Thursday, September 4, 2008

Thursday gym

In the back of my consciousness I was aware all day that yesterday's run must have tweaked one of those muscles of the top-of-the-hamstring type - I got to the gym to do 3-4 treadmill miles before workout with M., only after 1 mile it was still tweaking enough that I thought I should stop (it is not a muscle pull, just hyper-tight), and I switched to the ARC trainer for the rest of the time.

We did just core and upper-body stuff, and then spent the last 15 minutes having an intense but profitable stretching session. M. worked on the left leg first, the one with the problem, which basically had me SHOUTING - not because of that particular muscle but because of my always perniciously tight & now basically set-in-concrete can't-even-get-up-to-a-right-angle hamstrings.

When he switched to the right side, I hopefully asked, "So does it feel kind of looser on that side at least?" He was just laughing, it was definitely NOT looser on that side at all....

It is much better now, and I have promised to be a reformed character - I will stretch properly after every run. M. says 15-20 minutes, but I think that is unrealistic & a recipe for not stretching at all - I will try and have 5+ every time and aim for 10 on a regular basis.

Also I realize that instead of signing up this fall for one boot camp conditioning class and one yoga class for second and third weekly strength/flexibility stuff I should skip the boot camp and make my indispensable second weekly session (I will keep on having one a week with M.) yoga, and try for a second session of yoga in weeks where schedule permits.

(Mainly I am just hoping that I will be OK for the long run on Saturday. I'll take tomorrow off and hope for the best...)

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Ah, stretching. We often forego it, to our own detriments!

Fingers crossed for the long run.

Becca said...

Are you sure about the yoga? It didn't make you so happy last time you were doing it--and the worst thing would be to plan yoga, and then avoid it, and end up with more guilt and less stretching. I have a really brief automatic stretching routine I do before and after--maybe six minutes before, three after? I do the exact same thing every time, and it's like tying my shoes, and it seems to be sufficient (then again, I'm loose). Making it an easy habit is the key.

ShirleyPerly said...

Yes, I'm guilty of not stretching enough too, which is perhaps why my hammy has rebelled. Hope yours gets better in time for the long run!