gym - AnnaTheApple

November 26, 2015January 3, 2020

Why I don’t regret getting injured

Firstly thank you for the lovely messages, comments and kind words after my last post. It really meant the world to me. I know I’m young and my life is ahead of me, I just needed that cathartic vent…

Anyway, onto the subject of this post. Since being injured and being unable to run I’ve been focusing a lot of my energies on going to the gym and really working hard at overall strength. Previously I had been following the New Rules of Lifting for Women which was really good but I was losing a bit of motivation for it. Doing the same two sets of workouts for weeks on end was getting boring. Don’t get me wrong, I still fully recommend that book and it’s highly likely I’ll get back into it (and it’s a great point of reference for different exercises). But after getting injured I needed a complete shake up of what I was doing and a new drive.

I actually found a great website called MuscleForLife that spoke a lot of sense to me by a guy called Mike Matthews. His website has loads of great resources and he talks a lot of sense in terms of workout splits, reps and different exercises (from what my albeit fairly limited knowledge and experience can tell anyway!).

I started breaking my workouts into body parts (sounds painful) and balancing ‘push/pull’ exercises. So for example, Monday is arms day and I’ll try and balance some bicep curls (a push exercise) with tricep pull downs (a pull exercise), amongst other things. And I’ve really been loving it.

What I’ve really come to learn is that you don’t need to go to the gym and come out sweating and gasping for air to know you’ve worked hard. Your heart rate doesn’t need to sky rocket to get a good workout in.In fact, I’ve never seen my body change as quickly as it has done with these kind of workouts than all the time I’ve ever been running. And I haven’t touched a cardio machine other than a three minute warm-up for each session. OK, OK I’ve only been doing this for a few weeks and I’m not saying I have muscles of steel or popping abs, but I can see the changes – they are tiny changes but they’re perceptible to me.

And more importantly, I can feel the changes. When I was down in the dumps about not running and I needed to find a new focus I decided to give myself the goal of strengthening my upper body (as well as continuing to strengthen the rest of me). One of my goals was to eventually achieve a full pull-up. I haven’t achieved that yet, but what I did achieve at the gym yesterday was almost there. Technically I achieved a neutral grip pull-up… or chin-up. To be honest I’m not entirely sure which it is, but there was definitely an ‘up’ in there 😉

It’s not a full pull-up because as my grip needs to be wider, which is ultimately so much harder because you’re using your back muscles to do most of the work, whereas what I achieved was kind of a combination of back muscles and biceps (a full chin-up uses solely biceps I believe).

I was so pleased you wouldn’t believe. I felt bad ass and like a warrior. If I fell off a cliff I can smile smugly knowing I can pull myself back up it 😉 and then run away from the zombies chasing me in this crazy scenario.

The point is, I don’t regret getting injured. It taught me a lot. Firstly it taught me not to be such an idiot about marathons and running. Three marathons in under six months is stupid for me. I’m an injury-prone runner and looking back I can see the times I was pushing myself when I should have been taking time off. Never ever underestimate the marathon distance. Even if you think “oh I’ll just pootle around really slowly and enjoy it” it’s still 26.2 bloody miles. There ain’t no pootle in that.

It also showed me that the gym isn’t just to keep me running and it isn’t necessarily a chore. It’s somewhere else I can push myself and feel like I’m achieving something amazing (for me anyway). I don’t always need PBs, a runner’s high or the fresh air to get that ‘punch in the air’ killer workout.

It’s another quiver in my bow of mistakes I’m learning from. Plus I got a huge medal soo… totally worth it 😉

Do you have any mistakes you don’t regret?

What is your favourite exercise?

What achievement are you most proud of?

November 23, 2015November 23, 2015

Grumpy running, good snacking and a leg workout

Brrrrrrrrrrrr!! It is cold! Sorry to state the bleeding obvious but it really is. OK we don’t have snow and I know we’re far better off than you warriors up North or in countries with lots of snow, so apologies for my pathetic moaning.

