Sore Muscles?

Ouch.

Image credit: euskalanato

On our cross country trip, we started off pretty well with our exercise plan: the "Semiconsistent Portable Exercise Workout." (Hey maybe we'll turn it into a lucrative workout video some day! "You too can SPEW, for only $19.99 plus shipping and handling! Call now! ). This plan consisted of doing calisthentics at rest stops, going for runs and walks, and buying day-passes at local gyms along the way.

But true to form, by the end of our trip we were seriously slacking. "Screw it, it's a pain, and we'll be home soon enough!" became our cheerful exercise slogan.

Helpful Coaching Tip: if you're considering crafting a motivational exercise slogan of your own, phrases such as "Just Do It!" "Yes, I Can!" or "I'll Be So Glad Afterwards!" tend to outperform "Screw It, It's a Pain."

Then we got back to Provincetown, and due to laziness and procrastination logistical issues, it took us another week or two to get signed up at the gym again.

So when I finally went for my first serious strength training workout in several weeks? I was sore! And not just a little sore. I was extremely, hilariously, can't-sit-down-on-the-toilet, it-hurts-to-brush-my-hair, "ow-ow-ow-ow-ow-ow" sore.

It was so awesome.

Being a fairly unambitious, non-perfectionist type, I don't often push myself hard enough, or mix up my routine enough, to get seriously sore. So when I do (even if it's just because I took a break and I'm not doing anything heroically difficult), it makes me feel smug and happy. I love feeling sore from a workout, even though I may express this love by moaning and groaning and whining about the pain.

But my bubble was burst when I read a post by the awesome, energetic Shelley at A Forty-Something Weight Loss Journey. She wondered if she was doing something wrong because she wasn't getting quite as sore after every workout as she used to now that she was in better shape.

And I thought, wait, are we supposed to be getting sore after every workout? That's just too much work, and too much soreness. It ain't gonna happen here in CrankyLand.

(I'm back! Did you notice I was gone? I just had an idea for a future blog post that would be the old board game CandyLand made up instead to be CrankyLand! Instead of cute candy canes and gingerbread houses there would be stalks of broccoli and piles of brown rice and tedious exercise machines and ice packs for your knees and it wouldn't be any fun to win, but at least if you won you'd be alive at the end and not dead of a heart attack like the losers! So I went off and googled to find a mock-up of the CandyLand board... but then, dang it, I remembered: Crabby you don't have a clue how to do photoediting! And so that pretty much killed off the CrankyLand idea and now here I am again. Did you miss me? )

Anyway, I suspect a lot of you hardcores DO work out intensely enough to get sore really frequently. But for a lot of us, it's more of an occasional occurrence, triggered by coming back after periods of slackitude or reading an article about some cool new exercise and trying it (and then abandoning it). Oh yeah, and yard work. But it's not, like, all the time that we're sore.

So are slackers like me missing the boat by not exercising to the point of Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness more often? Do you need to be sore to build muscles?

Well, after googling for a few minutes conducting extensive scholarly research and interviewing dozens of physiology experts, I'm still not sure.

That's because most articles about muscle soreness seem to be coming from a different place. Either:

1. Telling people how not to get sore in the first place;

2. Telling people how to feel less miserable if they do get sore; or,

3. Reassuring beginners that they are not going to die of sore muscles, so that said beginners don't abandon exercise entirely and become couch potatoes again.

But nowhere could I find a recommendation on how often we should be trying to get sore. Being a notorious slacker, I'm going to take this to mean we don't have to try! But anyone who actually knows something about the subject, please feel free to leave helpful information to the contrary in the comments.

So what did I learn about muscle soreness generally? Well, advice varied.

How to avoid Muscle Soreness:

1. Warm up before you exercise and cool down afterwards.

2. Don't try to go from slothful slug to Superhero in a few weeks. Big changes in your exercise routine lead to soreness.

