Working on an exercise plan

[unixronin]

I’ve always had trouble maintaining a regular exercise plan ... and frankly, it’s mostly because I find exercise so damned boring. So to try to work around this, I’m going to try to remember to do some work with the hand weights while I wait for the espresso machine to warm up and build steam pressure, which typically adds up to about fifteen minutes that I’m usually not doing anything anyway.

Today I started with thirty each front and back forearm curls, wrist spins, inward/outward double blocks, outside raises to overhead, and half-circle sweeps at shoulder level, all left and right together, then finished up with fifty alternating full-speed karate punches, all with three-pound hand weights. The last had me coughing a little — I’m still clearing the last of the crud out of my lungs from a rather nasty cold — but not enough that I couldn’t finish the set.

Hopefully I’ll remember to do this every day until I manage to form a habit. I need to dig up my PT notes and see whether I missed anything, and figure out a good time to fit in the leg exercises too. I just wish there was some way to get my left foot and ankle fixed so that I could run again. I probably won’t ever get back to the physical shape I was in before Splat Day, but I should be able to get significantly better than I am now if I can just manage not to let it lapse out of boredom.

Comments

[kayre]

Could you maybe try biking? That was actually recommended to me to help rehabilitate a messed up ankle, years ago.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I have been getting out my mountain bike a little now that my knees are more or less up to it. But that's not going to rehabilitate my ankle. We're at the point where the consensus medical opinion on my foot and ankle, given the current state of medical technology, can be summed up in three words: "Sorry, it's fucked." There's nothing significant they can do, barring breakthroughs in regeneration, except amputate and fit me for a prosthetic.

On the other hand, I'm already signed up for one of the regeneration research programs for when they're ready to start clinical trials in humans.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

There were very few time in my life that I was able to sustain a workout routine without a partner[s]. I am trying to get back into it with _quietude_, it is just so hard meshing schedules.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm sure having an exercise partner helps a lot.

[blackcoat.livejournal.com]

When doing the punches, esp with weights, be careful to not over-extend the elbow, as you can do some serious damage there.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

When I was in PT in rehab after the knee surgery, they passed me a set of hand weights and started listing off exercises, one at a time. I'd do that set, then they'd give me another. I listened to the description of the last one, thought about it for a second. and realized, "Hey, that's just a karate punch." So I started doing karate punches at full speed. The poor PT just about freaked ... he was worried I'd tear a rotator cuff. I relented and slowed down just because it was probably easier to appease the PT than to convince him that I started doing martial arts when I was 16, that I'd trained under everyone from USAF unarmed combat instructors to the President of the International Okinawan Gojo-Ryu Karate-Do Federation, and I wasn't going to hurt myself.

But yeah. I'm not going to overdo it. :)

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

There is a Yahoo Group called "Tibetan Five Rites" you might want to look into. I'm one seriously out-of-shape fella, but I found out about the Five Rites about 18 months ago and, even though I've had to go slow, I've managed to move beyond anything that modern medicine offered me any hope to do. The body has some remarkable regenerative powers, naturally, if you know how to activate them. Using the Five Rites takes about 10-15 minutes per day, and kicks the regenerative processes into hyperdrive.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

I assume I'd be right in believing that that's one of those things where an important prerequisite is that you believe it'll work, right...?

I think I actually have a Yahoo account somewhere. Damned if I can remember the login credentials.

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

No, you'd be wrong. It doesn't matter what you believe about doing the Five Rites. Most people would call the Five Rites exercises, just very specific ones that somewhat resemble yoga. The reason the group calls them the Five Rites is that the Rites come from Tibet, and in Tibet they are called the Five Rites. There is a free e-book available in the group files area that explains the exercises, how many reps to do, and you only do one set per day.

However, I need to make one correction. The name of the group is "Five Tibetan Rites", not Tibetan Five Rites.

[ithildae.livejournal.com]

It shouldn't hurt to try. Even if you don't believe, an experiment can yield interesting results.

I am someone that loves science. I believe in modern medicine. I also believe that modern science does not understand everything there is available to access about the human body. I am fascinated by learning the various ways people go about trying to access aspects of the body. I think there are commonalities. Finding them is how we get new research into science and medicine.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

Speaking of somewhat dodgy treatments, have you ever heard of Prolotherapy? It refers to the practice of injecting saline into key areas to provoke swelling (and thus increased blood flow) to an area, promoting the regeneration of tissue.

I've been looking at it pretty hard, and there are apparently some supporting medical studies, but the only practitioners I can find with casual looking are the homeopathy-and-crystal crowd of woo-peddlers.

[rbos.livejournal.com]

Also, you find quite a bit of supporting anecdotal testimony.

It seems to fit into a category of "doesn't hurt to try".

I've got a back injury that might respond to it. :/

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

Having looked at it, I don't know that it would be applicable. About the one thing we know for sure is that my foot is full of scar tissue. Even if this does stimulate healing, it's really not going to achieve a thing without getting all the scar tissue out, and then there's atrophied muscles and nerve damage and ....

"Sorry. It's fucked."

Five Tibetans

[ewen]

Google turns up this illustrated guide to The 5 Tibetans. They're fairly popular in various yoga communities. There's even a Wikipedia page. There are various books around too.

I've been doing them for about 18 months, pretty much every day, and would definitely recommend them. I've no idea about "kicking the regenerative processes into hyperdrive", but it's (a) about the right amount of exercise to do daily, (b) fairly quick (10-15 minutes normally), (c) exercises most core muscle groups in both directions, (d) is a fairly good progression of exercises. unixronin may want to take the fourth exercise fairly gently at first, given that it's flexing the knees a fair bit.

I've no idea if the Tibetan Monks history is true or a recent invention. But it's not the history which is making them work. It's exercising the right sets of muscles.

Ewen

[bbullock.livejournal.com]

I keep telling fatcook that when I can walk again, I want a pair of these (http://superdairyboy.com/poweriser.html) for the twenty-minutes-a-day of walking the doctor says I need to do.

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

WHOA ......


You know ...... those just might work.

$400-$550 though ...

I wonder if, when we have insurance again, I could talk someone into prescribing them as rehabilitation equipment?

[bbullock.livejournal.com]

Now, that's a great idea I didn't think of...
fatcook keeps shaking her head over my "now that I've got a promotion/raise, I'm going to buy X," tears, but it's a big chunk of therapy, right now, to imagine all the things I can conceivabley do when the money starts coming in.
Right now, paying off debts, buying her some new clothes, and maybe getting a toy or two, top the list.
Though I really, really want a pair of those things...
On Time Warp, a guy used them to jump over a car... it was awesome.

[mrakg.livejournal.com]

A friend at work has some that he tricked out for his Steampunk costuming...but they work in "normal" mode too. [Well, what passes for "normal" when wearing such gear. :) ] They look like a LOT of fun.

Trouble is that, even when I get down to my "ideal" weight I'll be over the weight limit for those things. [Dr. computed "ideal" predicated on a %bodyfat number rather than BMI.]

Hmmm. Wonder if a different manufacturer has some with a higher tolerance....

[lebo-superman.livejournal.com]

Those look very much like the same things that the "creature creators" in the movie "Underworld" used to make the actors doing the Lycans move the way they did. Yep, those would be VERY fun to have!