Category: Sports

What sucks the most

What sucks the most when you have a cold is: you can’t go to the gym!
Argh, I haven’t been in a week (I only have a running nose but still, the beginning of the week I didn’t feel really all that good) and I feel fatter already. October was a bad month, I was gone a lot and “sick” a lot. I hope hope hope that November will be a better month, but I think it will be 🙂

Fitness Check #1

August_2013Yesterday I had my first fitness-check, which means:

  1. resting ECG (Cardio Scan)
  2. body fat measuring
  3. BMI measuring
  4. biking until a heart rate of 140

It all took about one hour. Here my results

  1. resting ECG

    Not that good, I have a little cold and you notice. My heart beat was at 80, which is quite high. I remember measuring my heart beat a few weeks ago at work and I had 60. My fit level with that rate was at 2, with 1 being the lowest and 10 being the highest. Yikes! My trainer said it has to do with less sleep (check), stress (a little), being sick (having a cold – check)

  2. body fat measuring
    Body fat: 16,8% I was quite surprised. I let my boyfriend measure with a Skinfold Caliper and my result there was 23%. At the gym they measured with a Near-infrared interactance. No idea what is the safest way to measure body fat…

  3. BMI measuring
    18,7

  4. biking until a heart rate of 140
    I was in the area between “very good” and “very very good”. I warmed up five minutes, then had to bike at the same speed for one or two minutes with increasing inclination until I reached a heart rate of 140. Then cool down and my trainer wrote down my heart rate after one minute, after three and after five. Then some calculations followed and my result was 2.6 (whatever unit).

I’m happy with my results, the next check will be in three months.

Worst.Thing.Ever

Tuesdays I have one hour of TRX.

It already happened to me once that I go to TRX and noticed – damn, I forgot to shave my armpits!!
It’s not like I have a big bush, but I tend to let it grow a bit before I shave because my skin is way too sensitive there and I will bleed and get pimples and be all red if I shave every day.

So anyway, today was one of those days. I wanted to shave yesterday evening after my shower and forgot. Today at work I remembered.

I then went down to the store which is in the same building as my work and bought a couple of razors. I then, in the first time of history, shaved my armpits in the womens bathroom (sssht, don’t tell). I felt so much better after, there’s nothing more embarrassing than making a workout with a trainer and having armpit-hair!

Now I have about five razors at work.

HIIT on the Treadmill

hiit_treadmill
My heart rate during HIIT

How I do it

  • 5-minute warmup at around 8 or 9km/h (5 or 5.6mp/h)
  • 30 second sprint between 15 and 16 km/h (9.3 and 9.9mph). I usually start at 16 km/h and go down each sprint.
  • 30 second pause (I let the treadmill go fast while I lift my body up with my arms and spread my legs to each side of the treadmill)
  • all in all 10 times sprinting
  • after 14 minutes 30 seconds the cooldown begins
  • 5 minutes 30 seconds cooldown at 9 to 7km/h (5.6 to 4.4mp/h)

I do 30/30 sec. because it’s easy to monitor, you sprint/pause at either a half or a full minute.

Why I prefer HIIT on the treadmill

  • you sweat, a lot!
  • after every sprint you are so looking forward to the next 30 second pause
  • the 20 minutes go by fast
  • it’s short
  • it’s not as boring as running a constant speed all the time (running on a treadmill is sooo boring)
  • it’s exhausting
  • it’s a short effective training
  • I love the sweat!
  • I love being out of breath!

I always monitor my pulse which goes down to around 85% – 88% of my max. heart rate after each sprint. My top rate is between 95% and 99% for a few seconds. If I make a pause of one minute my heart rate goes down to about 70%.
When I go jogging outside I sometimes do some sprints, sometimes not.

Slimmed it down

I’d like to buy a GPS watch for biking and jogging. I think I had about ten different ones on my amazon wish list and always read the reviews and also googled a lot of reviews. You go nuts – it’s just like with little digital cameras, there are so many you go nuts reading all the reviews and deciding.