3. Go easy on eccentric muscle contractions. (And no, they don't mean "eccentric" as bizarre and weird, although depending on where you work out you may want to go easy on those too). They mean movements like running downhill, lowering weights, doing negatives, and generally stressing the muscle while it's lengthening rather than when its contracting.

However, I'd say ignore tip #3 because then you couldn't do things like push-ups or squats or dips, and you'd be missing out on negatives, a strength training trick that helps many people break through plateaus. So you may want to do eccentric exercises anyway and just suck it up and get sore afterwards.

How to Make Sore Muscles Feel Better:

1. Ice

2. Compression

3. Ibuprofen

4. Some say gentle massage; others say, meh, doesn't really help.

5. Do some easy low-impact exercise

6. Drink coffee

and hell, I'd add: Enjoy a nice therapeutic glass of wine or a potent cocktail. You're muscles may still hurt but you won't really give a crap!

So do you guys get sore pretty often from working out? Like it or hate it? Any helpful home remedies?

Drink Up, You'll Need It.

This time, you can blame Vanilla at Half-Fast.

His first cartoon is here; the follow-up is here.

I seem to be powerless to control myself! Part II is better than the first effort, which is not saying much. Though it's a drab gray setting because I needed something with a computer screen. Oh, and I accidentally picked National Start Walking Day to diss walking. Good timing there, Crabby! Go read MizFit; she has an excellent post on why you should start walking today).



(The first episode is here, and is even more lame. (And this new one also appears here if for some reason the player doesn't work).


To Make Up for that Silliness, Now Some Serious Beverage-Related Health News

All good this time!

Alcohol: Though recent studies spoilsport studies like this one have suggested links between alcohol and certain forms of cancer, there is overall good news too. According to a study reported in the New York Times, "for people over 55, an alcoholic drink a day reduces death risk by 28%. But, "having one drink or less a week is no help at all." The geriatric study "included more than 12,000 people, followed them for four years and controlled for factors including sex, race, smoking, obesity, cancer, heart disease, recent heart attack, angina, physical function and socioeconomic status."

And Hot chocolate boosts brain power! Or it least it temporarily makes you more alert. Apparently researchers "asked 30 people to perform an array of math tests before and after having either a chocolate drink or non-chocolate drink... The people who drank the chocolate did better on one test that required repeatedly subtracting 3 from a number between 800 and 999."

Which comes up a lot! I can't TELL you how many times lately I've been asked to subtract the number 3 from a number between 800 and 999.

With only 30 people, and with only one of the "array" of tests apparently showing significant results, I'm not exactly blown away by this study. But hey, hot chocolate is tasty and has lots of antioxidants, so I think it's an awesome beverage.

(Weird aside: do you ever click on "related posts?" I have no idea how this hot chocolate post came up as a "related post" when I was reading about a freaky giant sea worm. Do sea worms drink hot chocolate?)

Coffee again proves it's awesomeness! You can read over at Blisstree (which seems to be the new incarnation of Healthbolt) about how coffee eases exercise-induced muscle pain. Or, you can remind yourself that coffee is a performance enhancer.

But the most cheerful update of all: coffee prevents cognitive decline, and helps ward off scary brain and nerve diseases like Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease.

Just don't waste your beverage-enhanced cognitive capabilites by futzing away an entire evening playing with cartoons!

Any thoughts on beverages or on wasting time on the internet playing with movies?

Top 10 Reasons Not To Exercise

By Merry Sunshine

10. They sell pants in size Bigger-than-you-think.

9. Who wants to live past age: fill-in-the-blank anyway?

8. Hey, you still have a few Battlestar Galactica episodes to catch up on!

7. You don't want your husband/wife/significant cat to see parts of you jiggle that were Not Intended To Jiggle.

6. Two words: plastic surgery.

5. Since the majority of the population is putting on weight even as we speak, you already look thinner by comparison. I mean, you don't want to look gaunt, do you?

4. One word: liposuction

3. All right, so maybe airline seats are getting narrower, but wouldn't you rather travel some other way besides flying?

2. Gyms are full of annoying people.

and the number one reason not to exercise is...

