Strength training - AnnaTheApple

July 26, 2013

Injury Recovery

Happy Friday, folks. How’s your week being going? Mine has been fairly standard. For some reason I have been so tired. I think it might be the weather. We only finally got a bit of rain yesterday, so it’s been quite oppressive and humid recently.

Anyway, I wanted to do a post on how I recovered from my injury (because I think I’m pretty much fully recovered now). I know I’ve been harping on about my injury and ‘woe is me’ and it does seem to have dragged excessively long (sorry!) so I thought I’d do a ‘lessons learnt’ and tips post.

Quick background if you’re not aware: mid-June I started to get a slight pain in my right leg, near my hip up along my IT Band.

Source

Then after a few too many races, I went out for a run and BANG serious pain all down my IT band to my knee. Game over, no running.

I’m pretty certain I know what I did to cause it. Overuse and not listening to my body. Every weekend I ran a race and was pushing myself quite hard. I was addicted to races (still am…but I think I’m a bit more sensible now!).

Anyway, after confirming with the physio it was hip bursitis which was caused by a very tight IT band, I stopped running. It sucked.

So, then came a long and arduous time of trying to figure out how the hell I can get my leg better.

Number one: stop running. Stop doing the same damn thing that caused the issue in the first place. I even hate typing this it sucks so much. But honestly, it is better to stop completely and heal then try and push through and extend the injury longer. Unfortunately for me I did have to go on the UK Challenge team building event with work which involved a whole lot of running which I couldn’t avoid. This didn’t help. I probably would have recovered a whole lot quicker if I hadn’t have gone. Hey ho.

Post-Challenge, I ran less miles and at less intensity. There was no pain just discomfort thankfully. But still not better completely.

Number two: ice.

Andy Murray does it and so should you if you’re starting to feel an injury on it’s way. Muscles get inflamed and ice helps reduce that inflammation and calm things down. I was pretty much having an ice bath after every single run. It seriously helped.

Alfie liked to get involved. He wondered what all the screaming was about

Number three: not only did I ice but I also took Ibuprofen when my leg was really tender. I also used the Ibuprofen gel on my leg before bed and in the morning.

Number four: stretch and strengthen. After extensive research thanks to good old Google I found that I probably needed to work on my strength. All I did was run, run, run. Yep I love it that way, but my body obviously doesn’t.

I knew I needed to loosen my IT band and work on my hip strength.

The foam roller and I have become best buddies. I seriously foam roll after every run now, and if my leg still feels tight I’ll do it in the evening as well.

This is a great one to do but hurts like hell:

Source

As for hip strengthening, it’s all about the clam. The least most attractive exercise know to man. Ben laughs at me when I do it.

Source

And side leg lifts:

Source

I do them every other day (10 on each leg three times). And now I’ve progressed to using a resistance band with them. I’ve found this has really helped.

And this stretch for my IT band has been a big help too:

Source

Number five: balance. Along with stretching and strengthening I’ve incorporated cross-training into my week. I’ve joined a gym so I can go to classes like Pump for strengthening and Spin for cross-training. Spin is great as it’ll still work my cardiovascular system but without the constant pressure on my joints and legs in every step.

Above all: listen to your body. Only you can know what’s going on and if you’re pushing to hard and too often. If it hurts, it means something significant.

Remember, there are always other races and other days to bust out that workout.

Hope this helped anyone who needed it!

Have you been injured?/ Are injured?

How did you recover?

December 7, 2012

Fitness update

Happy Friday all! Today’s post was going to be a recipe for a pumpkin curry I made. However I think I’ve deleted my photo accidentally. Devastating! It was such a good meal that it really deserves a photo to go alongside the recipe so I will have to park this for the moment. I was planning on making it again at the weekend so it will be here soon!

This week has been chilly. The first five minutes driving to work/home are horrible. The car is freezing so I spend the first bit of the journey huddled over the steering wheel like an old woman. But by the time I finally arrive at work it’s positively roasting. Lovely

Despite how cold it’s been I’ve still been loving my lunchtime runs. On Wednesday I ran with the usual running crew and we did another 6 mile route but this time off-road.