Saturday morning I optimistically put on my shorts for parkrun but after taking Alfie for a quick walk I realised this would not be a wise move. It was so much colder than it had been in the week – and very windy.

I had intended to wear all three of my new running tops and take one off on each lap (as I mentioned, jokingly, in a previous post – then people actually wanted me to do it) but it was too cold for short sleeves! Before realising how cold it was I did put them on with the intention of wearing them…Top layer was to be the Bournemouth finisher’s t-shirt, then the Marathon Talk t-shirt, then finally the parkrun 50 t-shirt.It was going to be so good… Then I stepped outside with Alfie and thought “yeah this isn’t going to happen”. There was no way I’d want to strip off any layers when I was running!! Instead I put on some leggings and a long-sleeved top.

I got to parkrun to meet the other set-up crew guys and we were all pretty miserable and cold. It was windy and wet as well as stupidly cold. As the minutes ticked closer to the start I started to feel more and more apprehensive and, well, moody about the whole thing. I was so close to just going home. My muscles all felt really cold, creaky and just niggly. I was worried about my knee and worried about needing to stop.

I did a quick warm-up with some of the guys and I just felt myself sinking further and further into a bad mood and was certain I couldn’t run the whole parkrun.

At the start my friend Mark realised I wasn’t in the best of moods and, bless him, he tried to pull me out of it by running with me and chatting. At first I just wanted to stop and give up – I gave him fairly blunt responses to his questions and conversation attempts. I was so cold and I couldn’t warm up. I couldn’t seem to run any faster either, and I was nervous to push it anyway because of my knee, which was feeling uncomfortable.

Mark realised how cold I was and gave me his jacket mid-run which was nice of him and did help. Possibly because I wasn’t running very fast (for me) and how cold the wind was I just didn’t get warm until the 3rd mile. By then I had started to come out from my dark place and actually be a nice human being to Mark. He was very patient with me and I wouldn’t have blamed him to have left me!

In the end I ran 27:18, my slowest parkrun in a long while and possibly one of the worst in terms of enjoyment. We were also on the winter course which is worse anyway in terms of hills (and wind). I was so glad when it was over. My knee didn’t hurt but it was uncomfortable, but given the conditions I’ll take it!

I was in such a better mood afterwards as you can imagine. I was warmer, relaxed and just glad to have got it done. And there was cake made by my lovely friend, Sheryl, who was celebrating her 150th parkrun!!

Mar bar crispies and Malteaser bites

I was in my happy place once again 🙂 The hot drink in the cafe afterwards was much needed as well!

Later on my friend, Tom, was celebrating his 30th birthday with a Mexican and Cowboy themed party. His wife, my close friend Louise, had made some really tasty cupcakes and an immense Cactus cake. There was a spread of nachos and dips and a chilli slow cooking as well.There were churro cupcakes (with cinnamon sugar and a doughnut texture) and piñata cupcakes that had Smarties in the middle!! I can attest that both cupcakes were very tasty 😉

I also brought round some popcorn I’d found in Budgens.For 99p and buy one get one free I call that a definite bargain! Marshmallow popcorn?? Yes please! To be fair though, it actually just tasted like sweet popcorn with a slight marshmallow hint.1 I think I was expecting chunks of marshmallow stuck to pieces of popcorn (what an idea, eh??) and the salted popcorn was basically sweet and salty. But tasty nonetheless!

I didn’t do a very good job at the fancy dress by just having a checked shirt so Louise did my hair in plaits for me and lent me her hat 😉I couldn’t stay for the evening sadly as my parents had invited me over for a meal with some friends, which also meant I didn’t see the main cake being cut 🙁 Lou, the lovely friend she is, said I could pop over the next day to pick some up. Always need friends like that in your life!After seeing Lou and Tom on Sunday morning, I headed to the gym for my leg workout. I don’t know if you guys care to see what I did but here it is anyway…

