Keep On Exercising 2

[FurForksSake]

New thread!

The latest scandal in Fife gym circles...

Cowdenbeath leisure centre was closed for refurbishment for two years. Reopened at the tail end of last year, I recall.

This year, they had to close the swimming pool because of a problem with the tiles. Over the weekend, it was reported that a bit of the roof had fallen in.

The gym is still open, but that's the pool closed again. People are not happy.

Gym update. The report was an exaggeration: only one tile fell off the roof.

Today: brief warm up on the treadmill, followed by 3 sets of 10 at 19kg on the chest press.

45 minutes Senior Flex: weights for upper body; bands for lower; stretches, sit to stand with weight (only 3.7kg).

At Active for Life, only did 15 minutes on bike, followed by 3X3 side raises with 6k weights, followed by 3, 5, 10 biceps curls with same weights.

Headed off for first 20 minutes of new Running Club intake. Just there for the warm-up and stretches.

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I think it’s expensive to keep the pools open and heated properly I reckon. It’s a real shame but LA budgets are under a lot of pressure.

Today a walking /boxing video, then some dancing and wall pressups. 31 mins in total.

Sooo.... Not the best week.
DOMS had greatly improved yesterday, so went for a swim 50 x 25m then did a virtual aqua class 45mins.
The class was really good in terms of the instructions etc but very fast in places, considering we were moving in deep water. I felt a twinge behind my left knee when twisting and kicking out to the side. Later that day it became very painful, but I had combined qigong and gong bath session booked, and paid for, so I went rather than waste twenty odd quid.
It was actually manageable in qigong, but very painful trying to lie with straight legs for the 60 mins gong.
Hobbled home - then developed horrendous stomach pains and diarrhoea in the night, which have just stopped. Not ideal whilst hobbling.
Apparently ginger tea, which was served last night, can have this unfortunate effect on some people.
You couldn't bloody make it up!
This summer has been a fitness fail for me 🙁
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Blimey @Alittlefrustrated
I teach yoga and yoga nidrā so similar to gong in some ways. Why on earth wasn’t the gong-er encouraging you into a comfortable position. Straight legs! I often go on my side because my blood pressure is low!

@WearyAuldWumman I am so impressed by your accordion playing.

note to self- stop moaning about our pool is dirty! I would be genuinely bereft if ours closed.

@BezMillssolidarity with keeping the black dog at bay. The only time it’s ok is at the gym.

Usual swimming/ yoga/ classes stuff 116

Today: Running Club. Three of us there today. (The other women can't manage mornings.) I'm the only one who's done it before and still the slowest. Turns out that one woman - who might be younger than I am - has done Parkruns etc before.

The other woman - possibly my age - also does Senior Flex, but definitely has better knees: she can do proper squats at SF (and without audible cracking noises).

I am not jealous. No sirree.

The other SF lady plans not to tell her family about running until after she's completed Parkrun.

45 minutes Senior Flex. 129

I like the idea of these secret runners sneaking off to class!

Yesterday - 15 min cardio dance and 16min bedtime yoga. It was noticeable that I was very snappy / bad tempered before and then back to normal after the yoga. Classic right?

Musical Theatre Fitness, 45 minutes.

I'm finding that the Sunday morning MTF classes don't feel that strenuous. Now, I'm not fooling myself - I know that the Cowdenbeath classes are a wee bit easier than those held in Glenrothes, because they're new to Cowdenbeath - however, even those would have been beyond me a while back.

On the one hand, I'm annoyed that my legs and puff aren't really enough for me to do well at running; on the other hand, this time three years ago I thought that I was on the road out, so I'm definitely doing better and I can definitely walk further and more quickly now at 66 than I could at 60.

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Monday - 45 minutes Zumba class. 131

Tuesday - 45 minutes Musical Theatre Fitness plus 30 minutes Simply Stretch. 132

Yesterday 20 min bedtime yoga.

Monday was more full on - 40 mins cardio plus 20 min yoga.

Donned a knee support and met friend for a woodland walk - 7 miles and chuffed
143.

Senior Flex, 45 minutes; Active for Life, 45 minutes.

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Been a rough week - have managed 20 mins of bed time yoga every night but that’s all. As Pete Tong would say - “we continue”….

Running Club - repeat (for me) 1.5 minutes, 3 minutes, 3 minutes running with stretches and walking in between. Trying to get my speed up.

