Planet Rugby Forum

Heavy uppers this morning. My shoulders were fried from OH squats yesterday. Had a really hard time bracing and keeping good form. Was noticeably weaker, too. Had intended on doing sets of two on bench, but had to dial it back to singles at that weight. Just couldn't do the movement efficiently.
Guess I need more stretching after doing OH squats, it's very demanding on one of my shoulders in particular.



On the Parkrun, I've no idea how they keep things moving so smoothly at my one. On quiet days there are still 600-700 participants. The funnel at the end has quite a long zig-zig to leave enough space between it and the finish line. Sometimes they've even had two parallel funnels, they'll fill one and then as they're letting those people through they'll start filling the other. Quite a few people who aren't bothered about logging their run duck out and then the marshals have to ask people to take two tokens to keep the scoring somewhat accurate.

Nolanator wrote:Heavy uppers this morning. My shoulders were fried from OH squats yesterday. Had a really hard time bracing and keeping good form. Was noticeably weaker, too. Had intended on doing sets of two on bench, but had to dial it back to singles at that weight. Just couldn't do the movement efficiently.
Guess I need more stretching after doing OH squats, it's very demanding on one of my shoulders in particular.



On the Parkrun, I've no idea how they keep things moving so smoothly at my one. On quiet days there are still 600-700 participants. The funnel at the end has quite a long zig-zig to leave enough space between it and the finish line. Sometimes they've even had two parallel funnels, they'll fill one and then as they're letting those people through they'll start filling the other. Quite a few people who aren't bothered about logging their run duck out and then the marshals have to ask people to take two tokens to keep the scoring somewhat accurate.

Funnel duckers should be executed.

blindcider wrote:

Nolanator wrote:On the Parkrun, I've no idea how they keep things moving so smoothly at my one. On quiet days there are still 600-700 participants. The funnel at the end has quite a long zig-zig to leave enough space between it and the finish line. Sometimes they've even had two parallel funnels, they'll fill one and then as they're letting those people through they'll start filling the other. Quite a few people who aren't bothered about logging their run duck out and then the marshals have to ask people to take two tokens to keep the scoring somewhat accurate.

Funnel duckers should be executed.

One time I nearly demolished a very slight woman at the finish line. She was obviously just visiting and wasn't familiar with the procedure. I was running hard to the finish and she was just in front of me and as soon as she crossed the line she abruptly stopped. I had to dance around her, which wasn't easy given I'd just emptied the tank on the final stretch. I must have been >20kg heavier than her.
She then just stood there as people started passing her and couldn't understand the marshals telling her to move back up the queue. I ended up gaining about half a second and one position out of 600, but if enough people do that or duck out it must really mess up the accuracy.

Nolanator wrote:

blindcider wrote:

Nolanator wrote:On the Parkrun, I've no idea how they keep things moving so smoothly at my one. On quiet days there are still 600-700 participants. The funnel at the end has quite a long zig-zig to leave enough space between it and the finish line. Sometimes they've even had two parallel funnels, they'll fill one and then as they're letting those people through they'll start filling the other. Quite a few people who aren't bothered about logging their run duck out and then the marshals have to ask people to take two tokens to keep the scoring somewhat accurate.

Funnel duckers should be executed.

One time I nearly demolished a very slight woman at the finish line. She was obviously just visiting and wasn't familiar with the procedure. I was running hard to the finish and she was just in front of me and as soon as she crossed the line she abruptly stopped. I had to dance around her, which wasn't easy given I'd just emptied the tank on the final stretch. I must have been >20kg heavier than her.
She then just stood there as people started passing her and couldn't understand the marshals telling her to move back up the queue. I ended up gaining about half a second and one position out of 600, but if enough people do that or duck out it must really mess up the accuracy.

As long as she takes a token its fine but getting the tokens and timers out of sync is a ball ache

What happens if there are more logged finishing times than there are tokens handed out/returned?

Nolanator wrote:What happens if there are more logged finishing times than there are tokens handed out/returned?

Thats also a ball ache, we have a number checker who should be able to narrow the issue point down but it just comes down to guesswork. This should be on the Annoyance thread rather than this one so I'll stop whinging now

Just did a sneaky ~7.5km in my lunch-break. Again this heart-zone training thing, so it was very easy and involved a lot of walking...



