DZ.com FITNESS CHALLENGE (not 'Qwest', Krisanne!)

[ACMESkydiver 0]

Hey guys I'll be out of town from tonight through Sunday evening, so I thought I'd start the update thread. Feel free to bump/post another/whatever for tomorrow, or just get your #'s in today.

This week has been just fine; I'm not relying upon the scale for um, *hormonal* reasons we'll just say. I did get a stellar workout in the day before yesterday...then on doc's advice, no workout yesterday because of headache -I didn't want to trigger a migraine right before a business trip .

No headache today (YEA!
Oh and GOOD NEWS! I finally broke down and asked a personal trainer at the gym WTH was going on with my weird jaw/neck muscle spasms when I was doing pec flies. Interesting; apparently I was holding my head too far forward, straining my neck and the muscle under your jaw (bottom side of your mouth) to the point that the muscles were spasming and pulling my mouth open/jaw back. >phew) I couldn't believe something that strange could be common, but the guy was spot on when I described what was happening. He watched me do the exercise and he confirmed it, and showed me how to hold my head back and it lessened the problem.

Kind of embarrassing (I know, I pay for the damn gym membership, I should ask when I have questions but I'm kind of stubborn and independent.)

So weight -up about 2 pounds; again, not unexpected for right now. Cardio level is going up, and my weight training is going great. I'm doing a new type of lower body workout today to mix things up; going 'old school'. This was my army workout that got me in better shape than the guys....

I'm eating lower calories and again, trying to avoid the crappy sugar carbs (white flours, sugar, potatoes, rice, preservatives, etc) and it's honestly become second nature now.

I don't even like the taste of sugar in my coffees or pop any more.

How are you all doing? Getting ready for those PT tests? Entrance exams? Lighter wingloads? Halloween costumes? 'Girl power' in physical strength?

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[skybytch 273]

Now that I have a fitness goal can I play too?

Goal - by June 15, 2008, be able to walk 15-20 miles a day carrying 20-30 pounds on my back. For about 30 days straight (there will probably be four or five "zero" days in there). Over uneven terrain.

Why? Cuz I'm hiking the Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail next summer.

Since my feet are my major form of transportation at the moment, I get about a mile in on M/W and about 3 miles on T/Th, with an occasional 2-3 miles on one weekend day. I'll be buying a pedometer soon so I'll have a better idea of how far I'm really walking. Current plan is to up that to 2-3 miles, 6 days a week, then slowly work the mileages up.

Since I'm not tracking my weight, should I just report miles for the week here?

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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Now that I have a fitness goal can I play too?

Heck yeah!

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Goal - by June 15, 2008, be able to walk 15-20 miles a day carrying 20-30 pounds on my back. For about 30 days straight (there will probably be four or five "zero" days in there). Over uneven terrain.

Awesome goal! You'll be better than I was at my BEST when I was 20. I did that, but for only 1 day and it SMOKED me. You have plenty of time, you're working up to it, I can't wait to hear how it's going.

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Why? Cuz I'm hiking the Oregon section of the Pacific Crest Trail next summer.

Since my feet are my major form of transportation at the moment, I get about a mile in on M/W and about 3 miles on T/Th, with an occasional 2-3 miles on one weekend day. I'll be buying a pedometer soon so I'll have a better idea of how far I'm really walking. Current plan is to up that to 2-3 miles, 6 days a week, then slowly work the mileages up.

Good plan of action. Daily habits will get us all to where we are going. You're looking at about say 300 miles in a month? Covered on FOOT?! You go girl.

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Since I'm not tracking my weight, should I just report miles for the week here?

Absolutely. (The best part, I think, is looking back at the old threads and seeing how far you've come...)

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[tigra 0]

Well, this week, Monday is the only day I worked out. I've had a killer headache all week, and I think my workout on Monday might have made it worse. (Some days when I am kind of dragging, a workout actually makes me feel 100 times better, so I gave it a shot .......) Anyway, my weight is about the same this week in spite of "hormonal eating" last week and not working out this week. I won't make it back to the gym until maybe Saturday, so I guess next week I'll have to work extra hard!

One interesting thing- my office is ALWAYS "business casual", and Fridays are supposed to be casual. Tomorrow we have VIPs visiting and they want everyone to dress "business professional". I realized I am about 4 sizes smaller than I was the last time I had to dress "professionally". I gave away all my old suits (which I could not have worn anyway) and I have no idea what I am going to wear. I've picked up some new clothes, but no suits or anything like that. I guess in the long run, that's not such a bad problem to have, but when I show up an hour late tomorrow because I was digging through my closet for something appropriate to wear, I don't think my boss will understand!