Senior Flex, 45 minutes. A lot of upper body work today. Found it quite strenuous, possibly because of accordion practice yesterday.

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Well done to all.
I have my usual routine pretty much. Some lovely swims. A very solid mile in 35 minutes. And some very fun gym sessions. It is absolutely the only thing that is keeping the black dog at bay for now. I am tired of it. But I am grateful to keep moving.

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Thursday night was lovely Anna Sensei's first class in the new slot. Very well attended, and she was marvelous, as always! Then yesterday we met up and went heavy on deadlift and bench, with misc random stuff in between. I was cajoled into doing some sled pushes, which is fun, until your legs fall off. It does feel quite athletic at the time though! We also did some monkeying around on the bars.

I got back near to my biggest weight on bench press, which I was quite pleased with. With deadlift there's a way to go but definitely not an exercise to take lightly, so I'm not bothered if it takes me a few weeks to get back up to the highest weight I was lifting from 6-7 months ago.

No formal exercise today.

I'm somewhat peeved. Apparently, "the gym staff" removed the "sliver weights" - the lighter weights - from Studio 2 at the gym that many of us use. (I'm currently using 6kg weights for arm exercises at Active for Life.)

Said weights are not in the gym. I stuck my head in the gym staff office and enquired as to there whereabouts: "I don't know. They were taken downstairs somewhere in a trolley."

I've been advised to use kettlebells instead, but they're a bit bloody awkward for side raises and biceps curls, I find.

I do use kettlebells for a famer's carry...and they've already nicked all the heavier ones out of the studio, though I can get two 18kg kettlebells in the gym when I need them.

They do have 5kg weights in the studio and in the gym, but the next jump up in the gym is 7.5 which I can manage for a low row, but not for anything else. Then the next jump is 10kg, which is a bit heavy for an old fart like me at the moment.

I know that I've not done as much with weights recently - possibly too much concentration on cardio (running, Musical Theatre Fitness and Zumba). I really don't want to go backwards, however.

Did lift my accordion for a practice last night...

When I was doing my upper body work at Senior Flex yesterday, left shoulder is definitely coping better than my right. I'm genuinely convinced it's because of the accordion playing in my younger days.

yeah those dumbells going up in 1kg increments are super handy as you say, because 2.5kg jumps are huge when it's 5 to 7.5 (50%) or 7.5 to 10 (33%). Normally you'd jump up something like 10% or less.

I think it's worth emailing the management and/or putting in a feedback slip about that. I think gym instructors sometimes forget how useful those stacks of 1-10kg dumbells are for a lot of people.

16 min cardio dance then 11 min bed time yoga.

45 minutes Musical Theatre Fitness and a couple of hours gardening - strimming, hauling up plants in the wrong place, cutting back prickly plants.

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33 minutes self practice yoga this morning. Family funeral today, lots of mental and physical health things swirling around, it’s been a tough week and today is going to be challenging - but right now I feel quite calm. This is why we do it, right?

Hope today goes as well as possible, @Comtesse .

Monday: 5 min walking, 25 running (slowly), 5 minutes walking; 45 minutes Pilates; 45 minutes Zumba. 134

Today: 45 minutes Musical Theatre Fitness; 30 minutes Simply Stretch. Found it hard going today. 135

Heading off for accordion lesson...not sure if the arms will manage - had a heavy arm track at MTF today.

Wednesday: Gym, 5 minutes on rowing machine, chest fly, 19kg - 6, 10, 10.

Senior Flex, 45 minutes. Usual mix. 3.7kg for upper body work in the main, but 7.5kg for the triceps exercise.

Active for Life, 45 minutes - 15 minutes on the bike. Had to do single arms for arm raises and biceps curls - could only find one 6kg weight in gym. Couldn't find the equipment I needed in the studio and couldn't get onto the machines in the 'big gym'.

3 sets of 10 wall press-ups. 136

It turns out that a decision has been made to empty all the A for Life equipment from the cupboard in our studio and make the instructors in Studios 2 and 3 share equipment, meaning that class times have to be re-jigged.

Why? They're going to use our cupboard to store Hyrox equipment...It's already started.

Some of our machines have also been replaced. The SPARC that I use has gone. There's an elliptical machine, but my knees started crunching when I tried to use it - apparently it moves in a different way from the SPARC. I'm not risking my knees on it.