hamstrings
Workout
Running with holes in the fingers of your gloves don't help keep you warm.
4 miles along the Hudson. My finger could have been a bit warmer, but I do believe I run better when my hamstrings are numb.
Workout
new pains, new places
I woke up this morning and immediately groaned. The backs of my thighs seem to have shrunk overnight -- perhapse running on the incline yesterday? I really wish I could get a yoga class into my schedule. Maybe I'll find one abroad next semester? At anyrate, I need to get into a stretching routine.
30 minutes on the elliptical at level 8 to work the quads, 30 minutes weights & abs
Workout
Stair climbing with the Ladies of the View
I watched "The View" and used the stair machine for 30 minutes on the Weight Loss program (I had to take the set level down one notch in the middle). Then I cooled down for 5 minutes and did 20 minutes of pilates for my hamstrings.
Workout
SWeATing out toxins: rice and hams
Still sneezy and overall blah, but had fortuitously made brown rice and mushroom soup late week, so ate that for lunch and came home to do a living room workout rather than spread my germs over the gym. Sorry cats and roommate. So I did the integrated strength training workout in the trainer's edge series-- 40 minutes of mostly arms and back but a good amount of bridge poses and fly
SW-e-AT
Food-Ex Pairing: Brown Rice and Hammies
Today's food-ex pairing needs no introduction. One of them supports, in a nutritional sense, well over half the world. The other supports, in a literally sense, you.
Let's talk about your hamstrings. They're not super visible in most people, and they're kind of awkward to exercise. (Yogis, think standing split. Weightlifters, think prone thigh curls.) This makes them easy to ignore, but that would be a mistake. Your hamstrings are responsible for minor things, like allowing you to flex your knee, and also to extend your hip. As in: walking, running, jumping, and lifting things off the floor. And they're also responsible for important things, like Moonwalking, and/or doing that other Michael Jackson move, where he lifts one knee and taps the lifted heel with his hand.) OK, I bet you're wondering where the term hamstring came from. Not to be a shameless Wikipedia quoter, but check this out:
Another commonly accepted origin is that legs of ham used to be hung by a hook through the space between the thighbone and the tendons behind the knee. Ham/pork used to be more common in England than beef and lamb.
Who knew!
If you're curious about how to work your hams in a kind of Western-weight-lifty way, I recommend this page on Project Swole. These people seem smart. Dancers and yogis might can try almost any of the exercises demonstrated in this very jazzy Pilates promo video. These people seem funny. Take your pick, but remember the old Chinese proverb: "Talk does not cook rice."
Oh snap! Let's talk about brown rice. Did you know that in some languages "to eat" translates directly as "to eat rice." This according to the food geeks at WHFoods, who also point out what you already know: Whole grain brown rice is very good for you, while stripped and polished white rice is a lot less so. Eat the brown rice, and you'll be thinner, have lower cholesterol, and be less likely to develop Type 2 Diabetes. How should you do it? TheKitchn.com has your back with its normal Five Ways to Eat... post, one of which would seem particularly appropriate as it includes some delicious hammy: "Fried with onions, ginger, and an egg."
Enjoy you SW-e-AT-ers....
sore hammies! :(
So I've been training pretty hard for the Nike Human 10k at the end of October, including long runs up to 7 miles, speed intervals and tempos. I can definitely see an improvement in my running abilities, but the tough training schedule has been rough on my hamstrings! They are really sore and I had o roll them on a foam roller yesterday and ice and elevate.
More...New York
Workout
Saturday Morning Yoga and Ballet
Got up early-ish today for Narween's Power Vinyasa Yoga class at Soho. It was nice to see her again--I really like her no-nonsense style. Today we focused a lot on drawing in the abs and powering our motion from the core.
Alt.Rehab
Times Science Writer Shoots Up with Own Blood
Gina Kolata, veteran Times science writer and serious cardio junkie, has a pulled hamstring. You and I might simply ice that baby and wait. Not Kolata. She's the sort who really needs her exercise -- like, the sort that signs up for four hour, up hill, "Mt. Everest," spin classes (about which she wrote an excellent book.) Screw icing, Kolata heads to the Hospital for Special Surgery and drops a cool $1,000 to get her hamstring injected with her own blood. Huh? Apparently this is an experimental treatment which doctors think can help accelerate the repair of injured tissue. But Kolata is the first to acknowledge the procedure is entirely unproven. "It’s one thing to be a professional reporter and quite another to have a running injury and be desperate for relief," she confesses. "Is there an unproven treatment that might help? Give it to me, whatever it costs, even if my insurance does not pay." You go, girl.