DOMS or "Why I Hate Exercise"

DOMS - Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness

How could I have been so dumb? I knew fully well that my workouts were going to result in a sudden onset of DOMS. So how is it that I ignored that so completely when I started working out again this week? Of COURSE I was going to be in pain!

So after 5 weeks of the flu (and still suffering the after-effects of it), I set out on Monday to do a short strength-training workout. And instead of taking it EASY, like I knew I should, I did full stability ball crunches, floor to floor. My transverse abdominus (abs down the front of the body) have been screaming ever since.

Okay, okay. So maybe that wasn't the smartest thing to do. But I was prepared to be sore. I just wasn't prepared for the pain that I experienced when my husband and I went for a walk around the block. I thought, "It's a beautiful day, and Steve is getting off work early after a tough week. We should go for a walk." How humiliating it was when the pain in my hip flexors was so great, I had to stop quite a few times to rest. Thank God we didn't go to the park or hit the Greenway on our bikes. I'd never have made it.

And here's something else... it wasn't my lungs that held me up this time. I suppose I should be grateful for that. So of course, I had to come home and look up the musculature involved in what's commonly called the "hip flexors". I have a kiniesiology site I'm fond of: www.exrx.net That's the site I go to whenever I want to know something about musculature or exercise in terms I can understand. I found the numerous muscles that comprise the hip flexors and I understand that this pain goes deep into those muscles. What I don't know just yet is what I need to do about it. Yoga tomorrow? More walking? Complete rest? Ibuprofen? I have refrained from taking anything for the pain if I can help it.

Something further... the pain in my arm is back, which usually tells me that there is something malfunctioning in my spine again. *sigh* I guess tomorrow is going to include a long, painful session of yoga. I'm going to have to stretch until my spine loosens up. I don't know what's worse... knowing that I have this ahead of me tomorrow, or knowing that if I don't do it, there will be an even greater price to pay the next day.

Maybe I ought to just get a head start on it tonight.

Nazdrowie'

Paczki Puta

The Tough Road Back

Anyone who has been following my blogs here or in other places, knows that I have been down with the flu for about 5 weeks. It has really taken a toll. I'm hocking up things that shouldn't be mentioned, and I would not be the least bit surprised if I saw a lung in the sink the next time I cough. However, I feel like I have finally taken the turn for the better and am taking the long, tough road back to health.

I started this road again today, with a short, half-hour strength workout that would have made me shake my head and say "wimp" earlier in my life. I had to stop several times to make sure I would get each rep in. Mind you, this is a NOTHING workout. But afterward, I felt like I was going to puke my guts out. Those 2 sets of 15 crunches on the stability ball just about did me in. I watched Gidget sleeping right next to me as I grunted and groaned. The sweat was so intense that I had to wipe it off several times, and wonder if maybe, just maybe, I was taking it a little too fast. TOO FAST??? Geez. This is not the "me" of several months ago, when I was adding to my workout, and it was not the "me" of several years ago, when I spent at least an hour daily hitting the iron. But I had to start somewhere, right?

And I hate cardio. God, how I hate it. I'm not going to do any until my strength gets a little better. My heart was already pumping like I was running a marathon. And now I'm tired. You know the feeling after you've pumped iron for a while. You want to collapse. At least I do. I'm gonna love tomorrow. Yoga. Ahhhhhhhh... stretching to beautiful, calming music.

So here I start the tough road back. I know it's not going to be easy. But I've got to try. Sistah, you there with me?

Nazdrowie'

Paczki Puta

Easter Traditions

Today is Easter Sunday, and with the world celebrating the traditional Christian belief that Jesus rose from the dead, I had time to reflect on the Easters past and thought I would share a few of them here.

Last night while I was making the makowiec (poppy seed cake) for my family to share, I remember the time when my grandmother Sophie taught my mother to make the very same cake with a prune or apricot filling. Sophie was right-handed, and my mother was left-handed, so it was a comical learning experience for both of them. Sophie was mixing the dough with her right hand, and my mother was mixing with her left, both on the same side of the table. Flour was flying everywhere, and before the task was done, both were covered with flour and laughing as I had never seen them laugh before or since. The resulting cakes were wonderful, and knowing they had been done in tandem made them all the more delicious to me.