... in fact so much walking that it was more of a sight-seeing tour. I took a few happy snaps of the route around central Stockholm to share with you guys, not the I expect anyone cares, but why not? I was walking half the time anyway.

Mog The Almighty wrote:Just did a sneaky ~7.5km in my lunch-break. Again this heart-zone training thing, so it was very easy and involved a lot of walking...



... in fact so much walking that it was more of a sight-seeing tour. I took a few happy snaps of the route around central Stockholm to share with you guys, not the I expect anyone cares, but why not? I was walking half the time anyway.

The point of polarised training is that the low intensity part of the training (the majority) requires minimal recovery, so you can increase volume.

Looks like you cadence is very low. I know it can be difficult to keep cadence up when going at a slow pace, but worth working on taking shorter, quicker strides.

Thanks for the tip, I'll do that next time!

As a side point ... why?

(needless to say, the red ones are where I was walking).

Box squats, volume squats, and RDLs this morning.

Changed the box I've been using for a bench which is an inch or two lower and it actually felt better. Don't know whether the reps feeling good was down to the different stopping position or I was just well-rested/fed.
Worked my way up to a single box squat at 140, which is my current training max for full squats, and it was no problem. I jumped to 150 and failed, which was annoying. I definitely had the strength, but I haven't had that weight on my shoulders in months and months, and I psyched myself out so that my form wasn't perfect and when the struggle started I just didn't have the confidence in me to push through.
I'll get it next week.

Getting a bit pissed off with my Garmin at the moment. Heart rate monitor seems to be a bit unreliable when rowing despite it being advertised as rowing friendly watch.

Also I stupidly pressed 'indoor rower' when starting a session last night so the data for my hour an a half on the water was not properly captured.

Don't normally dip into this thread but a guy in work was chatting to me this morning and it's raised a couple of questions I was wondering if anyone had any insight into.

Basically he's considering getting stem cell knee treatments. He used to play hurling to quite a high level but had to give it up this year because of the knee issues, wasn't any more specific than that.

He heard about this clinic in Cork, Medica Stem Cells, and has also been talking to the Belgian arm of Regenexx. The Cork guys have basically said it's an in and out one day treatment. The Regenexx guys have said the crowd in Cork are cowboys, and they would need him to spend a week at the Belgian clinic. The Cork guys then said that Regenexx have a million horror stories, where you go to Belgium and then they say you need to go to Panama, which I assume is because they are pushing embryonic treatment in a far less well-regulated environment. Cork guys charging €2.5k, Regenexx charging around €10k.

I did a thesis on bio material stem cell scaffolds (basically trying to come up with a better scaffold), which is why he asked me about this, but I don't actually know anything about the efficacy of the treatments themselves (tbh I didn't even know the treatment existed, at least in the EU).

So tl;dr, stem cell knee treatments, sham/not a shame? If they work, who's the crowd to go to? Anyone have any experience with this themselves?

No idea. My only experience with joint surgery is the usual pins, screws and ligament/tendon grafts. Don't know anyone who's done anything more exotic.

Mog The Almighty wrote:Thanks for the tip, I'll do that next time!

As a side point ... why?

(needless to say, the red ones are where I was walking).

If your cadence is slow, you are almost certainly running with poor technique (and more likely to pick up injuries). Keeping your cadence up (even when running slow) encourages better running form.

Nolanator wrote:No idea. My only experience with joint surgery is the usual pins, screws and ligament/tendon grafts. Don't know anyone who's done anything more exotic.

I know some Chick who had the whole arm replaced about 75 years ago and it didn't affect her ability to ride motorbikes or shoot people (she was in the Army). Hope this bit of info helps

backrow wrote:

Nolanator wrote:No idea. My only experience with joint surgery is the usual pins, screws and ligament/tendon grafts. Don't know anyone who's done anything more exotic.

I know some Chick who had the whole arm replaced about 75 years ago and it didn't affect her ability to ride motorbikes or shoot people (she was in the Army). Hope this bit of info helps

I heard that she hijacked a Panzer and got some sick are driving over a ramp.

FW peruses this thread, don't trigger him.

Nolanator wrote:

backrow wrote:

Nolanator wrote:No idea. My only experience with joint surgery is the usual pins, screws and ligament/tendon grafts. Don't know anyone who's done anything more exotic.

I know some Chick who had the whole arm replaced about 75 years ago and it didn't affect her ability to ride motorbikes or shoot people (she was in the Army). Hope this bit of info helps

I heard that she hijacked a Panzer and got some sick are driving over a ramp.

