Not very exciting. 60 minutes on the stationary bike. Manual setting 14.
Tag: Cross Training
Sunday: pedalling 60 minutes
We went down to the cape this weekend. We left Friday afternoon and returned Sunday afternoon. I’m taking it a bit easier while I figure out what to do with my knee. Basically, a few endurance sessions a week on the bike and maybe three strength sessions. I took Friday and Saturday off.
We got home around 2:00 and I did some work around the house. I hopped on the stationary bicycle around 5 to pedal for an hour. I queued up Saving Private Ryan on the iPad and watched the movie as I cranked.
Not very exciting, but not unpleasant either.
Tomorrow: AM: 4 x 20′ endurance, probably stationary bike, PM: Strength
Wednesday: November CTC
After my cortisone injection yesterday morning, my knee felt better almost immediately. I think the combination of getting the excess fluid out of the joint, and the anti-inflammatory effect of the steroid made things a lot better. There is still a lot of instability in the joint. I have a vicious clicking if I fully flex and although the pain is much reduced, I still notice that my joint has two modes of operation; good and not so good.
Needless to say, I want to avoid the not so good mode of operation. And as far as I can tell that is done by avoiding fully flexing my knee.
Yesterday evening, I went and had an MRI done of the joint. That was a new experience for me. The imaging center (Metrowest MRI) was prompt, professional and friendly. They did 4 image sequences. Each took about 4 to 5 minutes, during which I was instructed to keep my knee perfectly still while the machine banged and buzzed. I looked at the pictures, which were very clear, but I don’t know enough about knees to figure out if there is anything good or bad going on.
This morning, I was pain free and so I headed off to workout in the morning.
The Plan:
- 20 minute warmup on the stationary bike
- If I was pain free, try some erging
- 1k at 2:00
- 1k at 1:55
- 1k as hard as I could tolerate for the CTC
- Strength training
Here is heart rate data for the bike warmup and the 3 intervals on the erg
Here’s the details on the erg stuff. I was concerned about bending my knee too far so I put a bandaid on the rail at a point before my knee would click. This provided enough of a bump when the seat rollers hit it that I was reminded to keep my strokes shorter. Over the intervals, I was able to modify my recovery timing so that I would be fully rocked over before I hit the bump. This enabled me to get a bit longer drive. On the last interval, I pushed past the bandaid with no significant pain. That was heartening.
I was interested in looking at my drive length.
So, for the first interval, I was pulling about a 1.3m stroke. For the second, around 1.35m. For the final interval, it was about 1.4m. Compare that to the 8x750m workout that I did last week.
For this workout, I was maintaining over 1.4m for all but the last interval. It looks like I had gone back to just about my full stroke in the final rep.
A couple of other interesting plots.
The left shows the peak and average force. This shows a very consistent increase in both peak and average. The right is the drive time. You can see that the drive time was slowing down as my drive length increased. I was surprised by this since the pace on the last rep was much faster.
After that, I went and changed my shirt and did a few strength exercises
Chin ups
unassisted x5
red band assist 3 sets of 4 reps
standing dumbell press
2×25 10
2×30 2 sets of 10 reps
Bent over barbell rows
45 x 10
95 x 10 x 3 sets
dumbell bench press
2×30 x 10
2×35 x 10 x 2
Tomorrow: Slow HM (limit compression)
Tuesday: 60′ stationary bike
My knee continues to be mysterious and painful. The joint has two modes of operation. The first mode is entirely normal. No pain, no weakness, nothing. The second mode is extremely painful. It limits the range of motion (I can’t fully extend it). I have trouble bearing weight on my leg. Going between the two modes is a bit erratic, but I am getting the hang of it. The best way to transition from pain free to painful is to fully flex. Adding in radial movement of my foot while flexed seems to encourage the transition. Getting from painful to pain free is more hit and miss. Sometimes, if I put steady pressure to extend it fully, my leg, which stops at about 10 degrees from fully extended, will slowly finishes extending and the pain will diminish. Other times, if I get off my feet and put my leg up for 15 minutes it will get back into working order. Last night it hurt when I went to sleep, and was fine when I woke this morning.
