photo by Steve Penland

Sunday, April 8, 2012

It's Official: I'm Pathetic

Or old.  Or out of shape.  Or possibly all three.

Dryland for the 2012-13 season was scheduled to start today, Sunday.  Well, what I actually mean is "I decided I should start dryland for the 2012-13 season today."  Since I'm writing my own workouts this year (subject to Coach TieGuy's approval), I figured I'd plan a start date that fit into my schedule--so the day after returning from my parents' place in Arkansas seemed like a good first day.  And, since last year's dryland got off to an extremely painful start--even though I divided Coach TieGuy's workout in half and did it over the course of two days, I was still so sore after the first half that I had to wait three days to do the second half--I decided to start really slowly this year.  I planned the first workout to be 12 minutes of down time--"down time" being the time you are actually in a low, quad-and-glute-agony-inducing skating position.  A long dryland workout might take close to 2 hours, but about 50 minutes of "down time" is as much as I've done; the balance of the time is "rest minutes" between exercises.  So 12 minutes of down time didn't seem too excessive for a first workout.  Still, last year's "first workout" had only been 15 minutes, and it had led to extreme glute pain the next day three days.  Since Coach TieGuy had said that muscle soreness is related not only to the volume of work done, but to whether or not the exercise is something the muscles aren't familiar with (regardless of the volume), I figured I'd get the muscles re-acquainted with the down position before today's 12 minutes.  (By the way, for any of you who haven't yet hit your 40's, this is something that you will notice when you do: "being in shape" becomes a very muscle-specific thing.  To a 40-year-old muscle, if you haven't done that exact exercise very, very recently, the muscle will throw a hissy fit when confronted with the "new" exercise and will make you pay,  for several days, for doing the "new" exercise).

Anyway, for a variety of reasons, I decided to ease into dryland with a couple of super-short workouts before today's 12 minutes, just so my muscles would remember that they have, indeed, done dryland before.  Last Tuedsay, after an easy 6-mile skate on a local trail, I did two, 1-minute sessions of dry skating (simulating skating, but in shoes rather than skates).  Excellent--no soreness the next day.  So I decided to do 6 minutes on Friday--one, 1-minute set of each of the exercises that I was planning for today.   I was at my parents, though, and time kind of got away from me; before I knew it, my dad was messing with the charcoal grill and I knew that I would need to do the dryland immediately or risk having to do it post-steak-dinner.  So I forwent (forgoed?) any type of warmup, and threw on some shorts and headed to the patio for an "easy" 6 minute workout.

Here, Keira demonstrates what might have been a better use of the patio:

The first minute of the workout, dryskating, went well.  A one-minute break, then on to the next exercise: squats.  Sunday's workout would call for one-legged squats, but I figured I'd take it easy in this "warm-up workout" and do two-legged.  Now, these are easy squats; they involve no weight except what I've grown through judicious use of PopTarts and cookies.  These squats simply involve assuming the skating position, then standing back up, and in the past, 2-3 minutes of these two-legged squats have not been a problem.  So I did my one minute confidently, then wandered around the patio for my one minute of rest.

Then I tried to do another minute of dryskating.

Usually it takes a day for muscle soreness to set in; that's why they call it "delayed onset muscle soreness."  There was no delay this time, though; as soon as I tried to assume the skating position my quads started screaming all kinds of unpleasant names at me.

I ended up doing one more (painful) minute of dry skating, then one minute of a fairly easy exercise (at least the way I do it!) called Cross-Backs.  And then I quit.  After a whopping four minutes of dryland.

And the next day, I was sore.  Very sore.

Four minutes.  Four.  Stinking.  Minutes.  That's apparently all the dryland I'm currently capable of.

Now, granted, I didn't warm up before the dryland.  I didn't cool down afterwards.  I had an 11-hour car ride the next day, followed by 3 hours sitting at the Wild game (thanks to some last-minute tickets from friends).  But still.

Four minutes.

I'm pathetic.

And sore.  Very sore.

5 comments:

  1. either i have serious premature age-related exercise issues, or i'm pathetic too! >;) because: what you just described completely matches my experience with my core workout routine, "abfest," last week. not only was i only able to perform 3 of the 5 exercises (and those included quite reduced reps) but the next 3 days, i literally could not sneeze, breath deeply, turn sideways, or sit up in bed. this was the first time in a couple months that i had attempted my usual abfest. yikes. good news: this week, i was able to do the whole darn thing without (too much of) a problem. hopefully, the same will apply next time you do dryland...lately, i've been noticing it only takes one time of shocking my system to be able to build my way back into some semblance of shape (this happened weight-lifting, too, after a 3-month hiatus...)

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  2. Hmmm, I don't want to say "hey, I'm glad you experience that, too"...but misery loves company (especially if the company is young and fit and still gets sore like us old ladies!). I think that's what "TieGuy" meant, that it's not necessarily the volume of work that creates the soreness, just the "novelty." Funny I don't remember it being so bad when I was younger, though...maybe I was just more tolerant of pain! But now you've reminded me...I should probably start doing some core work too, huh?

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  3. if not for anything else, i do core work for my good looks. HAHAHAHA! no really, it is a great alternative workout too, on days i don't feel like doing...anything.

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  4. We shall take epson salt baths virtually (does that sound weird?) because I'm ridiculously sore and want to die from running sprints. And NOW my husband has gotten all competitive with me which means we're going to be taking it to new and dangerous levels, me-thinks.

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  5. Yikes! It's nice to have the hubbies be supportive...but competitive, not so much (since they're chromosomally blessed with more muscles and what not). And no wonder you're sore--sprints and pushups! And squats with weights! I'm suffering from my latest dryland, Tuesday's whopping 10 minutes. I suppose we'll appreciate all of this come next ice season, eh?

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