To my knowledge, no one in the family continued making those cakes after my mother passed, so I took it upon myself to learn how. What I thought was a simple task turned out to be very complicated, and I suddenly had great respect for the reasoning of making the cakes ahead of time. By ahead of time, I mean starting the cakes early the day before serving. It took a VERY long time to put this cake together, and my creation was finally completed at about 10:30 last night. I put about 4 hours into it, all told. If all goes well and it doesn't suck, I will, in all likelihood, make it again for the holidays, but will make it with prune and apricot filling.

In researching Polish Easter traditions, I came across some practices that I had forgotten. For example, I had completely forgotten that we used to take our filled Easter baskets to church to have the priest bless them. This practice is called Swieconka. Baskets were filled with cakes, fruits and candy. Also, the coloring and writing on the eggs is still practiced today. The eggs which are painted in one color are called "malowanki" or "kraszanki". If patterns are etched with a pointed instrument on top of the paint, the eggs are then called "skrobanki" or "rysowanki". The eggs decorated with the use of treated wax are called "pisanki".

Later on today, we will be having a baked ham for dinner, complete with sweet potatoes, creamed spinach, peas and carrots, and whole kernel corn. I suppose I should make some biscuits or cornbread to go with it, but honestly, after cooking last night and this morning's breakfast treats, I feel like I've done enough. Oh, the verdict on the poppy seed cake? Thumbs up!

Nazdrowie'

Packzi Puta

The Rain, The Park and Other Things

Anyone who was around at the end of the 1960's or early 1970's, will recognize the title of today's entry as a song by the Cowsills. The Cowsills was a family singing group from that era. I think of that song every time we have had weird weather that prevents me from getting outside and doing what I want to do, namely going to the park or riding my bike. We've had so much strange weather this year. I really hope it goes to being blistering hot soon, like it's supposed to. The family and I have been wanting to go ride our bikes at what we lovingly call "The Greenway", which is a strip of bicycle path, 2 1/2 miles long at this writing, which winds along the Wolf River. There was a time, a couple of years ago, when we went riding every evening. Last year, I couldn't make it even a quarter of the way.

When we were going regularly, I was feeling strong... stronger than I had in a long time. I wasn't working outside the home at the time, but was spending most of my time getting healthy. (That was undone last year when I got this lung thing, but I digress.) We would use our daily bike rides as our cardio exercise, and boy, was it! The trail we ride isn't a straight shot. It's a long, winding, up and downhill asphalt trail. There are several hills that are hard for me to get up, and one that is impossible if you're not ready for it. Well guess what! I'm not. At the time, it took me several weeks before I was able to get up that last hill, and it wasn't without extreme effort on my part. That hill just wasn't gonna lay down and die for me. I had to work up speed from the two previous hills, and even though my quads were screaming by then, I had to push them even harder. Making it to the top was always an accomplishment. I was always the last one to make it up the hill, and was always the last one to meet back at the truck afterward. Sometimes, Steve would go further than than the allotted 2 1/2 miles. I wish I were strong enough to do that. I'll be glad just to make a mile the first time.

Along the path, there was always something of nature to witness. I remember the time the boys saw a bobcat on the other side of the river, and the time I almost ran over what I thought was a stick on the path until it moved! God, I hate snakes. Last year, I knew there was something wrong when I couldn't go very far on our rides. Once I even had to turn around very close to where we parked and go back. It wasn't long afterward when I was diagnosed with this lung thing. Even though I'd love to go riding, I realize it may not be possible for a while. I wish I didn't do everything as if a marathon was riding on it. I'd like to go riding just for the fun of it. But there's no where to go riding just for the "fun" of it. It's not like when we were young, and we could go riding in our neighborhoods, testing out the newly laid asphalt, racking up the miles as we sped back and forth. I'm not sure my lungs would hold out. I'm not sure my thighs would hold out.

