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I can't do a pushup
 

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dfcas
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 2815
Location: hillbilly heaven

7/3/20 6:56 PM

I can't do a pushup

So after my last ride a few days ago that was about 2 1/2 hours long I noticed afterwards that my triceps were sore. I got the bright idea today to do some pushups.

I decided to do a few from my knees to warm up and hopefully not pull or tear anything. When I switched to do some from my toes it was as if my upper body weighed 1000 pounds. I didn't get my arms extended and I realized I don't have the strength to do a real pushup.

I can't remember the last time I did any upper body strength conditioning and old age certainly doesn't help. I'm 67, soon to be 68. Weigh 215. Theres the problem.

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Brian Nystrom
Joined: 26 Jan 2004
Posts: 5096
Location: Nashua, NH

7/4/20 8:52 AM

Yeah, I just started doing some upper body work again about a week ago. While I haven't gained any weight during the "lockdown", my body composition has definitely changed to less muscle and more fat. I'm pretty disgusted with myself. We'll be doing an MTB ride this afternon and that's always a good upper-body workout.

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dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6884
Location: Maine

7/4/20 10:20 AM

I can do push-ups

But I’m not saying how many. Enough to use the plural, that’s all you need to know.

Aside from general weakness, my shoulders don’t like them much either.

Dan, planks are easier, rest on your forearms. Don’t do anything for arms probably, but they kind of feel like pushups from the body posture.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

7/4/20 1:11 PM

I can do 8-10, it hurts my right shoulder too much. I suspect the future will tell me why, not symptomatic otherwise. My wrists are not too happy about it either..

I suspect a lot of my joints from being in construction 70-80 hours a week for 2.5 decades have above average wear...

Flat out afraid what would happen if I stop moving and attempting cycling and mowing, roofing, MG work, etc etc. Probably just lock up like medusa looked into my eyes...

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Nick Payne
Joined: 10 Jan 2004
Posts: 2625
Location: Canberra, Australia

7/5/20 12:36 AM

I'm also 67, but as well as having been a lifelong cyclist, I've also been weight training for about 50 years. So although I can notice that my strength has definitely decreased with ageing, it's decreasing off a higher level, and, according to various studies, probably also decreasing more slowly.

The older you get, the more beneficial resistance training is. See, for example, https://www.unm.edu/~lkravitz/Article%20folder/ageresistUNM.html or https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3117172/ .

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rickhardy
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 1492
Location: Needham outside of Boston - the hub of the universe

7/5/20 12:00 PM

Old quote

some time ago I read a description of pro cyclists:
"legs like gorillas, arms like ballerinas"

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

7/5/20 1:39 PM

If all might recall, After LA survived the Big 'C' his previously developed upper body and about 20 lb was not re-acquired. One example of this I suppose.

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KerryIrons
Joined: 12 Jan 2004
Posts: 3234
Location: Midland, MI

7/5/20 1:54 PM

Usage

It's a clear case of "use it or lose it." Several years ago I incorporated a series of "floor exercise" and yoga into my winter roller rides. This includes pushups, planks, crunches, etc. When I get on the rollers at the start of the "winter season" I can tell that I've lost strength for all those exercises. And it's not like I'm inactive during the outdoor riding season with various projects around the house, but I definitely lose some of that strength every summer and have to work to get it back every winter. Hopefully I'll always be able to do that, but someday . . . :(

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

7/5/20 2:29 PM

I think I do OK for core and upper body overall. I stand a lot on the bike, and still do hefty work round the property. Solo re-[metal/26ga.]roofed the 850 SF shop late last year, extended rear of shop. Got a 300lb+ 10" rear barn slider going on when I get to it.

Used my cement mixer quite a bit for a few tasks. Used up most of 2 pallets of 80 lb mix. Those 80 lbers i don't dead lift, a few years ago maybe. I am slacking trying to keep my small hernia from becoming not small...

Cleared 5k SF of trees/briar, lots of chainsaw clearing and burn piles, Bobcat for the briar and grading.

The new Lawn mower is a bear and clearly getting it done faster than the 21" mower is a greater core workout. The turning of it anyway...

I have quit being so willing to do stuff higher than 10-12 feet, or too steep roofs shit etc etc.

>Mainly because I think about it more, especially after:

My Brother in TX fell putting an antenna on his RV roof at the storage place. Huge 5th wheel monster.

He got his self up off the ground, collected himself and went home. 5 hours later: 911, Ambulance, ER, ICU 3 weeks.

Turns out when they replayed the storage video he was on the ground out for over an hour and had no concept. That makes me think a lot more of getting too cocky. He has minor, but permanent cognitive damage not likely to revert.

What a world. ;)

Stay safe...

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dan emery
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 6884
Location: Maine

7/5/20 2:42 PM

Getting cocky

Sorry to hear about your brother, that’s awful.

I don’t do that much physical stuff, but I had a project a couple days ago that may have been pushing my personal envelope. I have a tree that’s fallen on top of my garage/barn, and I have a guy to take it off, but still about a month out (tree guys here are out straight). It collapsed a bit so some branches lowered so they could strafe my and a neighbor’s car. I even got some branches in the face on my bike.

So I got up on a ladder and took some branches off with the chainsaw. Thinking ladder and chainsaw not a great combination. But it went fine. I left some of the higher branches up there. On the roof with a chainsaw-NOT.

