I am glad I had a proper swim first, because the fitness assessment (free as part of new gym membership) I had at noon was a bit of a bust! Some mildly interesting bits (it is a Polar system of this sort) - but BECAUSE I swam first, my heartrate was already elevated - and I know from many years of doctor's-office visits that my blood pressure is always elevated due to nerves the first time round, at the doc they have to take it 2-3 times to let it settle back down - so that data is not especially useful.
I was OFF THE CHARTS on the bicep strength rating - literally! It is true, I am fairly strong; but I came in on the 98th percentile, and the fellow administering the test rightly looked at the number of lbs. pressure with skepticism and said he had never seen anybody, including a man, score so high, and that he was worried the equipment wasn't working properly! (On my printout, it says 208 lbs on a scale that gives a ranking of "Excellent" to anything over 73 pounds, so I am sure he is correct!)
We did all the bodyfat caliper stuff and measurements of different body parts, only somehow in the wad of pages I got as my printout, none of that stuff seemed to have gotten saved, which is honestly the only really useful part, if one were planning on retesting later on!
On the bright side, I was also close to top percentile on situps and pushups - the pushups, disappointingly, were KNEE pushups only (they have to stick with the test's metrics!), but I did 44, which considering I have not done any for many a week is not bad; 50 situps in a minute, also not at all bad.
Anyway, more to the point, very nice swim! I note that flip turns make swimming freestyle much less enjoyable/more like hard work than usual, and that it is nice to mix it up a little with some stroke bits to give myself a break from the hypoxia!
100 free, 100 back, 100 free, 100 breast, 100 free, 100 fly drill-swim
12 x 50 stroke-free by 25 on 1:15 (4 back, 4 breast, 4 fly)
500 "sliding IM" on 2:10 (25 fly, 75 free; 25 free, 25 back, 50 free; 50 free, 25 breast, 25 free; 100 free; 100 IM), plus 100 easy back cooldown
1800 yards total (+ 9 miles bike)
Now I have to get on with my REAL day!
2 comments:
Biceps!
Very nice medley swim.
Flip turn hint: Make sure you are only exhaling gently through your nose while flipping -- if you exhale too much you can have a empty lung feeling by the time you're pushing off! (I know, one more thing to think about!!)
How nice to score so high on those strength assessment tests!!
I got a kick reading that the guy thought the equipment might not be working properly when he saw your biceps results.
And I'm enjoying following your progress on flip turns. I'm hoping to get back to practicing them again after my big races are over and will file that hint of Wendy's for the near future.
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