Why is it everything I do has to have a "purpose" associated with it. When did we forget how to play? I haven't played in so long that I really don't remember how. I guess being a mother has made me forget. I've been making sure the boys have a good time for years. Maybe it's time I started having a good time too. Maybe when it gets warm, I can get Steve to take me paddleboating on the lake some weekend. I miss the years when we used to take Rebel (our black and tan coonhound, now long passed) to the park for "off the leash" hours. Rebel would howl all the way into the park, and people would point and laugh at him. But people loved him. He was a good dog, and made friends at the park easily.

Steve and I also used to take weekend morning walks at the park, taking the long trail (3 1/2 miles) from one end of the park to the other, where it winds back into itself and back to the parking lot. We would bring a couple of water bottles with us, and they were usually gone within minutes of returning. Steve was running at the time, and although I could never run, I never begrudged him his time with himself. I just trudged along as best I could, with my short little legs hauling me around. There was a time in my life when I used to go walking with a girlfriend every evening. The friend has long since moved away, never to be heard from again, and I never got my love of walking back. I was pregnant with Rhys when I had to stop; for some reason, that pregnancy just didn't sit right with me for walking. I always had a stitch in my side and had to stop early on.

I miss the times when my body would obey my mind and move freely and gracefully. The years of damage and disease are taking their toll. I do the best I can just to make it from one day to the next, trying to keep my mind sharp in the process. I keep trying to learn new things. After all, why would I want to keep doing the same things over and over? Didn't Einstein say that was the definition of insanity? I struggle now with giving myself new challenges that actually spark my interest. I want hobbies and I want to play. Anyone want to join me?

Nazdrowie'

Paczki Puta

Speak ENGLISH!

I was sent this in e-mail and thought I would post it. I have always loved Bill Cosby and his common sense.

'They're standing on the corner and they can't speak English.

I can't even talk the way these people talk:

Why you ain't,
Where you is,
What he drive,
Where he stay,
Where he work,
Who you be...

And I blamed the kid until I heard the mother talk...

And then I heard the father talk.

Everybody knows it's important to speak English

except these knuckleheads.

You can't be a doctor with that kind of crap

coming out of your mouth.

In fact you will never get any kind of job

to make a decent living.

People marched and were hit in the face

with rocks to get an Education, and now

We've got these knuckleheads walking around.

The lower economic people are not holding up

their end in this deal.

These people are not parenting.

They are buying things for kids.

$500 sneakers for what?

And they won't spend $200 for Hooked on Phonics.

I am talking about these people who cry when their son is standing there in an orange suit.

Where were you when he was 2?

Where were you when he was 12?

Where were you when he was 18 and how come

you didn't know that he had a pistol?

And where is the father?

Or who is his father?

People putt their clothes on backward:
Isn't that a sign of something gone wrong?

People with their hats on backward,

pants down around the crack,

isn't that a sign of something?



Isn't it a sign of something when she has her dress

all the way up and got all type of needles

[piercing] going through her body?

What part of Africa did this come from??

We are not Africans.

Those people are not Africans;

they don't know a thing about Africa...

I say this all of the time. It would be like white people saying they are European-American. That is totally stupid.

I was born here, and so were my parents and grandparents and, very likely my great grandparents. I don't have any connection to Africa, no more than white Americans have to Germany, Scotland, England, Ireland, or the Netherlands. The same applies to 99 percent of all the black Americans as regards to Africa. So stop, already! ! !


With names like Shaniqua, Taliqua and Mohammed

and all of that crap ..... and all of them are in jail.

Brown or black versus the Board of Education is no longer the white person's problem.

We have to take the neighborhoods back.

People used to be ashamed.

Today a woman has eight children with eight different 'husbands' -- or men or whatever you call them now.

(Babydaddy)

We have millionaire football players who cannot read.

We have million-dollar basketball players who can't write two paragraphs. We, as black folks have to do a better job.

Someone working at Wal-Mart with seven kids,

you are hurting us.

We have to start holding each other to a higher standard.

We cannot blame the white people any longer.'

Dr. William Henry 'Bill' Cosby, Jr., Ed.D.



WELL SAID, BILL

It's NOT about color...

It's about behavior!!!

Nazdrowie'

Paczki Puta