I slimmed my choice down to four, the Garmin Forerunner 210, 310XT, 410 and 610.

© Garmin Forerunner
© Garmin

So, today I went to a store named “Runners Point” to look at all those watches.

They didn’t have the 410, it sounded like the 610 was the newer version. I liked the 210 and 610 on my wrist, my favorit from the looks was the 210.

I decided I probably don’t need all the functions the 310XT has, also it’s huge, it’s like having a computer on your wrist (which, actually, I wouldn’t mind – I thought it was bigger when looking at it online but it did fit quite well).

So, I was looking at the 210 and 610. The watch should track my route, should tell me how fast I am, measure my heart rate and a thing which would be really nice – to measure the altitude difference. That the 610 can do, the 210 not.

So, sometime in the future I’m going to buy the Garmin Forerunner 610 with its touchscreen and hope I like it 🙂

Oh – my Hamartoma is gone!!! So so happy! The doctor just couldn’t find it. I stopped taking the Nuvaring in March which might be a reason for its disappearance but who knows…

[EDIT]Friday: Bought the Forerunner 610. We shall see 😀[/EDIT]

Gym Wear

When you join the gym you need to invest in some gym clothes in which you’ll feel comfortable in. When I joined (exactly three months ago) I put on my clothes I’ve been wearing for years (long sweat pants, some top) and knew right away, I don’t feel good in those. So, the first thing I did is go to my local sports store and get some new pants.

Pants

I wanted tight pants which go just over your knee. For girls it’s ok to wear pants like that, for men… maybe not so much.
I grabbed 15 pairs of pants from a lot of diffferent companies and one pair fit. So you need to bring patience and time to the store. The Puma pants were my first, then I decided I need more!
Gym Pants

  1. Summer Gym Pants
    It’s hot in the summer, well, it can be hot. Make sure you own more than one pair, you’ll need more if you go to the gym regularly. And if it’s super hot, buy and wear shorts. Be sure to buy shorts with “built-in-panties” or, if you don’t have shorts with “built-in-panties”, be sure to buy some hot-pants to wear underneath. Nobody wants to see your private parts when you lie on your back and stretch your legs apart (I’m talking out of experience here! Did that mistake once and never again 🙂 ).
  2. Winter Gym Pants
    Buy those if needed. It’s always good to have one long pair. I don’t sweat too much when I’m lifting weights, so that’s where I would wear the long pants if it’s cold outside.

Tops

I used to wear a regular t-shirt and my regular bra to the gym in the beginning which turned out not be a great idea. I don’t like tops with sleeves at the gym and you could see too much boob with my regular bra. I remember, my last gym wouldn’t allow sleeveless tops, so be careful with that. Anyway, I’m a fan or tank-tops – colorful tops!
gym tops
I prefer tight and longer tops, so Under Armour is the best company for me. I also have two tops which are a bit wider around the belly, I wear those in the winter 🙂

Sport Bras

Pretty much the same scenario with the bras like with the pants and tops – you need to try on a lot before you know which one is right for you.
For me, the model “12-year-old-girl-whos-just-groing-boobs” seemed best for me 🙂 I actually wanted black but neon was the only color available.
gymwear bra adidas
At first I looked for tops with a built-in bra but I didn’t really like them (too short, too big, too small, too ugly) so the option sport-bra and normal sport-top seemed the better and easier (and also cheaper) one.

The shoes

Honestly, I didn’t need new shoes, I have enough Chucks and Asics and Adidas I could have worn. I also own a pair of Nike running shoes which I bought around six years ago. I still wear the Nike to go jogging through the woods, so, when it’s wet outside you can imagine what they look like. And I’m too lazy to clean them, so there, my excuse to buy new shoes just for the gym. I actually bought shoes I liked – I didn’t look at the model (if they are for running or training or cross or whatsoever), I just browsed the internet for shoes I liked. And voila!
gymwear shoes under armour
I really like them, they are comfortable and stable (they are running shoes) and I’m happy with them. I only wear them at the gym so I don’t have to clean them before I put them on. Don’t forget to buy a couple of short socks to go with them – wearing normal socks you’d wear to work etc. doesn’t look good.

