Workout Scheduling

[dawnball]

As this week's new exercise in the Valentine's challenge, I'm finally getting off my rear with weight lifting again. I'm using the routines from The New Rules of Lifting for Women and did the first one today. It was great, lots of fun and not too hard, despite pushing the squats to failure (bad dawnball!). But I'm finding a lot of residual fatigue today, particularly in my legs.

My week's plan had been something like:

Monday - lift w/ Workout A
Tuesday - light/moderate cardio (mostly to get blood moving through the muscles and speed recovery)
Wednesday - lift w/ Workout B
Thursday - light/moderate cardio (again mostly to get blood moving through the muscles and speed recovery)
Friday - lift w/ Workout A, evening swim class

However, I had to bail on my swim practice this Saturday because I had a lot of ear pain and muscle fatigue (left over from last Friday's swim class), so I'd like to sneak in an extra swim session. I'm also not sure that lifting and then swimming (class is likely to be mostly working on kicks) on Friday is a good idea.

For reference, the swimming practice is mostly just practicing submersion/flipping from floating on my stomach to my back and vice versa, and kicking. I stop due to neural fatigue, vs lifting where it's all about muscle fatigue.

The two options I can come up with are:

Monday - lift w/ Workout A
Tuesday - swim (with the intent of getting moving, and working on form - 90% submersion/float practice, maybe fetch some objects, etc, and maybe one round trip with a kickboard if I feel up to it)
Wednesday - lift w/ Workout B
Thursday - light to moderate cardio (or another mild swim session, if the water work seems to be doing my muscles good)
Friday - swim class, a high-carb beverage, then Workout A, with the option of kicking the lifting to Saturday if I don't have energy left in the tank.

OR


Monday - lift w/ Workout A
Tuesday - light to moderate cardio
Wednesday - Swim with moderate kicking
Thursday - lift w/ workout B
Friday - swim class

- I get one less lifting session, but thats not the end of the world. Taking three weeks instead of two to get through Phase 1 is a perfectly reasonable variant.

Do these both look like I'm overdoing it? Any suggestions for how to fit in at least one more lifting session, one swim practice and swim class on Friday night? My schedule's pretty much my own, so I can stagger things morning/evening, if that might help some.

 

[Trusylver]

It is a little hard to work out which would be better without knowing what your doing in each of your workouts but light swimming is an ideal recovery exercise either just after or the the day after lifting especially if the weights session was focused on legs the hydrostatic pressure of the water has a big impact.

 

[dawnball]

Ah, that's a good point, I was trying not to provide too much extraneous information. Today (workout A) was:

full squats
60 degree pushups
bent over rows
step-ups
prone jackknifes on a swiss/stability ball

Workout B is:
Deadlifts
shoulder presses
pullovers
lunge
swiss ball crunches

I was sort of vacillating between "hydrostatic pressure is good" and "kicking to fatigue is going to screw up your recovery." There will obviously be some level of playing it by ear, so maybe I'll plan to swim to tolerance Tuesday and see how I feel afterwards.

 

[Steve]

I stop due to neural fatigue, vs lifting where it's all about muscle fatigue.

Can you explain this a bit? I know well the difference between central and peripheral fatigue... but I mean can you explain how you're applying this to your given situation?

 

[dawnball]

Sure, Steve.

The reason I'm taking swim classes is primarily because I couldn't put my face in the water without holding my nose and a weekly swim class provides some accountability. Anything else I get out that class is just gravy.

So my swim coach has me hang out at the shallow end of the lane and submerge in various orientations/permutations until I can't do it anymore and ask to do something else. But "can't do it anymore" is more about not being able to summon up the mental focus I require to not to inhale with my face in the water. When I'm both fresh and warmed up in the water, I can open my eyes, exhale slightly through my nose and retrieve objects. I can also roll from a front float to a back float and vice versa. As what I call "neural fatigue" (feel free to correct my nomenclature) sets in, I have to regress to simpler and simpler skills. No rolling, then I can't move as much underwater, then I can't exhale, then I can only submerge with my eyes closed to block out distractions. Then I stop.

The kicking drills I do (25 or 50 yards at a time with a kickboard) are intended more to give my brain a break and to remind me to release the tension in my body than as "exercise", but I do try to keep my legs moving at a decent clip and I am usually pretty worn out by the end of the session, but not to "I couldn't kick another stroke" more of "this is becoming more and more work for less and less motion, and I don't want to have to rest in 9 ft of water"

After swim class, I feel physically normal within a few minutes, but I've learned that I need to hang out, take a long shower, have a snack and relax for a bit before I'm safe to drive home.

