Exercise update
16 April 2010 14:43![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
amulGym was pretty busy today. Treadmills were full, so I spent 10 minutes on the stairmaster (fuck that noise, I can barely walk!) and then quickly moved over to a bike. Did 20 minutes on the bike.
The stairstepper was hard to maintain a pace low enough to keep the pace I wanted - I've been trying to keep a steady heartrate of 130 for 30 minutes. My "natural" pace on the stairsteppet was way too fast, averaging 150. There's no way I could keep that up for 30 minutes. Plus, the upper-body bars don't monitor your heart, so I can either work my upper body, or check what sort of pacing I've got. I'm just not familiar enough with the machine, or in good enough shape yet.
The bike, by comparison, felt like less of a workout for 20 minutes, even though I maintained a perfect average of 130 and did about 4 miles, I don't feel like I exercised at all. Maybe this is because my thigh muscles are so deeply stressed by the stairmaster that I can't feel anything else by comparison.
At any rate, it's been one solid week of exercise! I'm really hoping I can keep this up, and I'm also wondering if I should step it up yet. My "typical" treadmill experience has been a 30 minute routine at a max of 3.0mph, with an incline of 5. Three mph is really a "powerwalk" though. Maybe I should push myself up to 3.5 mph already?
Oh, and it turns out that the yoga center has a 4-week long biweekly beginner's program that actually fits into my schedule, starting on May 4th. While I know a lot of the asanas, I don't know their specific routines, and they do some breathwork stuff that is unusual to me. Really wide mix of skill levels in the 10:30 slot, too. People who will never be as flexible as me, and people who have clearly been doing yoga for a very long time. The instructor is super-hot in that "hippy tree-hugger" kind of way, too. Mmm. I <3 well-bathed hippy women.
The stairstepper was hard to maintain a pace low enough to keep the pace I wanted - I've been trying to keep a steady heartrate of 130 for 30 minutes. My "natural" pace on the stairsteppet was way too fast, averaging 150. There's no way I could keep that up for 30 minutes. Plus, the upper-body bars don't monitor your heart, so I can either work my upper body, or check what sort of pacing I've got. I'm just not familiar enough with the machine, or in good enough shape yet.
The bike, by comparison, felt like less of a workout for 20 minutes, even though I maintained a perfect average of 130 and did about 4 miles, I don't feel like I exercised at all. Maybe this is because my thigh muscles are so deeply stressed by the stairmaster that I can't feel anything else by comparison.
At any rate, it's been one solid week of exercise! I'm really hoping I can keep this up, and I'm also wondering if I should step it up yet. My "typical" treadmill experience has been a 30 minute routine at a max of 3.0mph, with an incline of 5. Three mph is really a "powerwalk" though. Maybe I should push myself up to 3.5 mph already?
Oh, and it turns out that the yoga center has a 4-week long biweekly beginner's program that actually fits into my schedule, starting on May 4th. While I know a lot of the asanas, I don't know their specific routines, and they do some breathwork stuff that is unusual to me. Really wide mix of skill levels in the 10:30 slot, too. People who will never be as flexible as me, and people who have clearly been doing yoga for a very long time. The instructor is super-hot in that "hippy tree-hugger" kind of way, too. Mmm. I <3 well-bathed hippy women.