Wednesday, July 30, 2008

PUSHUPS -- BACK AGAIN

Back again: both "back to pushups" and "back to an earlier program week."

I had let them slide. They were discouraging. I was regressing.... not able to do as many as I had a week or two earlier.

Maybe low on glycogen with my low-carb nutrition?

Maybe, as a friend suggested, spreading my restorative resources too thin, doing intense upper-body training while the same body is trying to heal a serious Achilles injury.

Maybe just good old overtraining.

Whatever it is, I've decided to drop back, not an ability level as I had previously, but a couple progress levels. I'm staying at Level 3 but dropping back to Week 2. The number of reps will not stress me, and I'm thinking they'll serve as a warm-up for the final Max effort at the end of the session, where I hope to make my real progress.

Over my 22 years as an adult-onset athlete, I've become notorious for tweaking programs and doing my own thing. I've also found I don't respond well to too much training. I get overtrained very easily.

BTW: With low-carb nutrition I've lost 8 pounds in 3 weeks, and 2 inches off my waist. Skeptics might call the 8 pounds "just fluid," but the 2 inches are hard to argue with.
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How it went:
Sets: 12, 12, 9, 7, separated by 60 seconds each. The second 12 was a little hard (I'm dipping lower than I was before, my son said I wasn't going low enough.) Then the max effort after 2 minutes -- I did 20. Felt OK. I'm back!

7 comments:

Vickie said...

I was stuck on week 2 for 3 weeks, having to go through each column before I could move up and now on week 3 I am getting a little numbness in my one wrist and a shoulder ache, so I might not be ready to move on just yet either.

Vickie said...

Oh, and about the low carb thing. I have found that now over the age of 50, the only way to truly lose any weight is to shock my system, and this is one way to do it.

*jeanne* said...
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*jeanne* said...
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*jeanne* said...

I haven't been folowing the program - I was discouraged right off the bat by only being able to do ONE regular push-up in their level test, so I switched to the "girly" push-ups
(sorry I'm a FEMINIST, and as such I give myself permission to use that non-pc term),
but I have not gone back to their website since that day. Not that I hold a GRUDGE, but I think I have issues about doing the easier push-up, and I don't want to be reminded.

Now I just do however many push-ups as I can each day. I don't count daily totals, I just do however many I can at irregular intervals, when the mood (idea) strikes me. I never do lots and lots of reps throughout the day. Not that interested. But I sometimes do 4-5 sets.
I can do 21 "girlies" at a shot on a good day.

But I have also begun do my yoga, stretch and flex, and various other exercise tapes for the first time in quite awhile.
So I'm cool with my non-training program type of training.

You are doing GREAT! With the push-ups and with the weight loss! Whoo-hoo!!

*jeanne* said...

Sorry about those post deletions. After the fact proof-reading...

ShirleyPerly said...

Glad to have you back! I too get overtrained fairly easily if I follow some programs to a T, not to mention that most don't allow me to run multiple marathons anyway. Congrats on the weight and waist loss!!