What’s in my Gym Bag

Other than the membership card my gym-bag (I just use a backpack) contains
gym bag
The most important thing in my gym bag is probably the drinking bottle, followed by the gym towel. My pulse watch I normally only wear when I do cardio, I bought it for jogging because there’s where I need it. At the gym I mainly use it to see how many calories I’ve lost. Now I also always take my shower stuff with me. I bought some little bottles of shampoo and lotion and cream. I didn’t shower at the gym at the beginning but after you experience an hour of cardio training at 30+ degrees Celsius outside, where you’re not able to stop sweating, there’s nothing better than to jump into the shower right after. It’s not a nice feeling to put on your normal clothes when you’re dripping of sweat all over.

Now I’m addicted on buying gym clothing. My wishlist contains a new pair of running shoes (because they’re so pretty), more Under Armour tops and a GPS watch. I didn’t buy all the clothing at once. At first I thought it’s enough to own one pair of short pants and only one bra and maybe two tops. But, especially now in the hot summer, you’re really grateful if you don’t have to wash your clothes all the time.

Eccentric Training

Or, negative training, started for me yesterday.
Schatzi Negative Training
It’s good, it’s different, I first need to get used to it but I’ll be doing it for the next couple of weeks.

So, this week was full of nice events.

  • On Monday I went to Body Pump, used the weights I used before my vacation four weeks ago to find out it’s almost impossible for me to keep up. But it all worked out, I just didn’t do as many repetitions. I drove 35km to work and home because the weather was lovely.
  • On Tuesday I went to work by bike as well and when I wanted to ride home again I found my bike with a big fat flat tire. Boo. So I went home by train and fixed up my old mountainbike (which I have as a backup). Luckily I just had to pump the tires with air, no flat tire or something similar. In the evening the BF and me went to a beergarden to enjoy the evening with beer and good food.
  • On Wednesday I drove to work with my Raleigh. It’s such a heavy small bike and the saddle is terrible but yet my speed was faster and I got to work within 55 minutes (for 18km). I went to the gym after to do two rounds in the strength circuit.
  • Thursday was luxury – I took the car to work seing I wanted to bring a plant. Had lunch at Subway and did absolutely nothing that day. Well, I went for a three minute bike-ride to our local grocery store to get some Ben & Jerrys, but that’s it.
  • Friday was a rainy day and luckily the temperature cooled everything. Made three rounds of the eccentric training and had one hour of Bodystyling with barbells. We had dinner at a “Turkish restaurant”, meaning doner kebab and french fries. Oh yummy!

Let’s see what the weekend brings.

Days full of food

There are days, I don’t know what’s wrong, where I could just eat and eat and eat. I have a craving half an hour after I ate a bowl of cereal or after I couldn’t resist that candy bar. At the moment I could really eat like a pig. And no, I’m not pregnant. I did a lot of sport this week so I hope it’s just my muscles – wanting MORE!

Today after I had cereal for breakfast, a sports granola bar, a Subway Sandwich for Lunch (Chicken Fajita Day, Honey Mustard sauce, wheat bread) a salad with bread for dinner, I was craving more. So I grabbed my wallet and went to the grocery store which is like 2 minutes away and bought… Ben & Jerry’s – Half Baked. I ate about half of it. Shocking.

I have those days, they come about once a month for 7+ days (yeah, mostly before I get my period), I just feel that I should give my body (and brain) what it really wants 😉 I hope I’m not the only one (who has cravings like this).

I also bought two new Under Armour tops – hot pink and black. I’m also craving colorful Nike running shoes, either in yellow or pink 🙂