The Official Gym & Fitness Thread

I’ll take it.

These are one of those injuries were 1 bad workout and you’re fucked for like 6 weeks.

Its getting better everyday. I don’t limp or have much daily pain I just can’t walk tons or run now. Hittin the core, glute meds, overall leg/core, and stretching 2-3 times a day.

 

i only had an issue with it once 6-7 years prior and an injection took care of it. Was able to get back to training and running after about 4 weeks.

I wear minimalist shoes now and have not had a problem since.

 

My sister just got a cortisone injection for hers it's been going on so long.

I'm pretty anti-cortisone so hopefully I don't have to do that.

I have been wearing my Altras 24/7 (zero drop) and I have a pair of their minimalist trainers I've been wearing to strengthen my feet. I am pretty positive this came from poor shoes. Which sucks because I know better.

 

So, I actually thought I would be able to provide better advice than this but, apparently my lady can’t remember too much about when she had plantar fasciitis except for this:

You need to roll the underside of your feet on the edge of a wooden coffee table or something that would loosen up the inflamed tissue. Icing it afterwards can also be helpful. She said she remembers that is was a total B and hurt when she did the above but it helped it go away.

Next time I’ll ask her prior to posting. That way if I get advice that is vague or insufficient, I can just not even go there all together.

Sorry if that doesn’t help... I tried

Good luck with your feet & hope it goes away soon.

 

The random “injury” that gets me for a week or so is an intercostal muscle pull. Annoying when it occurs.

 

I actually bought a graston metal tool set. My husband has a massage therapy cert and used to do that on the side. He's learned how to do the graston so I will get him to do it to the heel and see how that helps.
I haven't done it yet so it doesn't hurt to try.

Thanks for asking

 

Just finished watching this. Absolutely great watch! What an incredible man... He deserves so much respect for how hard he worked and what he achieved. A man of integrity. Truly Inspirational.

 

I'm on my like 3rd time watching it lol
This is on my list of top documentaries. I'm not sure another human exists that has the physical and emotional capacity this guy has.

I wish they spend more time on the logistics of his climbs as well as what he did for recovery between the mountains.

He set a record so exponential, I'm not sure you are going to see anyone break that for while. And probably almost certainly won't be broken by some rich white guy any soon .

 

I would like to enlist your guys help. I am starting my new ultra training cycles and want to try to figure out the best way to balance it with my lifting.

I have two speed work days, two rest days (from running only), and the rest easy run days. Rest Monday and Friday and speed on Tuesday and Thursday.

I like that I have two off run days these first couple cycles because I do not like to run on leg days. When I run it causes some quad deactivation and that's a problem once the PM leg session rolls around.

Right now I'm doing an upper/lower split, 4 days a week. Mon, Tues, Thurs, Friday.

It would be most ideal to pair my speed days and leg days on the same day. Get the high intensity stuff all on the same day. But again right now I want to separate the speed and the leg days.

Do you think it would better to do legs in the AM, giving me 24 hours till speed work OR keep the legs in the PM making it only 12 hours between sessions?

Because when accounting for the time between workouts, one way kind of gives me two higher intensity workouts in 12 hours, so like 2 days a week, vs. 2 in 24 hours which is like 4 high intensity days.

Hopefully I'm not over thinking this but I want to give myself the best chance at maximizing my leg mass/strength development and my speed.

Speed sessions my first training cycle are hard sessions 5x3 minutes at 10RPE/max effort but they aren't as laborious as what my second training cycle will be and those are longer tempo sessions. So right now it's almost like HIIT training which I'm hoping is less disadvantageous to my lifting than when my training gets higher volume.

Additionally, if you were me, how would you handle nutrition during those times. Would you be heavy carbs and protein and less fat, and more fat later in the week? I'm thinking that hitting a protein goal is best (as in don't exceed if possible), low fat, and then hit carbs for max digestion time.

