Wednesday, November 21, 2012

Why do my legs hurt so much?

Monday, November 19, 2012
As I climbed the steps to the second floor of my house, I wondered why my legs ached so much.  If anything, I feel like I’m doing less exercise lately, but the past couple of days my thighs have seemed so dead.  With that thought, I changed into my workout clothes and headed to the park for a Survival Workout.

I began as I always do, completing a set of push-ups, chin-ups and dips before heading down the trail.  I was thinking I’d make this a particularly hard day with extra sprints, picnic table hops and other lower body moves.  I also pushed hard on all lifting stations, being sure to hit the exhaustion point on each set.  When I reached the open field where I like to scavenge for golf balls at the end of the workout, I decided to add an extra sprint to the workout, and it was then it dawned on me.  I’d added sprinting, picnic table hopping and I was pushing hard on the uphill karaoke’s over the previous week.  Sprinting and jumping is quite different than riding a bike and jogging.  The muscles of my hips and quads were naturally sore and when I was walking up stairs, they were reminding me that, at age 57, I should expect them to be sore.

So...mystery solved.  I wasn’t worthless and weak, but getting stronger by challenging dormant muscles.  I was still sore though, so I came home from the workout and put in 45 minutes on the trainer to try and loosen them up...and to burn some extra calories for the Thursday turkey fest.  I may avoid the trimmings, but I’ll surely eat a few thousand calories of dark meat before the day is over.  Just banking some exercise calories.

Survival Workout: 60 minutes. Bike duration: 45 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 100-150 for SW and 120 bpm biking.
Calories burned during workout: 600 for SW and 625 biking.

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