fitarthritic.com Blog

Today is a hectic day.  Getting ready to go to a medicine conference.  I was able to do an 80 single set warm up, followed by 240 20lb vest pushups in sets of 20 and finished with a 65 set finale.  Hope the trip doesn’t interupt my progress.

Hesitant today.  Did 50 warm up and 200 20-lb weight vest.  Easy enough, but I had to be careful due to a bad night’s sleep and the elbow.  Kept my elbows tucked close to my chest to avoid the roll of the inner tricep over the inner bone.  Hope this clears up soon.

Monday, pretty good.  Able to focus for a brief workout. 250 25lb pushups preceeded by a 50 rep warmup.

Tuesday, fair.  395 in sets of 40; the last set was only 35 due to an elbow issue.  My inner tricep was a little tight.  It started pulling across the inner elbow bones (medial epicondyle) and “clicked” as it passes back and forth.  This sometimes happens at the beginning of a workout.  Will hold for the rest of the day.  Our muscles are funny they contract and relax with voluntary and involuntary control.  The more muscle fibers we “recruit” during a contraction helps determine the strength of the contraction.  Apparently, my control today was incomplete causing an assymetric contraction of the tricep.  May have to wear a wrap above the elbow if I can’t get this to resolve.  This could cause tendonitis and collapse if it is pushed too far.  Strength good today, easy reps overall.  Did some trunk exercises and farmer’s walk as well.

Did a mid day workout today.  Most of my workouts are in the early am since I am an early riser.  Nonetheless, it was good.  I did 545 in 25 minutes and 25 seconds.  This is the pace I need to complete the 1,000 in one hour.  I started with5 sets of 25, and continued at 20 per minute.  I listed to Rush during the workout and did squats in between.  It seems that by doing squats Iwas able to keep my heart rate up.  This seemed to help me with my pushups, maybe by helping to clear the lactate from my muscles.  I should have pledged 1000 pushups and 1000 squats in one hour.

A decent start today.  Did 235 20lb vest pushups preceeded by a set of 50 to warm up.  Additional 80 rep single set before starting clinic.  Tomorrow is a rest day.  Lets see how it goes.  Add 85, lunch single set; confidence is building.  Now will have to avoid temptation to push tomorrow, I will need the rest.  Total 450 for the day.

Uh oh.  Feel a cold coming on.  Hope it doesn’t interfere too much with training.  Had low goals for today accordingly.  Total of 290 in approx 1/2 hour.  Did 4 sets of 40, followed by a set of 70 and then 60.  I seem to have an increased anaerobic threshold–good.  Let’s see how I feel the rest of the day.  

Got my first comments!  Unfortunately spam…

Added 50 or so at lunch.   Interrupted with a knock on my door to remind me of a meeting I was missing…lost my count.

More on anerobic threshold: http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/anaerobic.threshold.html

Early morning today.  Had to squeeze in the pushups around 6.  Did 100 regular and 100 25 lb vest.  Also performed some “farmer’s walk” holding 52 lb dumbells while walking back and forth on the driveway.  This helps strengthen the posterior joint and rotator cuff.  Feeling ok.  My shoulder keeps telling me that it will be happier when this is over.  Looked up pushup records.  Check out Jack Lalanne at: http://www.jacklalanne.com/jacks-adventures/feats-and-honors.php  and you can review the current records, crazy as they are at : http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/results.aspx?cx=partner-pub-0536574877644132%3A9g70awhgc6y&cof=FORID%3A10&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=pushups&siteurl=www.guinnessworldrecords.com%2Frecords%2Fdefault.htm#1141 .  Who would have thought of doing pushups on the backs of your hands?

Added 140 in two sets of 70 pre and post lunch.  Ramping up..

Busy Morning with the kids and household stuff. 

Did 50 one set warm-up followed by 155  25 lb (yes changed it again) weight vest.  Did some research regarding muscle endurance.  Seems that high repetition is the way to go.  I am using the weights to stimulate growth and strength as this should help carry me to the goal.

Tried to throw a ball yesterday and ouch!  Sharp pain accompanied by a limp feeling in the shoulder.  I remember having a lift injury years ago (about 12-14 years ago) on a bench press machine that had individual handles and had the user push through and arc that went inward and upward.  Had sharp and sudden pain withcollapse followed by weeks of anterior pain.  Now I believed that my right shoulder may have had a SLAP injury.  This would explain my intermittent pain, limitation with certain activities (ping pong and rolling over in bed) and sometimes not being able to throw a ball.  Did not hear the squishy sound in my joint today as I started the vest pushups–maybe I won’t go back to the 40lb resistance.  I plan 2-4 weeks of complete rest of my shoulder after the event and 6 months of rehab, but will consider MRI and the knife if I do not progress.  My twice injured left shoulder giving me no trouble.  Here is a link to SLAP injuries: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SLAP_tear and http://orthoinfo.aaos.org/topic.cfm?topic=a00426 .

425 in about 20 minutes.  5 sets of 25 followed by sets of 20.  Right pace.  Significant muscle fatigue, I want to be able to round the horn with 600 under my belt, I may just try sets of 20 at each minute and then be at 600 in30 minutes.  I will have to map out the possibilities.  Will have to have Sue do calculations along the way to make sure that I meet my time markers.

Today I did 200 weight vest pushups!  200 in sets of 20 in approx 40-45 minutes while getting the kids ready for school and me for work.  Ok, it is not so impressive, since I removed 20 lbs in weight from the vest.  Added 12o in two sets of 60 before/after lunch.  Total 320 today.  Not bad.  Will rest tomorrrow.  Plan a trial again on Saturday.  Will go 15-30 minutes at full speed to see how I am.  Approaching the 4 week mark.