Squat: (warmup sets first): 4x 65kg, 6x 62.5kg, 8x 62.5kg x3, 10x 60kg x2, 8 x60kg
Box squat: 12x 60kg, 12x 65kg, 12x 70kg, 10x 75kg x2
Deadlift (warmup sets first): 6x 65kg x2, 8x 62.5kg x2, 10x 60kg, 10x 55kg x2
Hack squat: 12x 47.6kg, 12x 57.6kg x4
Sumo squat: 20x 10kg, 20x 20kg x4

Followed by some glute kickbacks/sidekicks on the cable machine and ab work. It’s a lot quieter on Sundays than Saturdays so it was nice not to feel crowded. The hack squat was a new machine to me, which focuses primarily on the quads. I prefer the leg press machine but it wasn’t working annoyingly. The hack squat machine was quite painful on my shoulders and left marks, despite there being cushions on it. It wasn’t a fun experience!

Anyway the rest of the day was same-old same-old: Alfie walks, housework and watching a new-to-me TV series, True Detective. The first episode was soooo s.l.o.w. I’m hoping it’ll pick up. My physio leant me the box-set so I need to get through it fairly quickly (I feel bad hanging on to borrowed things for too long).

What’s your favourite popcorn flavour?

What machines do you like to use at the gym?

What’s the coolest shaped cake you’ve seen (in real life, not on the Internet!)?

November 18, 2015

Rants and Raves #24

Hello Wednesday! And time for some of my ranting and raving…

Rave: I finally got Alfie into his long awaited Halloween costume. I had to cut the sides to make it a bit more roomy for him but it fits quite nicely.

Alfie’s personality is that he’s kind of a push over. He doesn’t do much growling or get ‘angry’, rather he’ll just stand there and look daggers at you. That’s what happens when I bath him or try and put silly bright orange t-shirts on him. He’s also a huge wuss. When it comes to cats, he’ll be ready to chase them if they run but if they stand there and just look at him he doesn’t know what to do so cowers away. My little hero…

I did take the t-shirt off after getting a photo of him though (which took so frigging long as he just wanted to race about the place).

In other Alfie news… when I have to pop to our local shop quickly I’ll tend to walk there and take Alfie with me and tie him outside. He tries to keep me in view in the entire time and has such a look of despair on his face it’s quite unbearable.

It’s almost like he’s saying “Are you coming back…?”. Bless him.

Rant: Sometimes I wonder how I can ever get through a day on my own. I believe I’m an intelligent person (I went to university and got a first class honours degree from the very respectable Cardiff university in Psychology for what that’s worth!) but common sense? Severely lacking.

The Iceland passport debacle for example. Who puts their passport in the washing machine??

Anyway, so I was working from home last week and, as I mentioned in a previous post, I have no furniture so need to use the kitchen counter for my laptop. When I decided to break for lunch I just pushed the laptop to one side and went on my merry way frying up some bits and pieces on the hob.

Instead of the yummy smells of food cooking there was a horrible acrid smell. Thankfully I quickly realised that my iPhone cable was directly in the flame of the hob and whipped it away while turning it off at the plug. Jesus.

Luckily it didn’t cause any crazy electrical fire… but it didn’t work afterwards (yes I did try it, see above about common sense).

Rave: Getting a lovely new lot of coconut oil.

I use coconut oil for all my frying and roasting purposes. The only annoyance is having to melt the coconut oil before I can coat vegetables/potatoes in it. But it’s a small price to pay for this delicious and nutritious source of fat.

Though I have to say, nothing quite beats onion slowly and gently fried in a load of butter. Literally heaven.

Don’t fear butter! Yes it’s high in calories and fat but when had in moderation it can easily fit in a healthy diet. A tasty healthy diet at that. And when I say ‘diet’ I really mean lifestyle, not the ugly connotations so prevalent in women’s magazines.

Rant: I currently have three running tops that I desperately want to wear but haven’t been able to… yet. One of those is my parkrun 50 top.

It’s so soft and lovely and fits perfectly. But I received it after I got injured so haven’t been able to properly wear it yet.

The same goes for the Marathon Talk t-shirt I ordered.

