribly large, but it does cover most of my body:

• shoulders are extremely tight – painful to sleep with my arms above my head and can’t lift anything laterally
• left leg tendon has been troublesome a lot this year
• PCL in right light is gone, but some strength can still be gained
• pulled my abdomen really bad last year and still feel it a bit

However, during this process of assessment, the following have also become [solvable] issues:

• upper back could use some posture adjustments
• hamstrings are extremely tight
• hips have limited rotation

So, my homework starts off with some stretching exercises:

• one leg up against the wall and other on the ground to stretch the hamstring & hip
• laying on the bed, bring my foot to my butt to stretch the quads
• arms against the door in a goal-post position to stretch the shoulders

There is still a bunch of other stuff, but I’m doing a full physical tomorrow and then seeing a trainer who will work on the next set of issues.

The day after the first day back is usually pretty bad … but I think I’m fairing pretty well.  I hate to admit it, but I have always been on-off at the gym, so I’m getting pretty experienced at what the first workout should be like and how best to avoid the next-day soreness.

I had succeeded with one exception.  I have always had trouble with tricep exercises because of my shoulder issues and so I went back to an old one I haven’t done since college … the behind the back one where you hold the weight with both hands.  Learned a lesson … make sure you stretch out the abdominal area first.  This exercise pulls on your rib cage … so, needless to say, my upper abdominal area is stiff like I did 200 crunches.

I’ll be back tomorrow for another light workout.

Made my first appearance back at the gym today.  It’s been about 2 months since I last ventured in.  Not surprisingly, nothing has changed.  The same married women is walking on a steep incline on the treadmill and the water fountain is still broken.

Myself, however, am not quite the same.  I have lost quite a few pounds and have a few new injuries that I am going to ignore (which is still the norm).  Since it has been awhile, it was a really light workout.  Still pushed out 3 sets of each exercise, but only did a 1 or 2 exercises for each body part.  Tried to do a full body workout, but missed the back somehow.  Only realized it walking back into the change room and seeing a routine posted on the bulletin board on how to build your chin-up power … looked interesting … i think i will incorporate that into my future workouts.

Finished off the session with a 15m half-cycle … lets see how I feel tomorrow.

Another one of those things that I’ve never really understood is acupuncture.  It’s considered traditional medicine, yet a large percentage of “westerners” have never experienced it.

I just happen to have a friend that is a registered physio and is now looking into acupucture.  To get licensed he needs some guinea pigs, of sorts, to practice on.  Well, 9am this morning, I became one of those.  He wanted to focus on one area, so we discussed my various aches and pains and settled on my right shoulder.  I’m not quite sure how I injured it, but my range of motion has been very limited for a number of weeks and I’ve been too lazy to see a physio.

We started off with some ROM tests to see where the pain and limited motion is located.  He then decided on two needles in the shoulder and one in the hand … kind of a weird feeling watching him place these needles in me, for which I could barely even feel the contact on my skin.

However, the 4th needle, which is part of a different technique (i’ll get the name later), was a bit painful and strange.  The idea is like deep tissue massage with the intent of breaking up a large knot in my rear-shoulder-back-area.  The feeling was very similar to electro therapy after an injury to stimulate your muscles … with an added touch of pain.  Not unbearable pain, but simply just pain.  An hour later, I can still feel the muscle that was worked on.

Stay tuned for Friday, as I go in for session Zwei.

Everything is working great. I never intended to lose any weight, but it happened anyway. I didn’t do any heavy cardio besides the regular sports I do during the week, which I’ve been doing for a number of years.

[current stats]
Upper Arm: 13 1/4′
Chest: 40′
Waist: 36′
Butt: 40′
Thigh: 22 1/2′
Weight: 176 lbs

From here, I will be starting their “Health & Wellness” program, which they consider as maintenance. I go from to meal replacements shakes / day, to just one and only 1 cleanse day every 2 weeks.

Products in this package include vitamins, antioxidants, cleanse mix, ionic supreme and the IsaLean Shake.

My sports will be wrapping up for this season and there will be a couple weeks of break, which I hope to start going back to the gym and see if I can put on some muscle (will help with the fat burning,too)