[enflyt 0]

I pretty much sucked again this weekend. Its so hard to run at the altitude here in salt lake. I'm still not used to it. But.. I leave on monday for some training in Florida for a week, and then I'll be in texas for a month where I've already promised myself i'd be workin out daily with my old roomie. I've gotta work my way up to lugging a 60-80lb pack around too, I have survival school to get through the end of november. (if all else fails, i know that i'll lose weight that month!)

speaking of which.... any suggestions as to what to carry around to get used to 60lbs?

[MrFreefall383 0]

Been working out hard everyday this week other than Monday. Tuesday I ran as hard as I could, but had only eaten a salad all day, and drank a glass of OJ in the morning and a couple bottles of water during the day. So undernourished and exhausted, I ran my 2 miles in 16:30 and still managed my directional drill. Lots of ab work and pushups the following day, swimming again finally today, but some dick at the pool insisted on giving me advice on how to really become a swimmer, that what I was doing wasn't going to do a damn thing. Great, so I took some of his advice, put some strain on my legs with a no-arms backstroke, and I'm switching to very early mornings so I don't have to deal with that guy again.

"If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

[NWFlyer 2]

It was a good weekend/week. Need to get back in the habit of doing more workouts other than my one yoga class a week, but the food thing's going well.

"There is only one basic human right, the right to do as you damn well please. And with it comes the only basic human duty, the duty to take the consequences." -P.J. O'Rourke

[ACMESkydiver 0]

Regarding the headache...same thing happened to me a couple of weeks ago. Ick.

And re: clothes -GREAT problem to have! Congrats on a great effort that's being rewarded.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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speaking of which.... any suggestions as to what to carry around to get used to 60lbs?

Yep...my husband says, "Start carrying 60 pounds."



The real answer lies in working up to it...start with a 30 pound pack, work into 45, then 60. If you're looking at November, you'll have to start that progression ASAP.

Road marches AND runs will build up your endurance. Joe says as long as you put SOME weight on your back and get out there and start moving, you'll be better off. Really he says, 60 pounds is what you need to do. Also, Joe says if you're doing this in boots, then wear boots for your practice. If you'll be doing this in uniform, wear the uniform and boots. Joe says 'Train how you will perform'; you need as identical conditions as you can get.

Bottom line is: how bad do you want it? Can you suck it up and do it? 90% of it is mental. When Joe was in special schools (Ranger, Airborne, SEER) he saw bigger, tougher guys quit. He saw guys that should have made it bail. He stuck it out; so can you if you want it bad enough.

This is coming from 2 army vets, but one actually lived this a WHOLE bunch more than the other.

I'll let you guess who's who.


Freefall, this goes for you, too, buddy...

Mentally tough, guys.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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It was a good weekend/week. Need to get back in the habit of doing more workouts other than my one yoga class a week, but the food thing's going well.

I'll log in again later tonight...I did a really great workout just now for our break between these biz seminars, and it was fantastic.
Glad your eating is where you want it to be.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[psipike02 0]

Still doing well...actually stepped on a scale for the first time in a bit and see that I've lost 5 lbs and I've seen an increase in strength along and endurance.

Eating 4-5x a day and drinking about a gallon a day and still doing great!!!

And I tried on my halloween costume the other day and....i was pretty happy...but still got some more work to do before halloween comes still

Puttin' some stank on it.

----Hellfish #707----

[MrFreefall383 0]

Yeah, being mentally tough is what it's all about.

I did a fun little swimming workout tonight, and got to relive my favorite times as a lifeguard with a former co-worker still working as a guard at the local indoor pool.

First was 5 freestyle sprint sets of 100m, then 10 pushups. So all in all, 50 pushups and 500m swimming with just standard goggles and no fins. Then I put on the fins, mask, and snorkel, and did another 20 laps in sets of 4, pushing myself as hard as I could. Then I did another 20 in goggles and fins, then sidestroked to the deep, treaded water for 4 minutes with arms and legs, and another 6 without arms, then took a small excursion to the bottom for some lung-building, pumped to the surface and sprinted freestyle back to the shallow. Feelin' good tonight.

The same guy who hassled me the other night was there. And my former co-worker vouched for me, said I wasn't a slouch, that I could definitely make it. So Antonio came over to me as I was finishing up, let me know that I was vouched for, and I told him my routine when I was a guard. In other words, the requirement was 40 laps any stroke per week. I was doubling that every single day, going back home and running 3-4 miles, and doing pushups and situps until it hurt, then doing it again the next day. I was the only guard on staff who kept training even when I felt like I couldn't really do the job any better. Saving lives was just that important to me.

All about your mindset.

"If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

[hurloon 0]

Hope I'm not late to this thread! :)

I've been working on losing weight since March of this year and didn't really get into it until early summer.