In ‘classic black’ of course 😉 and I received a free Marathon Talk buff as there was a delay. Again, it fits lovely! Made by Xempo.

And, obviously, my Bournemouth marathon finisher’s t-shirt has been left unworn in my running drawer as well. Now I feel like this week is the week that I can get back to running (PLEASE!). I thought I’d wear all three t-shirts to parkrun and on each lap whip one off to get the maximum effect 😉

Rant: When I was at the gym on the busy Saturday I was just minding my own business doing my squats and there were two men near to me using a bench to do dumbbell presses, taking turns while the other rested. When one of them finished his reps he just threw down his dumbbells (very heavy dumbbells, over 20kg/44lbs each!). They bounced away from him towards me – like literally almost hitting my legs.

I understand people want to do a tough workout and want to be near failure on reps but throwing dumbbells down in exhaustion is dangerous in a busy gym! What an idiot. I glared at him after he did it multiple times but I was too intimidated to say anything. I really should have though. To me that shows a lack of control rather than good weight lifting.

Rave: This is a rave for me and a rant for my bank account. I mentioned in my last R&R post (oooh it has an acronym!) that I’ve been buying lots of gymwear… well here are a few more of my items.

The ridiculous bright yellow shorts are from Nike Pro (from Zalando – in fact, I bought those and a pair of bright pink ones too for £25 in total which I thought was a steal as Nike is always such good quality). Top left is another muscle tee from Forever 21. These are perfect for weight lifting in the gym but not for cardio or running because they’re not technical material. But I love the freedom of muscle tees as the sides gape. The funky leggings are from Boohoo and, again, they’re not technical material but they’re perfect for upper body days. And they were so cheap. I bought a few items from Boohoo as they had a good deal on shipping for next day delivery – £1.99!

MASSIVE RAVE (or potentially MASSIVE RANT): So tonight is the night. I’m going to test out running (3 miles, nothing crazy). I haven’t done a single run since Bournemouth. My leg feels absolutely fine walking and taking stairs so I’m really hopeful. Obviously if anything does hurt I’ll stop but I’m really really praying it’ll be fine. I’m seeing my physio tomorrow so I figured this was the ideal time to test it out. Originally I was going to use parkrun as my tester but realistically I need to run on my own without any external factors… just the road and me. I don’t want to be tempted to push through anything or be embarrassed if I have to stop. Plus my dad and me are driving in together so if the run fails I can emotionally collapse onto him on the way home (what fun for him). FINGERS CROSSED!!!!!

Do you have a lot of common sense?

What kind of oils and fats do you use? I’ve heard gee is supposed to be really good but I’ve never tried it in my own cooking… I keep seeing it in Tesco and I’m very tempted.

Have other gym goers annoyed you recently?

November 11, 2015November 11, 2015

Rants and Raves #23

Hello! It’s the middle of the week, hurrah! I’m working from home tomorrow so it kind of feels like Friday, but only in that I get a bit of a lie-in tomorrow rather than 5am for the gym. Woop! I’m seeing my Physio again tomorrow so I hope to have another post about my injury (oh the long-standing saga that it is, I’m sorry) another day. But for now, I’m ranting but mostly raving.

Rave: Workout clothes. I can’t stop buying them. It’s becoming an issue. To be fair though, other than food, I really don’t spend my money on much else. Forever21 is my go-to place for good quality and inexpensive gym clothes. Though I do like treating myself to Fabletics some months.

I bought the below ‘muscle tee’ from Forever21 which fits amazingly. It’s perfect for my strength workouts as my arms are nice and free and the side slits help keep me cool. It says ‘No Days Off’. Not true, but still cool.

I bought another muscle tee, a crop-top, a crop-top sports bra and two pairs of Nike Pro shorts (not from Forever21 but Zalando). ENOUGH NOW, ANNA.