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dddd
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 3345
Location: NorCal

7/6/20 9:08 AM

I used to dread having to use the circular saw along dry-rotted siding edges while up on a ladder, me seemingly just not big enough to control the thing (and my balance) when it hit the inevitable nail in the framing. I never fell, lived to tell, and now not doing that any more.

After my polymyalgia/bursitis episode of recent years, it took some time to rebuild, and my efforts got focused on pull-ups.
Using a stool (initially, now just for warm-up) to have legs assisting my efforts, what started very slowly hit stride up to the 10+ reps level (then becomes very difficult above 12 reps, almost like my heart/BP literally isn't in to it).
I used to do 20 during my later HS years, WTH I'm only ~60.

Recent reading informs me that "use it or lose it" can apply within even very short periods of muscle non-use leading to quantitatively severe levels of muscle atrophy.
But even very light use of the muscles (as generated by electrical artificial stimulus) can greatly slow this loss.
Comatose patients in particular can wither quickly without such electrical stimulation.

Going against conventional weight lifting advice, I find that the body weight-controlled "floor"/bar exercises such as pull-ups and push-ups can be done every day, which seems to work best at least on days (and at time of day) when I sort of feel like it. The metabolic benefits of such frequent weight-bearing exercise in particular improves my enthusiasm for such effort.
If I strongly don't feel like it, I wait until the second day.

I should also mention that the permanent/stable ten pound weight loss that the auto-immune/inflammatory Polymyalgia (PMR) episode imposed has completely changed my body's inflammatory response as compared to my pre-PMR self. The seeming "age-related" aches, pains (and the muscular soreness in response to heavy exercise) having near-vanished. Almost a net blessing although PMR was no fun at all and was costly. I thus feel younger than before (eight years ago) though my power on the bike is seemingly down a good bit.

For anyone who goes up on a roof, the trick I found is to use the softest-soled shoes you can find. Otherwise, the sand breaks free of the shingles in sudden large-scale fashion and you find yourself on a ball-bearing track downward (fixing an antenna, I once had to chase my feet down a steep roof to where I managed to catch my shoe on the gutter's edge).

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

7/6/20 9:54 AM

Yeah, old shingle that asphalt comes off, sits loose. Best to go up after a good hard rain.

Lucky our house, ranch is low.The pitch is 5/12, pretty safe for ole farts. The steel roof on the shop is mostly flatter, near flat on the back 600SF. ;) Well 750 with the extension I added.

I found out the farm/ranch behind us is replacing the fence and putting a gravel access around the perimeter. This means they will have to take out the rest of the briar to get to where it is. Yeah!!

My neighbor cleared out behind their yard [see what I started] and helped themselves to a few hundred SF of the farms land. Thinking this would get unnoticed?? The fence line over there was a little ambiguous granted, less briar. yada

Folks and land are funny, I subscribe to the survey method personally...

Actually got in a fight in TN when my neighbor put a new chain link in. He was slowly mowing onto my property in the way back. He expected me to just let him put the fence to where he was mowing more and more for 3 years or so. I'd have stopped him before 7 years. ;)

I told him survey and put the fence to code to the property line. I am selling and don't need that problem with my sale... Bigger lots can be bigger problems with boundary ambiguity, all fun stuff.

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

7/6/20 10:14 AM

While we got old fart dialogs rolling here, RFI regarding the musical chair operation that is seeing, glasses, reading, etc

What are other farts methods. And for me this is complicated with frequent contact wearing.

What I have to do to read [look at PC etc] is 180^ of the on/off musical glasses routine if I have the contacts in or out. I am sure it would be comical if it did not suck so much...

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dddd
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 3345
Location: NorCal

7/6/20 3:25 PM

Radial keratotomy?

I liked the Rudy Project Definition flip-up prescription glasses, meant that I didn't have to take them off as often.
I set them down some five or six years ago at a church flea market, someone came by, bought them probably for $2 then disappeared.

Those lasted over 20 years, including dozens of bike races. Almost every part had been replaced a couple of times.
Reminds me that I could build another pair from my spare parts and no kidding.

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dddd
Joined: 11 Jan 2004
Posts: 3345
Location: NorCal

7/6/20 3:42 PM

The neighbors here are cool, their dog fence actually made my yard look bigger, but on the other side of my house the gardeners encroached onto my sole steep walking path to the back yard. They trenched into the erosion-susceptible earth just to bury some plastic irrigation tubing so I had to write a detailed sign en Espanol to clarify numerous violations (and rules that all began with "no").
My neighbor is a lawyer and I still wonder if they perhaps ever translated my blunt proclamations. Kind of hoping at this point that he didn't actually ever see it. :-)
Good neighbors around here, I keep the large shared easement mowed (it had never been mowed before, kinda rough!) and folks come down to hand me unrequested stacks of cash from time to time. Gotta remove the ground fuel these days and it's great whole-body exercise (using battery mowers that produce no fumes and little dust).

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Sparky
Joined: 08 Dec 2003
Posts: 19068
Location: PDX

7/6/20 5:34 PM

Our neighbors are the best we've lived among yet.

I even have re-established a civil discourse with particularly unreasonable gal that liked the feud. Once another new neighbor moved in and we both have got friendly with them, her behavior changed. My wife still does not trust her. ;) There is always one, right? I am her 'the one' I guess. ;)

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