There are in fact still two days to go to the end of September, but already it’s clear from the graph that with a result of 139 km for September so far I’ve beaten the January result of 135 km and won’t manage to beat the March record (the record month for this year – and of all time – although that only means since May 2011 when I got the pedometer) of 170 km. I prefer to save attempting that one for October – we’ll see how that goes. There were three better months in 2011 or between 150 and 165 km, so that makes this month the 5th best.
The graph comes from http://www.silvaconnect.se , which is the on-line tool for holding and displaying stats of the users of the Silvaconnect pedometers. The highest ones in their range have the possibility to synchronise via a computer to this website, and it’s a facility I greatly appreciate. One can also pit one’s performance against friends using the same pedometer.
The graph shows pretty clearly what happened to me in the summer – the months of July and August were my months of being ill. At the start, when I was already ill but maybe just bronchitis rather than full blown pneumonia, I was still walking, and so the first ten days of July had some walking, but much less than normal. The same for the last week of August.
As I was hoping, the level of health to which you get back after recovering from an illness is higher than the level achieved before, and so the result for September is higher than that for April or May or June. I’m hoping that I’ll beat all the records to date, in other words beat 170 and get past that white line you see on the graph which was supposed to be my target for average monthly performance this year, not record performance, but I’ll hold that target over for next year.
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I’m also improving (slowly) on my exercise routine. When I started this summer, I could do 2 push-ups (with bad form, I found out later when I had to take a break due to injury). Then, after the injury, I could do 0 good form ones, which was rather demotivating. Now I can do 2 push-ups with proper form, which is an increase of approximately 1 push-up per week. I’ll keep following my program with knee push-ups until I’m able to do 5 proper ones, and then I’ll start from the beginning with that.
Exercise machines are good as they will work all muscle groups and increase strength fastest. Once you can do 15*3 on a certain weight, it’s time to go on to the next weight up, first just 8*3 reps, then two days later 10*3 reps, then 12*3 after another two days and 14*3 after another two days. If you fail you try the same weight two days later. The problem with push-ups is that the body has a finite weight, and so after a while that exercise becomes aerobic, which means it keeps burning calories but it doesn’t really make you stronger. Also a muscle that has been exercised anaerobically carries on burning calories at a higher rate for longer after the exercise than when the muscle is only exercised aerobically. The down side of using machines is that you have to go to a gym and that means rubbing shoulders with people who are good at it, which doesn’t do one’s self image any good but is perhaps a nice exercise in itself … for humility!
Looks like you’ve got a good strength training program there! I used to go to the gym, because it’s pretty cheap for students here, but I wasn’t organized at all, and because I was just aimlessly lifting things without any progress, I’d gradually stop going. So instead, I decided to save the money and exercise at home. Push-ups are nice because I can do them anywhere, but I didn’t think about the finite weight so much. There are ways of increasing the intensity of push-ups, and then pull-ups, but then you don’t really get more weight other than by adding it (which I’ve seen people do with pull-ups). If I do get to the point where push-ups are ineffective, I want to try pull-ups, because it might be useful to be able to lift myself if I need to climb up somewhere, but after that there isn’t really any alternatives to the gym if I want to get stronger. Then I’ll have to try out your program!
I will probably go back to the gym and start a programme like that in November when it starts to get cold. Don’t forget the warm-up and slow down aerobic stuff at the beginning and end and also the stretches.
I’ve got the warm-up and stretching down, but what do you do at the end? Run?
As one phsyiotherapist taught it to me, and I really don’t know enough to be able to say if it’s a consensus view or a minority view, you need to do some aerobic work (typically running or walking) to warm up in a half-strenuous way, then do some stretches – because even stretches done cold are not so great, and can tear muscles and do you a right mischief. The at the end of an anaerobic session or a more strenuous aerobic session, you do more stretching (you can also do some in between reps on the machines) and then you do an aerobic session at the close which might be even half an hour on the treadmill but gradually gettng slower and slower so that you don’t go from strenuous to nothing. And then you can stretch again at the end.
That’s basically how this girl taught it to me. If anyone with like a doctorate in physio who has trained prize-winning atheletes wants to chime in and say that’s all wrong because of x, y and z, I’ll be more than happy and grateful for further insights.
That sounds good. It’s very tempting to go from strenuous to nothing (except for a bit of stretching), but I’ll try warming down (if you can call it that) instead.
Whes you say you wait two days before exercising again, do you mean that if you exercise on a Monday, you won’t exercise again until Thursday, or do you mean until Wednesday?
Since “14 days” means “a bit more than 14 days”, I assume “2 days” means “a bit more than two days”.
That depends on the degree of muscle bashing one did last time but as you can imagine here as in the goldlist you can become your own enemy by doing too much or too frequently, just the same as by doing too little.
Thanks for the share. Great work with your exercise routine, keep it up. In some other links I have some info on all the benefits of walking. Read it if you are interested.