My current routine consists of 60 minutes of warm up walking on a treadmill, keeping my pulse between 130 and 160 BPM. After that I do one mile of cardio on an elliptical machine and finish off with toning by free weights and a drop weight machine. On average I travel about 5 miles per day on foot when my workout is lumped into that.

I do this at least 6 if not 7 days a week.

Down to 237 lbs, was around 285 pounds in March of 2007. :)

[johndh1 0]

Crap, I don't do the cardio you do. I would probably fall out. It's really good that you use the weights though - did you know that resistance training actually keeps your boosted metabolic rate longer than actual cardio? It's something about going into immediate rest when finished (the cardio, I mean).

Also, if possible (usually not) it is better to split your aerobic time into more but shorter periods in the day. Like I said, most people can't do that.

Swimming is the best. I see these people come into the gym all the time with these vinyl sweat suits, dehydrating themselves into thinking they are actually burning fat off. All they are doing is making a freaking mess and rusting our new equipment. Fat burn does not necessarily equal hot sweating, not in long-term anyway.

Roll Tide Roll

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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My current routine consists of 60 minutes of warm up walking on a treadmill, keeping my pulse between 130 and 160 BPM. After that I do one mile of cardio on an elliptical machine and finish off with toning by free weights and a drop weight machine.

The trainers in my gym told me that the 'new method' to training puts weight resistence BEFORE cardio; reasoning being that you need the most of your energy and strength up front to build muscle. They have us warm up for 5-7 minutes on cardio then hit the weight equipment right away.

-johndh1, is that what you do in your gym too?

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Down to 237 lbs, was around 285 pounds in March of 2007. :)

Awesome! Congrats, keep working and keep us updated.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[MrFreefall383 0]

Starting pre-dawn workouts again. Started this morning with a major ab set, and tomorrow I'm doing another major swim before my ASVAB at 9:30, then doing some upperbody in the afternoon when I get back from the test. And according to a friend, I'm an animal with regards to workouts.

Oh, and Sunday morning to try for that hurt I wasn't feeling after the swim Saturday night, I ran 2.5 miles, then did some suicides, directional drills, and came back home for some pullups and a 2 minute situp set, in which I did exactly 100, but could have done more if I didn't lose my energy at about 95.

"If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

[johndh1 0]

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The trainers in my gym told me that the 'new method' to training puts weight resistence BEFORE cardio; reasoning being that you need the most of your energy and strength up front to build muscle. They have us warm up for 5-7 minutes on cardio then hit the weight equipment right away.

-johndh1, is that what you do in your gym too?

I do. I also do everything else too. I have decided that everyone thinks I hold the secret key to replacing the toilet paper in the men's room and I intend to keep that privilege to myself!

Everything is different for everyone, slightly, and the most important thing is just to keep routine with some routine.

Different things depend - if you start first thing in the morning, then when it starts getting colder, you really have to make sure that you warm up a little more than you would in the Summer. Maxing out and having a shiver run through your hamstring at the same time is NOT fun.

The cardio afterward sends all the good fresh blood to the muscles, and flushes out the lactic acid (what causes the next-day soreness). The apple cider vinegar and lots of water also help with this greatly...as does not overdoing it.

Studies have also shown that resistance training carries the metabolism at slower rate of descent after completion, unlike with endurance, in which the metabolic system can go more quickly into rest.

Perfect scenario? Hardly practical for most, but regardless of which end of the day is spent weight training, it is a good thing to split the cardio into three or four ten-minute intervals. Since it's not usually the case, I think warmup, then weights/machines/circuit training, then some cardio.

In general, just be sure not to burn yourself out with some sort of tough resolution that ends up being more like torture. If you get to a point where you aren't enjoying the training, and don't feel good about it (especially afterward), then you need to change things until you do. Also, never compare yourself to the other people in the gym. Everyone remembers where they began. Don't be self-conscious, because no one is looking at you...especially the dudes - they are only watching themselves in the mirrors.

Roll Tide Roll

[ACMESkydiver 0]

Good stuff, as usual!

I have the HARDEST time, personally, determining when I am working out at the appropriate level.

I over-did it again on Friday and really corked up these little muscles that run on the inside of your knees...it was so bad that the next day I couldn't walk down stairs without Joe standing next to me (my legs would very literally quit working and I'd fall. ) So freaking embarrassing!

Joe said that I had to work out the lactic acid...so I did intervals in the motel. They didn't have a fitness room, so I'd claim a flight of stairs, run the hallway to the end, climb the next flight, run the hallway, blah blah blah...,on and on, up and down 3 floors. I had to slow myself down and walk and stretch on the landings because my heart rate was skyrocketing...but all in all, I felt great. Joe went out and ran 3 miles up and down hills, and I got mine in. I felt so much better afterwards! It really did help.

I still couldn't go down stairs without his arm, though.

