What I Learned in Week 25

Overall: Introduced a new starch (potato) + adding more rice to my diet, Speedo glove pool exercises, and coping with the pain while my muscles gain.

Speedo Glove Pool Exercises

I recently purchased some Speedo exercise gloves to help resistance in the pool.  Below are exercises suggested by Livestrong and Speedo:

Speedo Glove Poole Exercises – Lateral Raise & Body Rotation

•  BICEPS CURL AND TRICEPS PRESS – This combination of two traditional weight training exercises targets all of the muscles in your arms. Stand in shoulder-deep water with your hands by your sides and your palms facing forward. Keep your elbows tucked into your ribs, and bend your arms. Keep your hands open and your fingers spread to maximize resistance through the water. Raise your hands to shoulder-level, and then turn your palms down, and press your hands back down to your sides. Continue bending and straightening your arms for the duration of your set.
• CHEST AND REAR FLIES – This exercise will strengthen your arms, front and rear shoulders, upper back, and chest muscles. Stand in shoulder-deep water with your arms extended out to your sides at shoulder height. Turn your palms forward, and spread your fingers. Sweep your arms forward until your hands meet. Turn your thumbs down, and then sweep your arms back to the starting position. Reset your hands and repeat. This exercise generates a lot of power, which may push you off balance. To avoid this, lean against the side of the pool or stand in a split stance for extra stability.
• SIDE RAISES – Side raises target your shoulders and are very similar to the traditional strength training exercise, side lateral raise, which is commonly performed using dumbbells. Stand in shoulder-deep water with your hands by your sides. Spread your fingers to maximize resistance. Raise your arms out to the side and up to shoulder level. Lower your arms back to your sides, and then repeat. You can also perform this exercise by raising your arms to the front. This variation also targets your shoulder muscles.

My Health in Week 25

• Overall:   Adding rice & potato plus my 2nd week of getting into the exercise regime has it’s ups and downs.  Listed below are the exercises and how I’m holding up.
• Exercise:
  • Chiropractor 3X per week:  Neck warm-ups and wobble chair go usually well & depend on how I’m feeling that morning.  Adjustments vary on light to heavy depending on how my neck and shoulders are doing + my energy levels. Head weights for 10 minutes are working out fine. Traction for 20 minutes is by far the hardest thing I’m going through.  Now that I’m up to the maximum, my jaw and neck hurt and increasingly hurt as the week progresses.  This is not to say what they are doing is wrong, it’s just that my neck and shoulder area is very weak and that exercise is very tough on it.  It gets so bad that getting up out of bed has become even more difficult because my neck is so worn out I can’t pick it up easily as I lift myself out of bed. Traction against the wall for 10 minutes is fine and I get an ice pack during this time to help out my neck.  This exercise is really great for pushing my shoulders back.  On Monday, 7/9, I did this exercise lying down and it was much tougher to do (especially with a 6″ foam block on my back – I have back pain due to that on 7/10).  Something tells me they won’t put me lying down again for awhile.
  • Head weights 2X per day for 10 minutes each (1X in the evening if it’s a day at the chiropractor) – usually not a problem, but from Thursday on, I developed a mild groin / right hip problem due to sleeping incorrectly throughout one of the nights.  So the head weights (usually the evening one) are tougher to do & I need to be more careful.
  • Walking as far as I can outside (currently around 10-20 minutes).  Same issue as head weights listed above.
  • Pool exercises on days not at the chiropractor.  Times range from 1/2 – 1 hour and consist of exercise gloves, walking / high-stepping, push-ups and pulling legs in/out / side-to-side to strengthen core.  Pool exercises are really helping me out as they are the only time I can lift up my legs high and do ab exercises I normally cannot do.
• Potato, More Rice and Corn Starch:  Added 1/2 a red skin potato on 7/5 & the other half on 7/6.  Besides adding rice in the morning, I added it to my meal at Chipolte on 7/7 and ate frozen Yogurt – so far, so good.  And, unlike the previous week, I’m not getting as many of those stabbing pains whenever gas travels through my intestines.  7/9 I attended a healthy food class over at Whole Foods.  One of the dishes contained corn starch and I gave it a try.  It’s only been one day, but it doesn’t seem to affect me either (at least in small doses).
• Sleep:  I’m waking up 1-2 times a night, but dealing with pain from my right hip throughout the night (feels more like a mild groin injury) due to sleeping incorrectly (I had no idea until I woke up & felt the pain).  I go to bed at 10pm, get up around 1am needing to go to the bathroom quickly (this has been happening for months) + I take 1 ibuprofen.  Then around 4am I take 1 ibuprofen, 1 probiotic, and fish oil and finally get up at 6:30-7:30am.  The 2nd time I wake up, I usually pass out and wake up around 5am.
• Supplements:  Probiotics, Vitamin D3, Magnesium (Gluconate), HCL (1-2 times per week), digestive enzymes, and Maine Omega-3 fish oil are my standard.  I’ve added Chromium Picolinate and Vitamin B-Complex – most of supplementation is done at breakfast time.
• Current Areas of Concern: Neck and shoulder pain from chiropractic exercises (pulls me back to proper alignment) & AS (pulls me forward out of alignment) battling each other, evening time crashes (tired, sore all over – feels like the flu each night), right hip / groin area hurts and makes it harder to sleep.
• Areas of Improvement:  Exercising and most of my body keeping up with it, added more starches without an issue (hello potato!), and getting a few more hours each week for work.
• Enbrel:  It has been 20 1/2 weeks since my last shot.
• My lowest weight was 130 lbs. and a BMI of 18.15.