1. Oh, sorry, my vending-machine pizza is ready. Gotta go chomp. I'll finish this later.


I mean, c'mon. We live in a society that can deliver pizza within 90 seconds, but we don't have time to exercise?

Searching for "no time to exercise" brings up almost 15 million hits on Google. Something is wrong here. What is it?

The Cranky Fitness Resistance Challenge!

Image credit: fouro

Any normal health blogger writing about a "fitness challenge" would first propose a laudable fitness goal, break it down into small steps, and then urge everyone to join along and see how much we can all accomplish together!

But hey, this is Cranky Fitness. Those of you expecting a sincere, helpful, motivational pep-talk about Striving and Achieving and a nudge towards Doing your Utmost--where the heck did you wander in from? Maybe you were googling "big fat ass," "flat belly diet," or "fitness porn?" (Three of our most popular search terms--we're so proud!)

Anyway, you may have noticed that there are a lot of fitness challenges out there in blogland. They've got the "Couch to 10-K" and the "100 Push-Ups Challenge" and the "Nine Zillion Sit-Ups Challenge" and whatever. From what I can tell, these things work really well for most people. Fitness challenges may seem grueling at times, and not everyone finishes, but the majority of y'all seem to get pretty pumped about taking them on and quite pleased about succeeding. (Our own Merry Sunshine, for example, triumphed over the 100 Push Up Challenge. Hooray!)

However, I am not Merry Sunshine. I too saw lots of posts about 100 push ups, but this did not motivate me to do 100 push ups. A hundred is a big number.

No, this is not Crabby, but it's exactly how the prospect of 100 push-ups makes her feel.
Photo: raggle

Most importantly, rigorous physical fitness challenges are prohibited by my religion, Crankyism.

I admit, it's tough to be a devout Crankyist. Crankyism requires the ritual wearing of Slankets, the consumption of virtuous but unappealing vegetables balanced by the enjoyment of celebratory cupcakes, and frequent attendance at the Church of The Most Holy Gymnasium.

Wanna join my religion? Order now, operators are standing by!

Crankyism also has demanding rules of conduct. Too much slacking is a sin! On the other hand, there is a strict prohibition against partaking in activities that sound exceptionally unpleasant. And a hundred push-ups, or 200 sit-ups, or 26 miles of running all in a row, rather than sensibly spread out over a couple of weeks? That would violate my religious principles.

However, even a devout Crankyist is sometimes tempted by cool-sounding challenges. What to do?

For anyone thinking of abandoning their cheerful go-get-'em approach to physical fitness and taking up Crankyism instead, you may need some guidance in situations like this. So I'm proposing a different sort of challenge...

The Cranky Fitness Resistance Challenge! No, this kind of "resistance training" had nothing to do with building your muscles by lifting big-ass heavy things. It simply calls for you to resist taking part in the next fitness challenge that comes along.

I did it; you can too. Peer inside the brain of Crabby McSlacker (acck! it's weird in there!) and discover the exact process by which I was able to resist a recent Fitness Challenge Temptation myself.


The temptation: The 100 Burpee Challenge. (What is a burpee? See the video below).

The temptress: Hoop, who commented on Merry's water cooler post and led me to the evil, evil Burpee Challenge site. But what should I expect from a woman who plays rugby and throws people out of widows? (Or perhaps that's not what she meant by 'defenestration?') Anyway, she sounds way too fit and fierce for me to be taking exercise advice from.

Why The Challenge is So Tempting:

1. I can do burpees! I even did some on our recent cross-country trip, at rest stops, to the amusement of squabbling families and truckers on their lunch breaks. (Note: bring gardening gloves if you want to seriously try this.)

2. I watched this video demonstration which convinced me that if I could just do more, better burpees, then I too would be muscular, fit, attractive and 20 years younger. (And watch the whole thing if you want to know why I really got jealous. I want to be able to do that cool ring thing!)