I had an appointment with the orthopedist today. I was pain free walking in and thinking he might pat me on my head and send me on my way. I was wrong. He grabbed my leg, pushed to full flexion, he and I felt the click in the joint as it flexed and it hurt like hell when he extended the leg again. He did some more manipulations of the joint to see which motions hurt and which did not. Then he sent me for x-rays.
The x-rays confirmed the first part of his diagnosis. Osteo-Arthritis. There is the potential that there is additionally a tear in the meniscus cartilage. That will be checked by getting an MRI this evening.
This same doctor treated me 5 years ago for arthritis in my left knee. Back then, my knee was very sore and swollen. He treated that knee with a cortisone injection and I decided to limit the amount of running I was doing. I was running up to 5 times per week then and rowing much less. The treated and training change worked completely… until recently.
This season, I started noticing problems with my right knee. Generally the problems happened when I was doing something like putting my oars in the boat and getting into a deep crouch. My knee would lock or I’d get a sharp pain. But extending the leg would fix the problem, and I would go on with a normal rowing session. Other times, in an erg session, I would notice my joint clicking during the first few strokes, but by either limiting the amount of compression at the catch, or just by warming up, it would go away. This was not painful at all, just annoying and a little scary. Then things seemed to get much worse after my pants removal incident on Thanksgiving. Now the pain would not go away and was much more intense.
Anyway, the reason that I am writing this all down is because I am trying to process all of this. Essentially, there is no doubt that I have Arthritis in the joint, but if there is a serious tear, getting it fixed will probably make my knee work a lot better. But if the tear is minor, or there is not tear, then the prognosis is not very good. I will likely have to figure out how to live with my knee giving out on a regular basis. I have no idea what impact that will have on rowing and, frankly, that’s bumming me out.
I guess I just don’t think about that until I know more.
For training today, I was back on the stationary bike. I just set it to resistance of 10 and did 2 x 30 minute intervals. I tried to pedal hard enough to keep me right at the boundary between UT2 and UT1.
No pain from biking. Just a gathering gloom in my soul.
Tomorrow: 40 minutes on the bike plus strength training.
Monday: Easing back into it
I had not exercised since Wednesday of last week. This morning, I am back at work and I decided that I need to get back in the gym and see what I can do that wouldn’t screw up my knee.
I wore a elastic brace on my knee mostly to remind me to not do anything stupid.
First up, 40 minutes on the stationary bike. Rolling hills program. Level 12 for the first 20 minutes, then I got bored and increased it to 13. That was a bit better.
I’m gonna need to work a bit harder than that.
Then onto some strength work.
Chin ups
5 unassisted
4 x 3 (red band)
Good mornings
45 x 10
65 x 10
85 x 10 x 3
Barbell Rows
45 x 10
65 x 10
85 x 10 x 3
Standing Dumbell Press
2×25 x 10
2×30 x 10 x 3
Lat Pull Down (My shoulder hurt when I did these with a wide grip. I’ll do it with a pull up grip next time)
Dumbell bench press
2×25 x 10
2×30 x 10 x 3
This was a pretty good session. My knee was fine with pedaling. And by going reasonably light in the strength exercises, I didn’t do any damage there either.
Tomorrow: I have an appointment with the Orthopedist at 10:30 tomorrow morning. I will probably do 40 minutes on the Stationary bike in the morning, and some core work.
Wednesday: 40′ endurance and a little strength training
In Agoura Hills, California. At the Sheraton fitness center.
Seemed like today was as good a day as any to start doing a little bit of strength training.
Plan:
- 20 minutes inclined march (15% grade, 3.5mph)
- 20 minute jog (3% grade, 4.5 mph)
- HR cap at 157
- Easy start to strength training
- Dumbell deadlifts (2x50lbs) – 3 sets of 10 reps
- Lat pull down (110lbs) – 2 sets of 6 reps plus one set of 8
- Push ups – 3 sets of 10 reps
Another bad workout after another bad night’s sleep. The election debacle kept me tossing and turning even after I turned off the TV.
Tomorrow: No workout. Flying back home.