FW peruses this thread, don't trigger him.

losers

Homer wrote:

Mog The Almighty wrote:Thanks for the tip, I'll do that next time!

As a side point ... why?

(needless to say, the red ones are where I was walking).

If your cadence is slow, you are almost certainly running with poor technique (and more likely to pick up injuries). Keeping your cadence up (even when running slow) encourages better running form.

Spoiler: show

Nice graphic.

I find that when I tire and lose concentration, I tip forward and my lower back tires quite badly, sometimes seizing up if I'm fairly out of shape.
In trying to combat this I'll almost lean back trying to keep more upright and feel my lower back curve too much, which also ends up hurting.

I've found that keeping the shoulders back and engaging my abs really keeps the form better, which in turn actually improves the feeling of my footfall even without concentrating on foot strike or stride length. Having the torso positioned well the allows the legs to spin more comfortably.
Point #1 covers that quite well.

newportblue wrote:

Nolanator wrote:

backrow wrote:

Nolanator wrote:No idea. My only experience with joint surgery is the usual pins, screws and ligament/tendon grafts. Don't know anyone who's done anything more exotic.

I know some Chick who had the whole arm replaced about 75 years ago and it didn't affect her ability to ride motorbikes or shoot people (she was in the Army). Hope this bit of info helps

I heard that she hijacked a Panzer and got some sick are driving over a ramp.

FW peruses this thread, don't trigger him.

losers

You clearly got the reference, fellow looser.

First training session today since 27th August as I have just been so busy with work and absolutely knackered. Between being busy and hardly having time to eat, I've lost about 3 kilos but I have plenty more to loose anyway.

Anyway, today was full body with an uppers emphasis. Squats 5*5 (still working up slowly), Log press, Pendlay row, Press ups, neutral grip Chins and band face pulls. The pump i got in my chest from three sets of press ups was disgusting.

Elbows have felt great the last week with no training but Squatting has annoyed them again (hence doing press ups instead of heavy pressing). Will see how they feel tomorrow

Where do you position your hands when you squat? Shoulder width on the bar or quite wide?
Might be worth playing around a bit and seeing if there's a position that you find more comfortable?

I also have to stretch my chest/shoulders lots before squatting so that I can actually open up enough to comfortably grab the bar and brace hard. Maybe to a few shoulder opening stretches before squatting? That should help take external rotation stress off the elbows.

Nolanator wrote:Where do you position your hands when you squat? Shoulder width on the bar or quite wide?
Might be worth playing around a bit and seeing if there's a position that you find more comfortable?

I also have to stretch my chest/shoulders lots before squatting so that I can actually open up enough to comfortably grab the bar and brace hard. Maybe to a few shoulder opening stretches before squatting? That should help take external rotation stress off the elbows.

Quite narrow. I'll have to play about with my grip as I had thought it was all the pressing that was annoying my elbows. I do a lot of band dislocates as part of my warm up and broomstick ones every now and again so am reasonably open.

Poxy phone/strava didn't record properly this morning. Arse.
Been meaning to get an arm holder for my phone when I'm running. Whatever about the discomfort of it banging around in my pocket while running, I'm sure that it'll accidentally close the app or something.

Get a bumbag. I had a small one that I used to put my house key and phone in when running.

Right, after a lacklustre August I am back on it. 9km on the water this morning!

Nolanator wrote:Poxy phone/strava didn't record properly this morning. Arse.
Been meaning to get an arm holder for my phone when I'm running. Whatever about the discomfort of it banging around in my pocket while running, I'm sure that it'll accidentally close the app or something.

fudge me. 22:56. Well pleased with that.
I did actually taper my training a bit this week to be fresher for Saturday. Was fairly gased by the end. Worth it.

14km in a single scull this morning

Was supposed to do 3 hours yesterday, about 25 minutes in my calf just seized up and decided to turn into a rock, spent a lot of time one the roller and what not so going to try and get in a couple of hours today.

Good session last night. I’m enjoying focusing on some different things at the moment and it’s nice my body doesn’t hurt all the time.

Last nights session

OHP
80x5 5 sets
Will probably move to 6x4 next week as the weight increases and these felt about as hard as I’d like to go.

2 count paused squats
147 x3 6 sets

Barbell row
115 x6 4 sets

Seated DB curls
4 sets

3 x 20 min (3 min rest) erg last night.

