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Bringing It Back Inside
Dec. 5th, 2013 12:24 pmAfter more than two months' absence from the outdoor track at Henninger High School, and after noticing a parallel decline in aerobic capacity during my sporadically-maintained resistance and stretching routine, I've decided to bring it all indoors for the winter. Meaning that I'll once again be cranking up the still-serviceable, digitally-controlled treadmill that's been languishing in the basement for most of the 15 years since we bought it to help rehab Her Nurseliness's injured heart muscle. I guess she figures that the digital controls are the important part and, since they also have those on the electronic slots at the casino, she'll work out on those while I do the curls and crunches and fitness walks here at home.
Anyway, aside from the boredom factor, which is admittedly monumental, the treadmill offers some significant advantages. Not the least of which is the ability to very precisely control and monitor the effects of your workout. I do understand that the fully geared-up fitness fanatic can probably bring the same level of electronic monitoring to the outdoor track. And, if the $600 digital bracelet isn't quite enough, there's probably an NSA drone flying out of Hancock Airbase that'll capture the rest in stunning High Definition.
But given the sad reality that it's taken me 6 months to reliably send and receive text messages on my Android cell phone, and that I still periodically threaten to skip the damned thing across that ubiquitous digital lake that we're all drowning in, I'm not about to strap another potential high-tech nemesis to my wrist. Besides, no matter how sophisticated, there's not a personal fitness monitor in the world that can induce a 5-degree incline in an outdoor track for the purpose of increased aerobic benefit.
However, the treadmill's most important feature is that it instantly negates all the bullspit excuses I've found over the past two months to not walk or drive over to the high school track. It's right downstairs, I don't have to add layers of technical fabric against the bone-chilling cold of a Central New York winter, and I don't have to worry about taking a fall on the soon-to-be-icy outdoor track or the equally chilling prospect of becoming the hapless trophy of some junior thug wannabe out on his first "polar bear hunting" expedition. (That's urban-speak for a black kid who chooses an elderly white male victim for a game of "one-punch knockout." Nice world we live in, right? And don't even accuse me of racism - it's been happening here, with one recent victim dead and another seriously injured.)
Anyway, the equipment is there, it has a simple "start now" switch, helpfully color-coded green, and "up" and "down" buttons for speed and incline. Plus, all the info I could possibly need continuously cycling across the LED readout over the course of the workout. There's speed in miles per hour, incline in degrees, calories burned, elapsed time, distance travelled, etc., etc. Plus there are two smaller LED windows where you can manually cycle through many of those previously mentioned or simply leave up the two most relevant to your type of workout.
Which brings me to an interesting difference in the indoor and outdoor routines. On the track, I was doing a set distance at whatever pace I could tolerate, in whatever time it happened to take. On the treadmill, I'm doing 20 minutes per session which is the amount of time I've heard is optimal for daily aerobic training. In between a 3 minute warmup and a 3 minute cooldown, I'm doing 14 minutes of walking at 3.5 MPH.
That's to get me started. In reality, I need to be doing 20 minutes daily at my target heart rate which is based on age, weight, gender, etc. And I will eventually get to that through progressive adjustments to speed, incline, and elapsed time. It'll actually be quite easy to do that because one of the really cool features, which helped sell us on this machine, is the heart rate sensors built into the hand grips. So eventually I'll be able to accomplish more in less time and under conditions that are safer, more convenient, and less vulnerable to even the most creative excuses.
That said, one must never underestimate the apparently limitless potential of one's own laziness as a driver of mis-applied creativity, LOL...
LPK
LiveJournal
12.5.2013
Anyway, aside from the boredom factor, which is admittedly monumental, the treadmill offers some significant advantages. Not the least of which is the ability to very precisely control and monitor the effects of your workout. I do understand that the fully geared-up fitness fanatic can probably bring the same level of electronic monitoring to the outdoor track. And, if the $600 digital bracelet isn't quite enough, there's probably an NSA drone flying out of Hancock Airbase that'll capture the rest in stunning High Definition.
But given the sad reality that it's taken me 6 months to reliably send and receive text messages on my Android cell phone, and that I still periodically threaten to skip the damned thing across that ubiquitous digital lake that we're all drowning in, I'm not about to strap another potential high-tech nemesis to my wrist. Besides, no matter how sophisticated, there's not a personal fitness monitor in the world that can induce a 5-degree incline in an outdoor track for the purpose of increased aerobic benefit.
However, the treadmill's most important feature is that it instantly negates all the bullspit excuses I've found over the past two months to not walk or drive over to the high school track. It's right downstairs, I don't have to add layers of technical fabric against the bone-chilling cold of a Central New York winter, and I don't have to worry about taking a fall on the soon-to-be-icy outdoor track or the equally chilling prospect of becoming the hapless trophy of some junior thug wannabe out on his first "polar bear hunting" expedition. (That's urban-speak for a black kid who chooses an elderly white male victim for a game of "one-punch knockout." Nice world we live in, right? And don't even accuse me of racism - it's been happening here, with one recent victim dead and another seriously injured.)
Anyway, the equipment is there, it has a simple "start now" switch, helpfully color-coded green, and "up" and "down" buttons for speed and incline. Plus, all the info I could possibly need continuously cycling across the LED readout over the course of the workout. There's speed in miles per hour, incline in degrees, calories burned, elapsed time, distance travelled, etc., etc. Plus there are two smaller LED windows where you can manually cycle through many of those previously mentioned or simply leave up the two most relevant to your type of workout.
Which brings me to an interesting difference in the indoor and outdoor routines. On the track, I was doing a set distance at whatever pace I could tolerate, in whatever time it happened to take. On the treadmill, I'm doing 20 minutes per session which is the amount of time I've heard is optimal for daily aerobic training. In between a 3 minute warmup and a 3 minute cooldown, I'm doing 14 minutes of walking at 3.5 MPH.
That's to get me started. In reality, I need to be doing 20 minutes daily at my target heart rate which is based on age, weight, gender, etc. And I will eventually get to that through progressive adjustments to speed, incline, and elapsed time. It'll actually be quite easy to do that because one of the really cool features, which helped sell us on this machine, is the heart rate sensors built into the hand grips. So eventually I'll be able to accomplish more in less time and under conditions that are safer, more convenient, and less vulnerable to even the most creative excuses.
That said, one must never underestimate the apparently limitless potential of one's own laziness as a driver of mis-applied creativity, LOL...
LPK
LiveJournal
12.5.2013