Below is how I am planning my weeks since it's confusing in written form:
Sunday: Endurance run
Monday: 10 mile cycle AM; Legs PM
Tuesday: Speed session AM; Upper Body PM
Wednesday: Recovery Run
Thursday: Speed Session AM; Upper Body PM
Friday: 10 Mile cycle AM; Legs PM
Saturday: Endurance Run

 

You asked for a lot here lol, and without getting too in-depth with the specifics give you my knee jerk reaction with a little bit of reinforcement on my stance.
In my opinion you're trying to do too much... You are kind of all over the place with what you're trying to accomplish and it would be best to pick which is more important to you at this time (either your your distance running, or your force production) focus your training mostly around that and go from there. You can lift and run at the same time but if you try to maximize both you are going to just spin your wheels, burn out, and not make much progress in either direction.

If you consider energy system utilization in a spectrum, it looks something like this:

Maximal strength (Phosphagen system) , strength/speed, Power, speed/strength (anaerobic/lactic acid system), maximal endurance (aerobic system)

The further away your two goals are on this spectrum, the less you will be able to adapt and make measurable improvements in these disciplines... for the most part. To answer how I would suggest you split up your workouts really depends on which goal you would prioritize and your ability to recover from the work. I hope this isn't too vague and is a start to get you going in the direction to getting the answer you're looking for.

 

Your spectrum is correct, however speed and strength are together. That's my current phase and why I'm asking the question. My running volume above is low (around 30mpw or 5.5 hours of running a week max). So not sure why you say I'm on both ends of the spectrum when according to your spectrum I'm on the same side.

I will state my goals, because I'm not sure why people don't understand me when I state them.

I do not give two fucks about being some great lifter. I enjoy lifting and the physique it provides. I also love the injury resistance is gives. I would like to focus on some leg mass because I have still lost quad mass from surgery. I have been making some nice strength and mass gains here recently and I'd like to keep that going as long as I can.

I am currently on a low volume, VO2 max cycle. Which is on the same side of your spectrum. So I realistically have about 6 weeks before I will have to start pulling back on the strength goals for the endurance ones. Then I can focus on more strength in my off season starting in August and focus on that till the end of the year.

So don't misunderstand me, running is the goal. However just because it's the goal doesn't mean I can't lift. It just means I can't expect to win a powerlifting competition at the same time I'm running a 50 miler. But that isn't my goal. The goal is to keep what I have going as much as possible the next 6 weeks then switch out to more maintenance when I start my anaerobic cycle.

It's funny your spectrum is actually the training cycle progression I'm using. Right now both goals are on the right end of the spectrum. Hopefully my goals make sense.

I could probably knock off the cycling (takes me 40-45 mins to easily bike 10 miles) or I could try to swing it so I have a true rest day in there with nothing.

 

Also keep in mind my detrained status puts me in the newbie gains realm for a bit.

 

I believe the disconnect was caused by some assumptions that I made based on some missing context. Though hopefully one could see when looking at your original post and see: "ultra training cycle", "endurance run", "maximizing leg strength/mass" and then have "speed training" sessions all thrown in there that it could appear very misleading? I apologize if I over simplified what you were trying to convey but your response definitely cleared up some blind spots on my end. I try to keep anything fitness as simple and foundational as I can because it tends to get mucky the deeper your dig, but it seem like that's your style

So to answer your original question, I do think you were wise to separate your speed days from your leg days. I also think you would benefit from swapping your AM/PM sessions on Mon and Fri for hormone and recovery reasons. BUT either one would work and it gives you an option of something to switch things up if you feel like your current choice isn't working out. Your nutritional plan seems sound as well; make sure to hit protein goals, carb up enough for your high intensity sessions and fit the fats in where it makes sense

I will reiterate that I still think you are doing too much but that is just my personal experience. Especially for someone who earlier this week was complaining of plantar fasciitis. Over all my time training people and reviewing self devised workout plans for others I don't think I've ever recommended that someone added more to their workout. Typically it seems like people always think more is the solution. Not saying this is you per se, just my two humble two cents.