I can’t tell you much I love off-road routes. It’s just so much fun. The more mud you’ve got flicked onto your legs the better! I’ve been running in my usual trainers and this isn’t so good as it can be very slippy in the mud. Sooo I have purchased a pair of (fairly inexpensive) off-road trainers. They have grips and everything. You may think I’m incredibly sad (I won’t be offended) but I am so excited about them! [Can you tell??] Hopefully they should be with me soon.

So instead of my beloved pumpkin curry recipe I will do a post about my latest fitness update. I alluded in other posts that I’ve changed my previous strength routines to something a bit more…explosive shall we say?

I’ve been creating some plyometric routines to do twice a week alongside a more ‘general’ strength routine. It’s only been recently that I’ve found out about plyometric exercises. I’ve seen on a lot of other blogs about routines involving burpees and plank jacks etc. but never really paid it much mind. But after finding my current routines were getting a bit samey I decided to explore it a bit.

I ambitiously made this really lengthy routine to repeat like three times and honestly it killed me. I couldn’t even complete it it was that tough.

So I scaled it back a bit… let’s not aim too high, Anna.

I’ve made three workout routines: one is a full body (ish) strength training routine and the other two are plyometric-style routines.

With this routine I tried to get in some core, some glutes, legs and arms. It’s approximately a 20 minute workout and you can add dumbbells in where it makes sense.

See it doesn’t look so difficult does it? Hop on one leg, pfffttt! That’s easy. Yeah, that’s what I thought. Now maybe it is easy for you, but I really struggled. It’s tough to maintain these jumping movements for an entire minute – three times! I was a sweaty mess with this.

This is moderately easier because at least you can rest a bit with the press ups <—did I seriously just write that sentence??

I’ve been trying to do these three workouts a week. The first one is fairly easy (in terms of you don’t need a huge amount of energy to do it; you’re stationary and you can take your time), but the other two are quite tough if you’re tired. With my regular 6 mile runs I’ve been finding that the next day (when I plan to do these routines) I ache too much to attempt both of the plyometric ones in a week. But I’m working on it. If I don’t do both of the plyometric ones I do some Pilates instead for 20 mins.

So that’ my update on what I’ve been doing in terms of working out.

Let me know if you do anything like the above and if you have any tips of advice!

Are you a burpee lover or hater?

November 11, 2012November 11, 2012

Moral of the story

Hi guys, hope you’re having a lovely weekend. The weather has been chilly but sunny and dry here which makes for lovely crisp days.

Yesterday I can’t say I did anything terribly exciting I’m afraid. Ben and I went for a nice run. Mine was a short, sharp 2 miles as I ached from my lower body routine from Friday…

…but Ben went for a whopping 6mile run. I’m so proud of him! He’s starting to get back into it which is great as I missed running with him. I have to say, I was a bit jealous when he told me how far he’d run.

This week’s workouts have been great. My usual strength routine’s Monday, Wednesday, Friday and a 3 mile run on Thursday. The 3 miler was really tough. I’m running a new route that hits a hill about a mile in and the hill goes on for .5mile. I think I started a bit cocky as by the end of that hill I was ruined. It really took it out of me. Moral of the story: PACE MYSELF.

I was going to run on Friday as well but I just didn’t have the energy.

In a slightly related story…When I said I was running the other week a guy I work with seemed keen to join me. He goes to the gym and kept bragging about how many miles he’s run and how fast he goes la-de-da so I was really excited about running with him as (and please don’t take this as me being big headed or anything like that) I haven’t run with anyone who runs at my pace before. OK I don’t really run with many people so that’s probably why!

So anyway, I was looking forward to it. We started off at a nice pace of 8.10mins/mile. Then we hit that hill I mentioned above. Suddenly all that bragging and hot air disappeared very quickly. The pace dropped to over 9 mins and he was dying. I felt quite chuffed with myself as I was OK. By the end of the run, he was done for. Now, I might be a leeeeetle bit too competitive for my own good and we weren’t racing. But if we were…I would have won that race. Just saying.

So my run on Thursday was the same route but me on my own to see how fast I could do it alone. Hence why I ruined myself.

