I have been telling you about fitness center crowds, weight loss and exercise resolutions. This morning for my workout I went in earlier than normal and the parking lot was so full I had to drive around to find an empty spot at the outer parking area. It was packed, the ladies who swipe and check your card as you come in told me it was an unbelievable crowd for so early in the morning. Many people come in around 5:30 a.m. on work days and stay until around 7:00 then leave to get to their work. Currently, I normally get there around 6:30 and I would say by 7:15 a.m. 75% of the crowd is gone. This morning I had a really good workout and as I do most times felt very good afterwards. Usually when I get home I will check my blood pressure 105-115/55-65 is my normal after exercising. My daily exercise routine consist of the treadmill and 8 strength exercises. I don't know if you remember me telling you, but I dropped a couple of strength exercises a while back. One, the assisted chin pull up, I would like to try again but it was stressing my chest area and I can not risk doing it again. I would like to add a couple of new exercises. I gave Cindy an exercise book "101 Workouts For Women" which I use often. It is the same exercise fundamentals as for men, only reduced rep's and such for women. I mention this only to give you, who are just starting exercising, an idea. When I started I was a little hesitant, or reluctant to try new exercise machines for the first time. A book like this I use for the detailed instructions and pictures on how to use the strength machine and perform the exercise. What I like so much about her book is it is so more full of pictures and visual instructions than written. There are all sorts of similar men and women's fitness books out there that you could use to get yourself started. I want to add upper body exercises and have been going through her book this morning looking for ideas of what I may want to try.
I want to repeat something I have warned about several times. If you are a heart patient talk to your doctor who is familiar with your heart condition before you start any exercises or fitness program. I have been exercising for two years and did not start exercising before getting approval from my cardiologist. I then started exercising with very strict time and effort limits while slowly working myself up from there. For a while, I pretty much kept my cardiologist informed as I moved forward with exercising. If your cardiologist is like mine, he will encourage you to exercise, but with caution on your limits. My cardiologist told me my body would tell me what my limits were and I should stay within those.
I have thought the stairmaster would be good exercise for building your cardiovascular strength, but I am not sure it would be the right exercise for a heart patient. I wrote in an early blog post about my using a personal trainer when I first started exercising who worked with heart patients like myself. He would not let me use the stairmaster He didn't tell me I would never reach a point where I was strong enough to, just it was too intense a cardiovascular exercise for me. I think I could do it now on a limited basis, but I don't have that desire I had earlier to do it. I now enjoy too much doing upper body, posture, and abdomen exercises. I am not pushing myself into making too many changes to my workout routine. Plus, remember I am a compulsive routine freak, and I don't want to screw up my morning deal. Too many other things follow working out and if I get my schedule off, it would be like thumping over the first domino to follow one after another. The whole deal would topple over and I would really be goofed up.........
Oh, I had a letter to the editor published in the newspaper...It wasn't a complimentary opinion I gave. Neither Cindy or my daughters have seen it.....Yet.
I can't imagine why they get so nervous about me having, in the metro newspaper, some well written, and factual opinion correcting a misinformed population.
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