Avg split 2:06 min.......way off the pace

Did 6.5km of Z3 heart-rate training this morning, which ends up being 50% walking and 50% running. I upped my cadence as suggested on both the running sections and the walking sections.

I'm still unconvinced that this is really going make me fit, it just feels too easy. But I'm willing to keep going with it for another month or two and see what happens. It's burning calories, moving and making me sweat, so it can't be bad. And it's doing it without red-lining my system which I suppose is good too...

Mog The Almighty wrote:Did 6.5km of Z3 heart-rate training this morning, which ends up being 50% walking and 50% running. I upped my cadence as suggested on both the running sections and the walking sections.

I'm still unconvinced that this is really going make me fit, it just feels too easy. But I'm willing to keep going with it for another month or two and see what happens. It's burning calories, moving and making me sweat, so it can't be bad. And it's doing it without red-lining my system which I suppose is good too...

It’s totally depending on your goals isn’t it? If you want to be fit to play rugby, then it won’t be much good ( outside building a solid base to start from), if by fit you mean healthy CV system it’s the best way.

Like most things it’s a balance isn’t it? I think to be overall fit, healthy and athletic you need some LISS stuff, some interval/ HIT stuff and some resistance training. Whether you cycle through those in blocks or do a couple of days of each each week.

Work is starting to return to normality so got a full body session in today. A little bit stronger than last session and not really pushing myself.

Anyway, Squats 5*5, Log Press, Pendlay Rows, Hang High Pulls, Neutral Grip Pullups and some Dips.

Mog The Almighty wrote:Did 6.5km of Z3 heart-rate training this morning, which ends up being 50% walking and 50% running. I upped my cadence as suggested on both the running sections and the walking sections.

I'm still unconvinced that this is really going make me fit, it just feels too easy. But I'm willing to keep going with it for another month or two and see what happens. It's burning calories, moving and making me sweat, so it can't be bad. And it's doing it without red-lining my system which I suppose is good too...

I did a zone 2 run on Sunday and after the HR stabilisation phase, I was only walking on portions of hills and then only a few seconds enough to drop below the Z2 max. 13km took 1:35 which is very slow pace for me but thats expected. You can see my run on strava if you are interested to compare.

blindcider wrote:

Mog The Almighty wrote:Did 6.5km of Z3 heart-rate training this morning, which ends up being 50% walking and 50% running. I upped my cadence as suggested on both the running sections and the walking sections.

I'm still unconvinced that this is really going make me fit, it just feels too easy. But I'm willing to keep going with it for another month or two and see what happens. It's burning calories, moving and making me sweat, so it can't be bad. And it's doing it without red-lining my system which I suppose is good too...

I did a zone 2 run on Sunday and after the HR stabilisation phase, I was only walking on portions of hills and then only a few seconds enough to drop below the Z2 max. 13km took 1:35 which is very slow pace for me but thats expected. You can see my run on strava if you are interested to compare.

What are your zones? I guess everyone's different but it's really difficult for me because the "high cardio" (Zone 3) band is so small, according to my watch. It has a range of about 10bpm. So the process is getting it up to about 156, at which point I stop, and the "lag" takes it to 160, then I power-walk until it goes back down to about 154 and start running again, and the "lag" takes it down to 150 before starting to rise again, and then repeat. So it's playing with a very fiddly range of just a few bpm, and my heart rate goes quickly both up and down when I start and stop running. So it's a very jerky run/walk/run/walk experience.

I dunno if I'm doing it right, or if my heart rate just naturally rises and falls extraordinarily quickly, or the ranges are not set up correctly, or if this is just normal ... ?

Like I've posted before, I can do the whole route at a (for me) fast-ish pace of about 5:45 per km, but if I do that, I'm spending the majority of the run in zone 5 and my HR averages about 170 then.

Mog The Almighty wrote:

blindcider wrote:

Mog The Almighty wrote:Did 6.5km of Z3 heart-rate training this morning, which ends up being 50% walking and 50% running. I upped my cadence as suggested on both the running sections and the walking sections.

I'm still unconvinced that this is really going make me fit, it just feels too easy. But I'm willing to keep going with it for another month or two and see what happens. It's burning calories, moving and making me sweat, so it can't be bad. And it's doing it without red-lining my system which I suppose is good too...