I have to mention lunchtime yesterday. It was amazing. Now I realise that this may seem gross and wrong and random, but it tasted gooooooood.

Three egg omelette with chocolate peanut butter (PB2) and Brussels sprouts. Before you judge me, you need to try it. I love it when lunch tastes a little bit like a dessert. With vegetables. Win-win situation. Basically I ran out of my plain peanut butter and had to improvise quickly before the hungry beast that is Anna at lunchtime took over the world. Not my finest hour, but definitely one of the tastiest.

Then last night Ben and I went out for a fireworks night at a friend of the family’s house. It was Ben, my mum, my dad, my sister, brother-in-law, niece and me in convoy. The house was packed full of people and it was all very relaxed and fun.

The fireworks were brilliant. A home-made affair in the back garden. Ellie, my niece (on the right), and her new found friend Abbie loved it. Abbie kept asking her dad to turn it down though haha.

There was a slightly unsafe feel to the fireworks when two fireworks clashed together and made a huge explosions. Cue all the mum’s grabbing the small children and running inside (yes, that might have including me. I’m small and I was scared).

But otherwise it was great! Seat of your pants stuff.

The hosts provided a mass of food and drink – amazing punch (the bottom one was apple and ginger – with marinating apples floating about, the top one was tropical punch):

And I happily tucked into a bowl of hearty chilli.

Followed by pudding.

Look at those home-made cupcakes! The were sparkly and everything.

Ah yes, that is a piece of rockyroad. To be honest, I’m not sure how that got in my bowl. Think it fell in there by accident…

As amazing as the cupcake and rockyroad was I think I was too quick for my own good (yes I’m one of those people who’s pretty much first in the queue at buffets). After stuffing myself full they brought out crumble. I was devastated. I did contemplate having crumble as well but I’m not sure I could have driven us home afterwards without being sick. Moral of this story? Wait until they’ve finished putting all the food on the table before stuffing yourself.

So, a pretty good evening!

And we woke up this morning to this furry, scruffy hound:

I really need to get his haircut sorted. He is a mess, bless him.

What’s everyone up to this weekend?

November 7, 2012

Merry Christmas??

Brrrrr it is cold! Though it’s actually quite nice in a weird way. To be snuggled up inside nice and warm and for it to be chilly outside. Though getting out of bed in the morning is not fun – nor is taking Alfie out for a walk first thing. Winter coat: check, Uggs: check, gloves: check. Result = a happy Alfie but a cold Anna.

And Christmas seems to have suddenly appeared out of nowhere. One minute we’re all vigorously carving our pumpkins and admiring the autumnal colours of the trees when suddenly, boom! hello tinsel, hello Christmas adverts on the telly! Now don’t get me wrong, I love Christmas so as far as I’m concerned this is brilliant. HOWEVER, I have now been thrown into a state of stress. When am I going to bake our Christmas cake? When will I have time to go shopping? What do my friends and family even want??

And breathe. Anna, it’s the beginning of November. But I am getting excited. I love Christmas. I love the food (who doesn’t?), I love how everyone is just more merry than normal, I love the Christmas decorations, the time with the family…the never ending boxes of Celebration chocolates (I don’t love that Supermarkets seem to think that they’ve put them on offer at the moment…erm, weren’t they always that expensive??) It’s without doubt my favourite time of year. So the sooner the better!

As usual as it’s Wednesday it’s WIAW. A big thanks to Jenn for hosting this as usual. I’ll show you a selection of different meals from the week as my best eats were spread rather than an individual day if that’s alright!

Breakfast: OK, OK you’ve seen pancakes a fair few times now if you’ve been reading my blog for some time…before you fall asleep, I did try a new topping to jazz things up a bit (and use some of the mass of fruit I have sitting in our freezer…)

As it was too difficult for me to work out how to defrost my pumpkin purée from the freezer (yep I’m that person) I decided just to stick with the standard recipe I use (find it HERE). The topping I decided to just have fun with.

I thawed some frozen blackberries, then sprinkled them with quite a generous amount of cinnamon and a few drops of Stevia. Then I zapped it in the microwave for maybe a minute. Basically so the fruit turns a bit mushy and is warm. Then I poured it over the pancakes. Bliss!