3. The challenge starts off with just one Burpee, and works day by day up to 100. So I got the first week or two nailed already!

4. Maybe I could turn it into a Blog Thing and get a bunch of us doing Burpees together. And then you guys would tell all your friends, and then some famous actress would google "Burpee Challenge" and get mine instead of the real one, and she'd tell Oprah about it, and pretty soon Cranky Fitness would be famous too and well on it's way to World Domination!

Oh my goodness, this is really starting to sound tempting now! What to do?

Hmm.... I know that doing "negatives" is really helpful trick in breaking through other sorts of "resistance" plateaus, like when you're struggling with pull-ups... let's try that concept here and see if going negative will help!

Bring it On!

There must lots of reasons not to try to do 100 Burpees. Yep, now that I'm properly negatively motivated, they're coming fast and furious.

1. After the first 3 or so, I hate burpees! I kinda forgot that. Do I seriously think that burpee number 67, for example, is going to be more fun than burpee number 4?

2. I will probably give up and fail anyway! Even cool people sometimes do. For example Shauna, the Amazing Diet Girl, failed the 100 Push-Up Challenge. True, she had a good reason, which was because she was already doing a bunch of other things like weight training and kickboxing classes. As she explained: "We always do heaps of push ups at kickboxing and I hated looking pissweak in class because I'd fried my arms the night before doing the Hundred Push Up Challenge."

(Note to self: must start working the expression "pissweak" into conversations, it's a winner!)

3. I still haven't accomplished the last challenge I set for myself, almost a year ago, which was to complete one freakin' unassisted pull-up. (I did one chin up though... before I started slacking on the cross-country trip and I can't even do that anymore). Ironically, the thing that's got me stalled with the damn pull-ups, in addition to general laziness, is that I hate negatives, which seem to be critical. Too bad I seem to embrace all things negative except actual negatives!

4. The Burpee Challenge participants themselves are making a great case for staying way the hell away. I mean, sure, there are some who are cruising through all empowered and shit, but a lot of them are dropping out from serious injuries or abject misery. (One of my favorite posts on that site is a break up letter to Burpees, but alas its author Frankie is not a Crankyist and apparently perseveres anyway.)

5. The 100 day challenge is almost over! No way in hell I'm jumping in on day 95 or whatever and trying to make up for lost time.

Whew! I feel so invigorated now! Success!!!! I have no residual desire to start doing daily burpees.

How about you folks, do you like fitness challenges? Do they motivate you? Or are there any other Crankyists out there who won't go near 'em?

Find Your "Real" Real Age

Have you taken the "Real Age" test? It's that site where you sign up and answer a bunch of family history and lifestyle questions. Then the site figures your health risks and tells you how old you "really" are.

Twenty seven million people have taken it so far. And it's energetically pushed by Oprah's pal, Dr. Mehmet Oz.

But go read Charlotte's recent post over at the Great Fitness Experiment. Oh my goodness! Turns out the Real Age people are in bed with the supplement manufacturers and pharmaceutical companies. For example, Charlotte says that test penalizes people if they don't take Vitamin E supplements, which scientists have been telling us NOT to do for several years now. Oh, and guess what? The Real Age people sell your personal information to drug companies!

Yeeesh.

So since the "Real Age" test has been revealed as a marketing ploy, and is also a long-ass test that goes on forever (I never made it through), I thought we needed a shorter, "realer," Real Age test.

Note: if you take the Cranky Fitness Real Age Test, we promise we won't sell any of your information to drug companies!

So, would you like to know how old Cranky Fitness thinks you are?

Here's the deal: The official Real Age Test adjusts your current chronological age by all the factors it can find that might affect how long you're going to live--if you were a statistic and not a person.

The problem with that? You're a person! And you can eat right, stop smoking, floss your teeth, drink green tea, and do every damn thing you're supposed to and still get mowed down by a runaway Krispy Kreme truck as you're coming out of the gym from your Zumba class tomorrow.

So predicting life span is kind of a crapshoot.