I did a zone 2 run on Sunday and after the HR stabilisation phase, I was only walking on portions of hills and then only a few seconds enough to drop below the Z2 max. 13km took 1:35 which is very slow pace for me but thats expected. You can see my run on strava if you are interested to compare.

What are your zones? I guess everyone's different but it's really difficult for me because the "high cardio" (Zone 3) band is so small, according to my watch. It has a range of about 10bpm. So the process is getting it up to about 156, at which point I stop, and the "lag" takes it to 160, then I power-walk until it goes back down to about 154 and start running again, and the "lag" takes it down to 150 before starting to rise again, and then repeat. So it's playing with a very fiddly range of just a few bpm, and my heart rate goes quickly both up and down when I start and stop running. So it's a very jerky run/walk/run/walk experience.

I dunno if I'm doing it right, or if my heart rate just naturally rises and falls extraordinarily quickly, or the ranges are not set up correctly, or if this is just normal ... ?

Like I've posted before, I can do the whole route at a (for me) fast-ish pace of about 5:45 per km, but if I do that, I'm spending the majority of the run in zone 5 and my HR averages about 170 then.

Z2 is approx 112 to 130 (60-70% MHR) for me and Z3 would take that up to about 146 (80%)

blindcider wrote:

Mog The Almighty wrote:

blindcider wrote:

Mog The Almighty wrote:Did 6.5km of Z3 heart-rate training this morning, which ends up being 50% walking and 50% running. I upped my cadence as suggested on both the running sections and the walking sections.

I'm still unconvinced that this is really going make me fit, it just feels too easy. But I'm willing to keep going with it for another month or two and see what happens. It's burning calories, moving and making me sweat, so it can't be bad. And it's doing it without red-lining my system which I suppose is good too...

I did a zone 2 run on Sunday and after the HR stabilisation phase, I was only walking on portions of hills and then only a few seconds enough to drop below the Z2 max. 13km took 1:35 which is very slow pace for me but thats expected. You can see my run on strava if you are interested to compare.

What are your zones? I guess everyone's different but it's really difficult for me because the "high cardio" (Zone 3) band is so small, according to my watch. It has a range of about 10bpm. So the process is getting it up to about 156, at which point I stop, and the "lag" takes it to 160, then I power-walk until it goes back down to about 154 and start running again, and the "lag" takes it down to 150 before starting to rise again, and then repeat. So it's playing with a very fiddly range of just a few bpm, and my heart rate goes quickly both up and down when I start and stop running. So it's a very jerky run/walk/run/walk experience.

I dunno if I'm doing it right, or if my heart rate just naturally rises and falls extraordinarily quickly, or the ranges are not set up correctly, or if this is just normal ... ?

Like I've posted before, I can do the whole route at a (for me) fast-ish pace of about 5:45 per km, but if I do that, I'm spending the majority of the run in zone 5 and my HR averages about 170 then.

Z2 is approx 112 to 130 (60-70% MHR) for me and Z3 would take that up to about 146 (80%)

Geezus you must be super fit. My HR will regularly go into your Z2 just walking around. It would probably go out of your Z2 if I walk up a few flights of stairs!

Anyway I guess I'll just keep doing it for five or six weeks and see if much changes. If not then I might continue doing this zone training, but make it Z3 + Z4, in which case I'd have much more wiggle room and be actually running for much more of the activity.

I don't think mine is that weird or off, I suspect you are the anomaly here. I've checked my mate's HR's on Strava when they do fast runs (for them, which is faster than me, but they're also 10-15kg+ lighter and have been running longer), and when they do PR's over 5km, their HR is very similar to mine, averaging around 170 and maxing at about 190.

Mog The Almighty wrote:
Geezus you must be super fit. .

I um try and keep myself in reasonable shape

how accurate are those heart rate things, and the whole 220- your age thing ?

I can just get up to 190-200 bpm when I'm smashing the machines on a burst, and I'm a tad older than 20-30 years old !

my resting is 60-65 bpm

backrow wrote:how accurate are those heart rate things, and the whole 220- your age thing ?

I can just get up to 190-200 bpm when I'm smashing the machines on a burst, and I'm a tad older than 20-30 years old !

my resting is 60-65 bpm

The 220 thing is a very rough guide - You can consider it similar to BMI in terms of accurate for a generc person

Chest strap heart rate is pretty good, optical watch scans are still a bit of a developing tech but gtting better all the time.