Lunch: During the week I always take food with me to save on costs. I used to have chilli using Quorn mince but I’ve gone off that mince a bit now and much prefer using mixed beans.

[Apologies for seriously bad photo]

I used a yellow bell pepper, onion, courgette, mushrooms, chopped tomatoes and mixed beans (like butterbeans, kidney beans, chickpeas, etc.). I also added chilli powder, paprika, cumin, a little bit of sugar and some mixed herbs. To spruce it up I added a large tablespoon of Philadelphia cheese. This made it so creamy and delicious – definitely adding this again! Along with this for lunch I have two Baby Bells and an apple. Maybe not the prettiest lunch, but it works for me!

I’ve set myself a little target for November to make a new recipe every week as I was finding myself in a bit of a food rut. You know what’s it like…getting in from work, being tired, you don’t want to whizz up some all singing and dancing dinner. But I’m pushing myself to try – at least on Friday and Saturday nights! So far this is going really well. I made coq au vin the other day and that was deeeelicious. But I also made another meal this week as well. And I probably say this about everything I cook I cook but it was such a good meal! Filling and sneakily nutritious.

I used THIS recipe. Basically it’s chicken coated in a ground almond coating and then baked in the oven. Crunchy and spicy!

And alongside that I cooked some cauliflower and then mashed it with some mozzarella cheese (well I blended it with a hand-blender).

I LOVED this. Seriously easy and a good alternative to mash potato if you fancy a lighter dinner. With all the ground almonds and chicken, this was a very filling dinner.

Snacks: I sponsored Maria for her Great North Run a while back and she very kindly sent me some baked goods (Swedish Apple Muffins) as a thank you. How sweet is that?? (Due to me going on my honeymoon she sent them to me now – I’m very chuffed):

PICTURE

[Please don’t judge the photo too harshly, they have travelled via post to get to me!]

So I have been happily tucking into these this week. They are so moist and yummy. Perfect evening snack. I thoroughly recommend Maria’s blog, she always has such yummy recipes and ideas!

Oooh and I’ve also been indulging in a few squares of these in the evening:

I can’t always be snacking on apples after all I guess!

Fitness: I’m still following my strength routines three times a week. It’s not quite as difficult as it was originally so I feel I’m making some progress. I’ve got my plank back to 3 minutes. Does anyone else get bored doing the plank? I mean, it’s tough and painful but so boring. I just end up staring at my stopwatch…

I’m thinking of getting a resistance band – has anyone tried this? Is it worth it?

Running is going well. The only problem I have at the moment is that now I’m running at work it means that if I have a busy day I can’t always run. I’m quite a structure, routine person (have you noticed??) so I find this really frustrating. I hate pushing workouts to a different day. But it’s one of those things I guess.

Outfit of the day:

[Can you spot Alfie hiding in the background?]

I can’t actually remember where I got this dress from, whoops. But the cardi is from New Look!

Have a great Wednesday!

Do you hate it when you have to postpone a workout?

Are you in a Christmassy mood yet?

October 31, 2012

Murder mystery, skiing and good food – WIAW

Hello! Refreshed from the weekend and ready to go? Yep me neither. I’m manically busy at work and wanted to do a post on Monday but time just disappeared…

This weekend was good fun. I went to Pilates on Saturday morning again. It was once again brilliant. It’s tough but in a completely different way, you know? I tried out the Hundred move this week so I was chuffed as that’s the only Pilates move I’d heard of! And it was tough. I think I struggle mostly with the technical aspects of inhaling/exhaling at the appropriate moments and making sure my spine is where it should be while tensing my stomach…It hurts my muscles and my head!

I decided to run there as it’s only 1.5 miles away. Well, it’s only 1.5 miles if you don’t get lost that is. I thought I was being all cunning by taking a short-cut. I was so sure of where I would end up after going down this long, long road. Only to find I’d added another mile on to my journey! It meant my lovely leisurely paced run turned into a fast dash as I was in danger of being late. Whoops.

On Saturday evening we went round our friend’s house for a murder mystery evening. It was brilliant. Everyone got into their character that they’d been set and we just had such a good laugh. It was a 1920s theme which was brilliant.