Wednesday: 2 x 30′ Fitness Center
In San Diego. Hotel Fitness Center
- 30 minutes treadmill, 3.1 mph, 15% incline
- 30 minutes elliptical, level 15, “rolling hills”
As boring as it sounds.
Tonight: back on the red eye.
Tomorrow: I should do something higher intensity. Maybe I’ll do the 15×3’/1′ with an easy-ish pace target like 1:52.
Saturday: 75km Bike Ride
Friday: I slept in and worked from home. My wife and I were heading down to the cape for the weekend. I was hoping to squeeze in a workout, but a quick look at my meeting schedule dashed those hopes. So, I took it as a rest day.
Saturday: I decided I wanted to do a long bike ride. From my house all the way to the beginning of the Cape Cod Rail Trail. The weather was a little iffy. The wind was howling last night, over 50mph at times, with some rain as well. By this morning, the wind had calmed down a bit and the rain was gone. It was still very gray, and the it was quite cool, around 48F.
You can see from the elevation that the ride is quite flat. The only thing that breaks it up is frequent road crossings. It starts with about a mile of walking and riding on sandy roads on the island, then the road firms up and you can start riding. As I crossed the bridge from the island, my jury rigged mount for my iphone busted and my phone clattered to the pavement. I stuffed it in my pants and rode the rest of way without any speed of heart rate feedback. I join the rail trail at mile 21, and head south. There was a ton of sticks, leaves, pine cones and other debris on the trail from the wind storm yesterday. It made steering a bit interesting.
I tried to keep my cadence up. Whenever I hit a hill, I downshifted to try to keep things light. I don’t ride very often and I have very rarely gone this far. I still wanted to get a good aerobic workout, but I didn’t want to cramp up 20 miles from home.
There was very little traffic on the trail, and I’m proud to say that I was not passed by a single cyclist.
Looks like I succeeded in terms of intensity. An hour and a half of UT1, plus 45 minutes of UT2. Total time on the road was over 3 hours, with about 2:50 of moving time.
The biggest challenge of the ride was arriving back at the island at high tide. I had to carry my bike and wade through about half a mile of flooded road. Man, the water was cold. Here’s the view back across it after I was finished. You can see the bridge off in the distance. The water was 6 to 12″ deep all the way along the road. I’ve never seen the tide that high.
After I finished wading, I had lost all feeling in my feet. I got my socks and shoes back on and peddled slowly back to the house.
Wahoo fitness said it was a 2500 calorie bike ride. I think that is probably about right. It was pretty epic for me.
Tomorrow: I will do an easy erg session in the evening when I get home from the cape.
4 x 1.8km Threshold on Treadmill
Ooof. Hard work.
I hit the fitness center at 6am on the dot. My legs and back are still sore from the weights, but loosened up during my warmup.
Plan:
- 20 minute warmup with 3 – 2 minute chunks at 5:30 pace
- 4 x 10′ (2.5% grade, 5:30/km pace)
- 5′ recoveries (2.5% grade, 12:00/km pace)
I made it through the first two intervals at my target pace, but I needed to to dig really deep to finish the second one. I gave myself a break and took the pace down to 6:00/km for the last two intervals. This took just enough of the edge off so I could complete the workout. HR monitor started to act up again in the last two intervals.
I’m really tired now.
Tonight I fly out around 5pm. I am flying through Dallas and get home to Boston at 11pm Boston time. I can’t wait to get home.
Tuesday: 2 x 30′ fitness center
I was planning a 3 x 30′ session this morning, but I just got bored and tired and then I stopped.
- 30′ inclined march (15% grade, 5 km/h)
- 30′ on some weird version of an cross trainer.
I walked over to a stationary bike, and got on and started pedaling. But my thighs hurt a bit, and I was feeling pretty unmotivated. I decided 60 minutes was enough for today.
Now, my whole body hurts with DOMS from the puny weights I was lifting. I imagine it will hurt even worse tomorrow.
Tomorrow: Threshold run on the treadmill – 4 x 10′
I have a couple more meetings tomorrow and then fly out of Korea in the early evening. I am so tired of being on the road. I can’t wait to get home.
Quantified Rowing 