Week 6 Spin 1

[gary_bart]

Nearly forgot to log the new progress.

I got the intervals slightly wrong, and did 5 + 8 + 5, with 2 minute rests instead of 3 minutes. I should hope I can manage that, having already run for longer than that a few times. The first 5 minutes, I just clocked it up to level 7 of 20, which is enough to push my heart rate up to over 140 bpm. Then in the 8 minutes, I did the same for the first 4 minutes, but put a "hill" in the way after 4 minutes. I think I might have even eventually cranked the resistance up to 11 (and I find 9 hard going), but didn't spend more than 30 seconds on the heaviest setting. Gradually as the minutes clocked up, I kept setting it down (otherwise I would've had to stop for an ambulance). The final 5 minutes also had a "hill" in it, but this one was not as steep, and just had longer periods of grunting along at level 8. The last minute was all the way down to level 6, I think.

The thing is I'm surviving it, but I had to go back these few steps to accommodate the different muscles involved. Today I didn't need to stagger out, at risk of falling down if put off balance, so it's getting better.

To begin with, I thought I was doing a bit of overkill by going all the way back from the Week 7 timings to Week 5's for this, but it turned out to be necessary. The new muscles need to build first. With the difficulty I was having in standing up when done, I even thought of going back a bit more, but today that's no longer possibly needed.

For anyone thinking of including some spinning in their training (especially as your Winter approaches), one thing I've read is that you can't treat it like cycling. In cycling, you're meant to hit quite high cadences on at least the milder slopes, so you really do "spin"; however, if you literally spin your spinning cycle, you're just putting a lot of momentum into a flywheel, which starts to help out too much, and deprives you of exercise. Because of that, you're meant to rather adjust the resistance to increase your effort, and "spin" at a slightly lower cadence. I might later find out that this is rubbish, but for now, that's what I'm doing, and why.

[JennieHolden]

Omg I love love love spin I used to spin 4 times a week but I needed to mix things up a bit do I do 2 kettlebell classes and 2 spins now xxx

[gary_bart in reply to JennieHolden]

Well I'm glad someone loves it. That give me hope that I'll eventually feel the same about it. At the moment it's interesting enough, but still a bit like doing a recce in enemy territory (I exaggerate as usual). If I can use c25k to get myself up to 30 minute spins, I can start discovering what else there is in the "spin universe" from that point.

Have you heard this of "resistance vs cadence" issue? Or did you Just Do It?

[JennieHolden in reply to gary_bart]

I do a 45 min class using hills straights sprints the lot spin is my best sport x stick with it

[laurav33 Graduate]

Sounds like you're doing really well. I've never tried spinning. Good luck with it!

[gary_bart in reply to laurav33]

Thanks. It looks like the c25k programme translates quite directly across, so hopefully the longer spinning sessions will arrive in the next few weeks.

[Dunnja Graduate]

Glad it's going well for you. And the numbness???

Xx

[gary_bart in reply to Dunnja]

Thanks. It's improved a bit. If I sit too long, it'll still return, and a good night's sleep is also enough time to generate a fairly random patch of numbness by morning. I'm making myself stay submerged in the pool as long as I can, and I think that's helping a lot.

It tends to go together with a tight right hip, and today that has started to ease more, too. I suppose the pity of it all is that it also looks like not running is helping a lot.

Been reading a bit more about running barefoot, and it does look like it's something I could try. If you run with a heel strike in a shoe, you apparently have an impact of about 6 or more times body weight, whereas running barefoot only hits you with about 2 times body weight. Could be sufficient to make enough difference to allow very, very slow running. (And at least the "numb foot sensor device" will give quite rapid feedback if this turns out to be still too much). One counter-intuitive (but sensible) fact is that no study has shown any significant difference in injury rates on hard vs soft surfaces. To me, that makes something like a paved surface even preferable to say a lawn, then, because it's predictably flat. Part of why it makes sense is that for enough softness to truly cushion impact, you'd be running on springs, which would be really disturbing. Grass is more psychologically "soft" than effectively soft. Run on truly soft grass, and there's a twisted ankle in it for you.

If I keep mending, I'll start probing, basically.