On the other hand, statistics aren't totally useless. We know that certain behaviors are probably going to catch up with us eventually, otherwise, wouldn't we be eating a whole lot more ice cream and a whole lot less spinach? I know I would.

It's a dilemma: how to balance having a happy life with having a long one. This test, therefore, takes a totally different approach to discovering your "real age."

Note: feel free to pick more than one answer, or ignore questions that don't apply. It's a very flexible test!


The Cranky Fitness "Real" Real Age Test


1. When I go to the grocery store, I sometimes succumb to the temptation to:

a. Shoplift candy, because it's free that way!

b. "Ride" the full grocery cart back to the car when I'm done shopping, because it's fun! Even though I suppose if I lost control I could hit someone's car and have to pay to get it fixed, and boy, would I feel silly then.

c. Be a bit extravagant and buy some fresh exotic, expensive kind of organic produce I haven't tried before, even if it means I'll have to scrimp on other purchases.

d. Get snippy with that cashier who has the nose piercings--he's so slow and lazy, plus he mumbles so I can never hear what he's saying!


2. You visit an out-of-town friend, who drags you to a baseball game featuring two teams you don't give a crap about. (If you are a big Sports Fan, then just pretend there are teams you don't give a crap about). Despite your reluctance to go, you find you have a great time anyway because...


a. You drink 4 beers and cut in line for the bathroom (because you REALLY need to go), and get in a shoving match with some nutjob who has a problem waiting just two more freakin' minutes, but then when the ballpark security guard escorts you outside it turns out you he used to live in your hometown and you went to high school with him! So you both get stoned together after the game and catch up on old times.

b. The game is a close one; all the sights, sounds, smells are exhilarating; the hot dog and ice cream you buy as a treat really hit the spot; and the excitement in the stands is contagious!

c. A knowledegable fan explains some of the subtle intricacies of the game to you that you hadn't appreciated before; plus you discover they have some new specialty food stands with much healthier options than normal ball-park fare.

d. At a baseball game, turns out you can just sit and relax for hours and hours and vendors will come bring you food so you don't have to get up and get your own like you do at home!


3. My LEAST favorite thing about going to the beach is:

a. Sometimes those dumb warnings about riptides and dangerous conditions turn out to be true; I hate getting rescued by the life guards all the time! I probably really should learn how to swim some day. But whatever.

b. The only thing I hate is having to go home when the day is done!

c. Needing reapply SPF 90 sunscreen every hour, or every time I go swimming, or start to sweat. As much as I love the sunshine and sparkling water and fresh air, I really don't want skin cancer.

d. The people! The kids are brats; the men are drunk and rowdy; and the women barely have anything on and clearly have no shame.


4. You're a guest at a wedding and it turns out there's a live band and dancing at the reception. You came by yourself and only know the bride; you're basically faced with a room full of strangers. However, the dance floor is packed, people are having fun, and a friendly but unattractive person next to you says "Oh, I love this song! Um, any chance you wanna dance?" As it turns out, you love this song too! What do you do next?

a. Say "Sorry." Then go find a more attractive person to dance with, quickly, because you don't want to miss your favorite song!

b. Put aside some momentary shyness, say, "Sure!" and then have a blast dancing and meeting new people the rest of the evening.

c. Assess the condition of your knees, back, hips, and shoulders, the slipperiness of the floor, the amount of alcohol you've consumed, and the relative risk of injury versus the social awkwardness of declining. They say either "Yes, I'd love to!" or "Oh, I'm so sorry, but my doctor would kill me if I threw out my back again. Thank you SO much for asking, I sure wish I could join you!" Then enjoy the great music and the evening anyway, even if you can't do it from the dance floor.

d. Who would ever ask ME to dance? That's crazy talk. And even if it did happen, I'd feel too foolish out on the dance floor. Just because everyone else is willing to make an ass of themselves doesn't mean I have to too.