All the girls in their flapper dresses and all the guys in there suspenders and hats.

I wasn’t the murderer but I guessed correctly

Then on Sunday Ben and I went skiing at our local dry sky-slope with some friends.

I was nervous as I haven’t been for a year and I’m still very much a beginner. I can snow plough and that’s pretty much it. But we’re kicking it off again as we’re planning on going skiing next year so I need to be able to not fall over all the time (I’ve never actually been properly skiing before!)

It was great fun as I’m beginning to learn parallel turns. OK not very well but I’m getting there! And I didn’t fall over which, considering I’m the most clumsy person known to man, is a great accomplishment.

So it’s the last WIAW for October. Thank you Jenn for hosting (check out her blog for more information). This is my what I ate Sunday as it’s probably my most exciting eats.

Breakfast: Sundays are pancakes day. It just seems like such a perfect day to spend that extra effort into creating something that is quite magical.

Pumpkin pancakes! I know, I know, how original. Almost getting as boring as my green porridge… But I made my own pumpkin puree from a mammoth of a pumpkin so I’m really chuffed with these (on a slightly related note – I now have so much pumpkin I’m set for the next few years! Ben thinks I’m ~~more~~ crazy).

It was amazing. I used 3 tbs rolled oats, 1 heaped tbs of wholemeal flour, 1/2 cup of egg whites, 1/2 cup of pumpkin puree, 1 tsp baking powder, 1 tsp cinnamon, 1 tsp pumpkin spice, few drops of Stevia. I got three chunky pancakes out of that. Then some peanut butter thrown on top.

Lunch: after skiing we were famished and wanted to grab something quick. So I made a three egg omelette with more peanut butter inside. And some avocado alongside.

OK it does look like the omelette and avocado aren’t speaking at the moment. Maybe a smaller plate would have been better… Regardless though I love this. Why haven’t I ever had this combination before? The avocado addition I could take or leave to be honest but the omelette itself was so good. And very filling. A nice change from my usual tuna omelette.

Dinner: as you know, I love my salads. They rock my world. And this was a new combination.

My usual salad of leaves, cucumber, beets but with some fabulous added extras. I added some roasted pumpkin (like I said, I have so much pumpkin at the moment it’s laughable). I also finely chopped some red onion, sliced cherry tomatoes and pomegranate seeds and mixed them with diced garlic and lemon juice. Then I topped it all with a chunk of grilled halloumi. I’m new to this cheese and though it’s verrrry rubbery it really is very tasty. The sweet (pomegranate, tomatoes) and salty (cheese) of this salad were perfect.

Oh and I sprinkled some pumpkin seeds on top too. Mega variety salad. Definitely going to happen again some time!

Snacks: Completely out of the ordinary, I did some baking on Monday night. Usually anything I bake turns out rubbish or looks nothing like the recipe picture. In some shape or form I do something wrong. I’m better at throwing things together randomly rather than accurately following a recipe…HOWEVER! These cookies turned out exactly like the photo.

Pumpkin cookies! [OK yes I might have a bit of an obsession. It’ll pass one I’ve gotten through my twenty container-fulls of pumpkin puree.] I’ll post the recipe soon! The cookies are for any trick or treaters who come knocking tonight. That’s my excuse and I’m sticking to it. Fingers crossed no one will knock…

Fitness: Obviously Pilates on Saturday. And I’ve been sticking to my new strength routine which has been really good but quite tough. I did the upper body routine on Thursday and the lower body on Friday and basically woke up feeling verrry achy on Saturday morning. Perfect for Pilates…whoops. And I’ve been running three times a week as usual. I’m enjoying running at lunchtimes far more than dragging myself out of bed in the morning. Though it’s harder to motivate myself when my lunch is sat there waiting for me…but no quitting yet! And it feels great coming back into the office after a run. I don’t feel the afternoon dip.

And here’s my outfit of the day:

Scarf from mum, jeans from Top Shop, top from Dorothy Perkins, necklace from Mango.

That’s all from me! Hope you’re having a great Wednesday.

How are you celebrating Halloween? Any scary treats to enjoy?

Have you been skiing before?