July 20

FIT:
Second session at my new temporary gym.  I had the first of three personal training sessions.  They're 30 min each, but I had to rush from a meeting to the gym, and I overshot the gym while driving and had to circle back, so I only got 15 min, but it was quite enough.  I requested some plyos work, since that's something I've neglected since I stopped playing ultimate frisbee.  There are huge benefits that can help me get super speedy (http://runningtimes.com/Article.aspx?ArticleID=21777).  I'm not sure why I haven't done much with it... maybe I feared the risk that a shock to the system would bring to my ligaments and tendons, or I didn't want to really dabble in something without committing to do it regularly... but that's not a good excuse, since you only need a couple of minutes here and there.  Dunno.  No day like today to start.

I also requested some lateral work specifically, since running goes forwards almost exclusively, which may make some of those other muscles weaker, or if I were to play a game of soccer suddenly, I'd be less able to handle some of the physical demands of those movements. 

Plyos:
- Warmup with step up, step down on a jump box.
- 2-footed jumps and step down on the jump box.
- Lateral step-overs on a box.
- Lateral squat jumps using a strap connected to the wall for stability.
- Backward lunges, hanging from a strap... very hard to coordinate well.  Not sure what the difference is supposed to be, doing it with a strap vs. just doing normal lunges.  Maybe less weight on the legs?
- Squat thrusts, hanging from a strap... same with the difficult coordination.  I'd think that normal squat thrusts would be just as good... well... one benefit of the strap is that you can jump a longer distance, but it's hard to control your landing when you're sort of hanging, rather than having your arms be fixed anchors.

So that was 15 minutes.  I was dripping sweat a little bit, although the total sweat volume wasn't much.

Next... Rowing.
My knees weren't tracking well, but it was still usable.  I don't know if that was a bad thing to do to my knees.  I did 30 min, going 5K exactly, but it seemed to do very little for me cardio-wise.  Maybe my legs are so short that there's not much distance over which they can push to provide force.  It was good to shake things up, working the arms and back a little, too, but I don't know that I'll repeat.  I'll spend my time on higher bang-for-your-buck activities that are kinder to my knees.  250 Cal. 

Next... Spinning.
There's a cool spin bike with a flat TV mounted on it, which has instructional videos and class-like videos.  It was super helpful for getting the bike fitted, and for teaching me a little about good form.  Having someone watch or participate with you is a strong motivational boost.  It was good and tough.  Spinning always kicks my butt.  There's also quite a bit you can do with it, with the standing sections and everything.  Lots of sweat, no water.  39 minutes, 22 mi.  580 cal.  Don't know how reliable that is.  Effort-wise, I'd say that it was either the same as or more than the effort of my typical 40 min runs.  Maybe that's because I have decent running economy, but I haven't had much experience with the spin bike and therefore have bad spinning economy.  If I ran for 40 minutes, it would be maybe 5 miles x 0.6 = 300 cal.  So 580 seems pretty high, but I was working a little harder.  And I don't know whether the 580 includes BMR.  I don't think the __ mi x 0.6 rule (for my body weight) includes BMR. 

Had a protein shake afterwards again.  Watched the first half of the US-Brazil Womens' World Cup quarterfinals.