5. If somehow you won a trip to Paris for a week, with airfare and hotel totally paid for, what would you do?

a. Charge my credit cards to the limit buying cool Parisian designer clothes and accessories that will impress all my friends; eat all the fancy French pastry I could hold; spend the evenings drinking in night clubs trying to score with sexy locals; and, hey, don't they have a Disneyland too? I bet I could sneak in, those French folks are probably way lax on security.

b. Wow, Paris??? I'd love to try some of the great restaurants, see the sights, maybe rent a scooter and check out the happening neighborhoods, and just soak up every new experience I can!

c. Well, depending on my budget and the exchange rate, I'd love to sample the gourmet food (especially if I can find some healthier restaurants, and of course there are the local produce markets!) And it would lovely to see some of the world-famous museums, do some window-shopping, and get plenty of exercise by walking around town and admiring the architecture and the ambiance. Do they have gyms there?

d. Paris? Why would anyone want to go to Paris! I've heard it's hard to find a decent hamburger and it's dirty and the people are rude and they all like to pretend they don't speak English just to be snotty. They've got a perfectly good "Paris" in Las Vegas, for goodness sake, with all-you-can-eat-buffets. Why can't they send me there instead of France?


Scoring:

Mostly A's?-- You are a Child! And not in a Good way.

(Note: it is unlikely any regular reader of Cranky Fitness fits this category, but you may know folks like this).

Childhood is great for actual children! But those who spend their adulthood without benefit of impulse control, appreciation of consequences, or respect for others are a pain to be around. They also tend to do enough dumb things so they are unlikely to live to a happy (chronologically) old age.

Recommendations for Children: Consider being nicer to people! Also, you might want to familiarize yourself with principles of "cause" and "effect." A real eye-opener.

Mostly B's?-- You are a Youthful Adult.

No matter what your age, you embody the positive features we associate with youth as well as the common sense that comes with adulthood. You are flexible and open-minded and you appreciate new experiences, while tempering your adventures with empathy for others and a reasonable appreciation of consequences.

Recommendations for Youthful Adults: Keep loving life! As you get "older," you may want to incorporate additional efforts to ensure longevity into your daily routine. (If you also liked some "C" answers, you're probably already doing so). You don't want to miss out on any extra fun years you might have coming to you. So gradually incorporate more healthy habits as you learn about them, but don't make yourself miserable trying to do everything right.

Mostly C's?--You are a Mature Adult

This is great too! You have a more subtle, cerebral, quieter, but no less intense appreciation of life than more youthful, exhuberant types. You are careful with others' feelings and mindful of consequences. Though cautious about your health and finances, you try to balance concerns about the future with enjoyment of the present.

Recommendations for Mature Adults: Keep an eye out that your cautious tendencies don't get out of control and keep you from enjoying the moment. It's a slippery slope from "careful" to "stick-in-the-mud." (An expression which all of a sudden sounds really weird. What stick? What mud? Are we supposed to want that stick, but we can't get it because it's stuck in the mud? Why blame the stick? Or are we blaming the mud? And why do we even want a stupid muddy stick in the first place?)

Anyway. If you were wavering between C's and B's, then you probably get the idea. We need to balance enjoying life now with ensuring we get a lot more years of it in the future.


Mostly D's? You are a Crotchety Old Fart.

Again, not a typical Cranky Fitness reader, although I can see why the "Cranky" aspect might appeal.

No matter what their actual age, folks who are "D's" embody the worst stereotypes of aging. (Most actual old people are not Crotchety Old Farts.)

Crotchety Old Farts are impatient, judgmental, overly concerned with appearances, reluctant to try new things, and like nothing better than to sit on their butts and say mean things about other people. Note: despite my Crabby nature, I am not actually a C.O.F.--or at least I don't think I am!

Recommendation for Crotchety Old Farts: Stop complaining so much and go out and have some fun!

So did anyone make it all the way to the end of the Cranky Fitness "Real" Real Age Test? At least it wasn't 150 questions! If so, thanks for playing, and how did you do? Know any Children or Old Farts?