I told him I wanted a guage to tell me when my workout wasn't helping, when it was maintaining, when it was improving, and when it was over-the-top and hurting. I just have no ability to tell.

He said it will come in time...I don't like waiting.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[johndh1 0]

That was definitely overdoing. When you finished did you feel this tingly all over kinda like your body had a very light "hum" going through it? Probably not. You were too exhausted.

I would never run stairs - walk them maybe, and never skip more than a step at a time (though I probably weigh much more than you - 215). Also, the twisting around the landings didn't help. It wasn't a total loss, but you should not ever be at the point of total muscular strength loss.

Another thing to remember, like with sleep, you can't "make up" for a groovy weekend by doing it more afterward, be it dieting or exercise. Just get back into it regular.

More people get exercise injury by doing things wrong or in excess than anything.

One practical result to show how things change with certain exercise: I hadn't thought to try for a long time to really steer my canopy (S2 210) until I had worked up to a few sets of 6 or 7 pullups, wide bar and narrow. It took a few months to work up to that, and it was aggravating because I would see these guys come in and pull 'em out with no problem - then it hit me that I am not pulling 160 or 170 pounds like they are, either. See that self-consciousness and self-image we all have to figure out?

Anyway, a few weeks ago, I experimented after opening with flying the canopy with only rear risers (didn't land, though, because I was getting recurrent, and I zoom in under the thing straight-line as it is).

It was amazing to realize how far I had come since the last time I thought to try that - basically effortless, almost startling as to the effect of how it flew.

It should never hurt, in the sense you described. It has to be fun, or you won't stick with it. You know how when you're getting a massage (or, someone is pinching your nips maybe) and it hurts, but it's like "Stop, stop stop...don't stop, don't stop, don't stop!?"

It should be like that.

Funny, someone I know e-mailed me earlier and said that, although they know my writing, what I wrote before sounded like one of those MSN fitness articles.

I went back and read it, and it kinda does.

I sometimes forget which threads I'm watching, so if I ever seem to "ignore" a post or question, someone PM me and point me toward it. I only log on here and look around about 7,000 times a day, for crying out loud...there's only so much time to take away from a Skyride thread.

Roll Tide Roll

[ACMESkydiver 0]

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I sometimes forget which threads I'm watching, so if I ever seem to "ignore" a post or question, someone PM me and point me toward it. I only log on here and look around about 7,000 times a day, for crying out loud...there's only so much time to take away from a Skyride thread.

All you have to do is check the 'send e-mail notification on reply' on the bottom of your messages.

You can default that on your profile. I do...otherwise I'd never know what people are trying to tell me.

~Jaye
Do not believe that possibly you can escape the reward of your action.

[johndh1 0]

I thought about that, but so often the "reply" has nothing to do with the real intent or question of the thread itself, but rather a sidebar comment, such as what..I.. just... instigated...here.

Roll Tide Roll

[MrFreefall383 0]

OK, so good news. Completed the swim this morning, another few swim-pushup sets, then some fins and snorkel swimming, and the finish requirement for USCG Basic, which is swimming 100m without goggles, then treading water for 5 minutes. Got back, went to my ASVAB, and made the 92nd percentile. That's only initial AFQT percentile, so that may level out a couple points, but I still will have done better than 90% of candidates taking the test. I think the swim activated my brain muscles, because I was really expecting maybe 80-85 because I didn't study for a week before the test.

"If at first you don't succeed... well, so much for skydiving." - aviation cliche

[tigra 0]

OK, so I re-read your first post- the stuff about headaches/ flies/ holding your head in a weird position. I had a killer headache for days that didn't feel like one of my "normal" headaches. Really painful, it lasted for days and nothing really worked until I tried naproxen. I finally realized it was/is probably a muscle strain in the back of my neck from some of the upper body work I've been doing with my trainer (like flies) and clenching/ not breathing properly through the exercise. I guess I need to be more careful and more diligent with my before and after stretches! DOH!!!!

Oh, and personal training sessions after a week with no workouts are pretty brutal .......... But in a good way, honest ..........

[johndh1 0]

I definitely knew firsthand what she was talking about in the neck/jaw strain. Guys do it all the time (even I do still occasionally not thinking), and breathing properly is something to really consider.

A guy I know had to end his amateur competition days recently (at an excellent 42 years of age) because his lack of proper breathing for so long (holding his breath in heavy-lifting strain) has done so much damage to his cardiovascular system. His cardiologist is actually telling him he needs to just do low-n-slow anything from now on, not even fast jog on the treadmill or elliptical. That's great for some, but considering what this guy has been doing, it's quite a drastic change.

Roll Tide Roll

[hurloon 0]

Hey all.. down to 235 and just wanted to post a pic of my progress for comparison.

The pic with my two good friends was taken last year when I weighed around 300.. and don't mind the dirty mirror in the newer one.