By contrast, at the end of lifting yesterday, my thighs (both quads and hamstrings) were trembling and my gait altered to keep my knees and hips more flexed as I walked, because I didn't have enough "oomph" left in my muscles to stand normally.

Re: scheduling - I hit lap swim this morning, and found myself to both have more trouble submerging and to have significantly less ability to kick the length of the pool. I felt worse after swimming, not better, and my legs were pretty heavy the whole time. I'm going to call that pretty good empirical evidence that I can't currently alternate the pool and this weight routine. So that leaves me:

Monday - weights
Tuesday - aborted swim
Wednesday - weights
Thursday - off
Friday - swim class
Saturday - weights (at least an attempt - I think of myself as having long recovery periods, but I'd always felt like I needed to wait for DOMS to go away before. I'll see how it goes.)
Sunday - off

Maybe a more ideal week would be lifting Sunday/Wed, then swim on Friday? I think that's what I'll switch to if Saturday is obviously too early for more moving heavy objects.

 

[Steve]

Sure, Steve.

The reason I'm taking swim classes is primarily because I couldn't put my face in the water without holding my nose and a weekly swim class provides some accountability. Anything else I get out that class is just gravy.

So my swim coach has me hang out at the shallow end of the lane and submerge in various orientations/permutations until I can't do it anymore and ask to do something else. But "can't do it anymore" is more about not being able to summon up the mental focus I require to not to inhale with my face in the water. When I'm both fresh and warmed up in the water, I can open my eyes, exhale slightly through my nose and retrieve objects. I can also roll from a front float to a back float and vice versa. As what I call "neural fatigue" (feel free to correct my nomenclature) sets in, I have to regress to simpler and simpler skills. No rolling, then I can't move as much underwater, then I can't exhale, then I can only submerge with my eyes closed to block out distractions. Then I stop.

Okay... yeah, that's more of mentally fatiguing thing. Neural fatigue occurs, for the most part, in high intensity efforts. By intensity, I mean as it's referred to in research, as a percentage of your maximum effort in whatever it is we're talking about.

When you push the volume with high intensity stuff and/or don't insert enough recovery from high intensity stuff, there's a real "neural fatigue" that can occur where your nervous system can't send electrical impulses as effectively.

By contrast, at the end of lifting yesterday, my thighs (both quads and hamstrings) were trembling and my gait altered to keep my knees and hips more flexed as I walked, because I didn't have enough "oomph" left in my muscles to stand normally.

I'd question if you're pushing too hard in the weight room, actually. But if you're just starting out again with it, a lot of soreness and fatigue is to be expected. Especially when you're following some prepackaged program (like NROL) which doesn't modify a program based on the individual exerciser's needs at the moment (hence the prepackagedness of it).

 

[dawnball]

Okay... yeah, that's more of mentally fatiguing thing. Neural fatigue occurs, for the most part, in high intensity efforts. By intensity, I mean as it's referred to in research, as a percentage of your maximum effort in whatever it is we're talking about.

Ah, thanks for that!

I'd question if you're pushing too hard in the weight room, actually. But if you're just starting out again with it, a lot of soreness and fatigue is to be expected. Especially when you're following some prepackaged program (like NROL) which doesn't modify a program based on the individual exerciser's needs at the moment (hence the prepackagedness of it).

Oh, I was. I took a guess about how much weight to use for the squats and overestimated, then I got stubborn about finishing the sets, and -then- realized how much my legs were going to do in the rest of the workout.

mea culpa. And the muttered "ouch, ouch, ouch" and teasing from my husband about hobbling around the house? It's a good reminder not to reach quite so far next time.

 

[dawnball]

I'd question if you're pushing too hard in the weight room, actually. But if you're just starting out again with it, a lot of soreness and fatigue is to be expected. Especially when you're following some prepackaged program (like NROL) which doesn't modify a program based on the individual exerciser's needs at the moment (hence the prepackagedness of it).

I just wanted to come back and say thank you again, Steve.

After recovering from that disastrous first workout (it was 4 days before my legs stopped buckling when I walked across the room) I did a lot more reading and thinking. I pulled back a little on the intensity, and relaxed a little on the nutritional component as well (my head knew that 1400 calories were too few, but....) I'm lifting more each workout, and the lifts feel better. I also have enough juice left to continue my mild to moderate cardio and start plotting when I can add some water aerobics.

So thank you again for the information and reminders. I have a few new questions, but I'm going to follow you home to ask them, because they seem more appropriate there.

 

[Steve]

You're quite welcome and very glad to hear. I'll await your questions.