Rant: Planning my weekends is so tricky at the moment. I still haven’t moved. My solicitors said it could be this week but then who knows. It depends on some enquiries… This is annoying as I’m meant to be seeing my uni friends in Cardiff this Saturday but now I don’t know if I can or not. In fact, we’ve had to rearrange the whole thing because I was going to give one of my friends a lift back and can’t guarantee it anymore. *Sighs*

I’m also just living out of boxes and reluctant to buy any sort of extra condiments or bulk purchases (which I like to do to with items I use regularly to save a bit of money).

I’m not using my downstairs toilet anymore because it’s a great place to put boxes (especially food items and crockery) so Alfie can’t get to them. As you can see, my Hello Fresh boxes are very handy!

And I have nowhere to work when I work from home as I sold pretty much all my furniture (I live life on a bean bag with a £5 Ikea side table). I’ve had to use my kitchen to work in. For my standing desk obsession it works quite nicely.

Rave: Speaking of Hello Fresh (yes, I know, I’m obsessed)… I finally received the hallowed Recipe Journal. My parents, who also still get Hello Fresh, have two! I introduced them to it first! Anyway, I have one now and it’s already almost full up.

It makes me really proud how may recipes I’ve done (I’ve had 23 boxes – each box contains three recipes). I love it! I eat so many different foods each week and it makes life so much easier cooking a meal and then having another portion of it for the next night.

A few weeks ago I had a lovely warming Mexican broth…

With a good dollop of soured cream. Yum.

If you fancy £25 off your first box I have a referral code ZVUM4A (which would also give me £12 off my next box). I’m not affiliated with Hello Fresh, I just love them.

Rave: I’ve recently bought some BCAA formula, AminoX, to help with me at the gym. It isn’t a stimulant but rather it’s designed to support my strength workouts and recovery. It contains essential amino acids, L-Alanine, Taurine and L-Citrulline.

You just mix one scoop with water and give it a mix. Don’t do what I do and shake it in a bottle vigorously as when you then go to open the lid, it explodes like a foamy volcano. Gentle stirring is required! I got the green apple flavour and it’s really yummy, though luminous green. I can’t say I feel a huge difference but I am lifting heavier weights than ever before – though considering how often I go to the gym and focus on this, that’s not surprising really.

Rant: Alfie’s Halloween costume came last week. Obviously too late for Halloween…and actually too small. For a fiver though I’m not upset.

I’m wondering if I can cut the sides a bit and see if he could fit. He may never forgive me though.

Rave: This ice cream.

It’s called Oppo and has the fabulous tagline of “Eat like a whale, look like a mermaid”. I got the salted caramel flavour. The ingredients are far better looking than Ben and Jerry’s and so are the nutritional stats for 100ml:

Energy (Kcal): 77.3
Fat: 3.8g (saturates: 2.8g)
Carbohydrate: 7.6g (sugars: 6.7g)
Protein: 3.2g
Sodium: 0.1

I’m a volume person when it comes to eating (more food = better) and will happily admit I ate the entire tub in one sitting, which was around 400 calories in total. That’s comparable to a slice of cake. Though cake always wins in my eyes, this was such a nice treat for a Friday night.

Rave: I saw this picture on Jamie Oliver’s Instagram…him with Orlando Bloom.

Be still my beating heart. I have such a crush on Jamie Oliver it’s ridiculous. I just think he’s so lovely. And I used to be obsessed with Orlando Bloom during his LOTR days. It’s like a dream come true to have them side by side in a photo… *sighs*.

Who’s your celebrity crush? Who did you fancy when you were younger?

What’s your favourite ice cream and ice cream flavour?

Do you cook from scratch every evening?

November 5, 2015

Rants and Raves #22 and an injury update

Morning, morning. A few rants and raves this morning and another injury update.

Rave: I’m really enjoying the gym. When I have a focus this always happens.

It makes me feel bad ass 😉 I love making my workout plans the day before and deciding what I’m going to do when I get there. There’s no way I could get a proper workout in if I turned up to the gym clueless.