 

I knew something was getting crossed somewhere and needed clarification. Endurance runs are just 60+ minute runs at Zone 3 HR. They don't have to be anything insane.
My training cycles will go VO2 Max, Steady State, Anaerobic Threshold, and then pure Endurance. Starts low volume high intensity then moves to no intensity and pure volume by the end.

Can you elaborate more on the hormonal and recovery reasons for the swap from AM to PM on the legs and cycle? Just curious as I want to be understand the reasoning.

The PF is nearly completely resolved and my running hasn't been exacerbating it. I'm old enough and have been around the block enough times with these things to know if you ignore something small it becomes something major and will fuck up your goal races. So trust me I'm not running on an injury.

I understand what you mean that more isn't necessarily better. I'm doing about half of what I did last time around and I was successful last time up until I got to the final volume phase and was trying to lift heavy on 60-70 miles a week. That was a mistake.

Just out of curiosity what, to you, would look like just right as a balance?

 

See! You've got a well thought out plan here. You just need to trust yourself more and not over think the small details.

As far as the hormone thing goes; from the latest research I've seen, it tends to suggest your natural excised induced boost in testosterone will benefit from you performing weight training first versus any sort of cardio or endurance based exercises first, that's all. I can dig up some references if you prefer, it's just gonna take me a minute to recall which study I sourced that from. I do recall though the study had their subjects performing their workouts in a single session, and I know you plan on splitting them. So how much this would actually matter would probably be miniscule. Also the cycling heavily favors the active recovery side since it lacks a true eccentric phase and is low impact, making it a perfect sort of workout to have between more intense session.

To satisfy your curiosity, If someone brought me your workout plan (granted your vastly more well versed than the typical person who approaches me) I would probably suggest dropping the cycling sessions on Mon & Fri, and replacing the recovery run on Wed with a recovery cycle session for reasons mentioned above. That would lower your MPW and also allow you the potential opportunity to expand your leg days on Mon/Fri provided it doesn't interfere with your speed sessions.

 

I have read the same thing, when both sessions are back to back, lift first. Additionally I know it would be better if I actually kept all my workouts together and didn't break them up. However me working out for 3 hours straight is just not gonna happen lol I know it.

I don't like to lift in the AM because I don't want to eat that early in the morning. Plus it's a lot of effort first thing in the morning lol I like the mindlessness and easiness of cardio at 5am.

I rationalize my choice to do two workouts a day because outside those two hard days, my cardio is easy. I'm Zone 2 HR most of the week (120-150). Which I argue requires very little recovery. However I know that doing two workouts a day 4 days a week isn't ideal. I have no 100% days off in my routine, and only like 2 days a week have a full 24 hours between workouts. So I workout every 12 hours, which I know is not great for recovery. However I think I can get away with it in this cycle. As it progresses though, I need more rest time or I'll implode by my endurance phase.

Last training I moved down from 4 days a week with an upper/lower split. To 3 full body days and then 2 full body days. We'll see how it goes but I'm probably dropping to 3 days a week at the end of this cycle.

I will consider dropping the 2 cycles, and the recovery run and cycling. Probably a good compromise and gives me more rest.

Thanks for thinking it through with me.

 

Your logic makes sense and I would be doing the same thing if I were in your circumstance. The AM/PM session thing is one of those small details when conceding to what works best with your life and preferences is more beneficial than what is "optimal" in the eyes of science.

Thanks for entertaining my suggestions and maybe it can be a sort of 'plan B' for you if life throws you some more curve balls. Keep up the good work and the progress will come

 

Thank you for being a thought partner.

I actually decided no cycle sessions in the AM Monday and Friday I will just hit the bike in the evening after legs if I feel so inclined for the extra caloric burn. So I am moving some stuff around. Gives me some more recovery hours between all the sessions.

Thanks!

 

By the way, shame on all you bros.

I tried preworkout for the first time ever today.

Why did no one mention Beta Alanine makes you feel like your fucking face and arms are melting off?

Hubs and I both took it today for the first time. We are in the locker room wigging out we got some tainted shit from Amazon.

A little label on the bottom saying “try half a scoop first” would be nice.

It was a comical evening to say the least.