I’m trying to figure out what the best split is in order to do strength training…upper body/lower body, body parts, mixed… so far I’m kind of combining a few bits and bobs. For example, this morning I worked on shoulders, chest and triceps. I’ll do one or two big compound moves (such as deadlifts, squats, bench press and military press) and then follow with accessory moves or different variations to target different muscles.

I used to hate how my arms looked because they seemed a bit too muscle-y but now I love them! But my main goal is to just feel strong, any additional aesthetic gains is just a bonus 🙂

Rant and rave: Did I mention I bought some goat meat (specifically goat shoulder)? Well, I did. Goat meat isn’t that widely available in the UK. I think people assume it’s a tough meat, but it really depends how you cook it – as with all meat. Anyway, I asked the butcher how best to cook it and he suggested slow cooking it without adding anything crazy as it was my first time having it so I shouldn’t swamp its flavour.

Well, now that I have my teeny tiny slow cooker I couldn’t put the entire thing in it so had to halve it. I seared the entire thing by frying it in coconut oil quickly before slicing it in half and freezing the other half. By searing before slow cooking it helps retain the flavour and moisture.

Slow cookers are marvellous inventions and I love mine. It does help to turn the bloody thing on before you leave for work in the morning though. I only remembered as I was half-way to work. GARGH.

Anyway I slow cooked it over the evening instead (such a lovely smell to wake up to!) and had it for lunch on Saturday. I shredded the meat and then fried it with lots of veggies and roasted pumpkin in onion marmalade (a weird choice, granted, but I have limited condiments at the moment due to the move and packing etc.).

Verdict? Very tasty instead. It’s kind of a cross between chicken and beef flavour-wise? And incidentally it has less fat than chicken.

Rant: As I can’t run at parkrun I’m still volunteering and helping set up and clear down. I take Alfie with me as well as it’s a great way for him to get a good walk in and he’s (fairly) well behaved. However with the autumnal weather and rain he gets so muddy. This means having to give Alfie a bath when I get back.

Oh just look at his face! He hates having baths but won’t kick up a fuss. He’ll just stand there looking miserable. He smelt gorgeous afterwards though.

He raced around afterwards and rubbed himself all over the carpet…lovely.

Injury update: So I’m almost 95% certain it’s not my IT band that’s causing me grief. I’m 4.5 weeks out from the marathon and my knee is still very painful. The odd thing is it’s not consistently painful. Sometimes I can walk around and walk up and downstairs absolutely fine. I get a glimmer of hope which is then promptly dashed later in the day when I suddenly get a sharp pain which then doesn’t go away until I stop walking.

The pain is intense, it’s a shooting and sharp pain inside my knee. There’s still a bit of puffiness around the kneecap. I’m icing, compressing, stretching, foam rolling…and no real improvement has happened. My muscles don’t feel tight at all. There’s no discomfort, just a sharp pain.

At the start of the week, I saw a sports massage therapist for another opinion (and he costs less than my physio and can see me in the evening at my home) and he’s pretty sure it’s an impingement of my fat pad in my knee. Massage won’t help it.

Bizarrely yesterday I was in agony walking a short distance to Tesco. I almost couldn’t make it. The pain was identical to the marathon pain (where I had to walk the last two miles). When I say agony, I truly mean agony. I was almost in tears and wasn’t sure I could make it back.

I’m hoping to see my physio again this weekend (he’s kindly seeing me out of hours on Sunday – I think he can smell my desperation) and I’m hoping he can confirm things and provide me with some light at the end of the tunnel.

At this point, I’m not going to lie, I’m panicking. I’m worried about Boston which I know is so far away but the weeks are quickly flying by. I thought I’d be running at some point in November but it seems highly unlikely. At the moment I can only dream of running at some point in December. As long as I’m running in January I can do the marathon. I’ve paid for the flights already and not mention the non-deferrable ridiculous costing race entry.

The only thing keeping me from falling into a dark, dark pit right now is how much I’m enjoying the gym. I’m just trying not to think about the next few months at all. Because it makes me feel sick.

What are your rants and raves?

Have you ever had a seriously painful injury before?

What’s the most exotic meat/food you’ve ever had?