• Know how to fit them into your overall training plan.
• Have a coach watch you for proper form
• Decide if these exercises are even  right for your situation

This video is my favorite, because it mimics some of what I’ve been doing in physical therapy.

High-Y-Fly from Vern Gambetta on Vimeo.

Yeah, that’s right. I said physical therapy. See, I’ve been swimming again for the last few weeks! I wrote to my friend, Coach Vern Gambetta.

I finally sucked it up and went to a doctor about my shoulder. Impingement. Not a shocker. Went through PT, and am SLOOOOWLY building back up to swimming (I swam 1,000 yards today, and it was really nice to do it mostly without pain).

The PT teased me repeatedly that I am terribly out of balance in my chest and back from having grown up swimming. I have LOADS of flexibility, but almost no scapular strength — working on scapular strength and my rotator cuff was mostly what the PT had me do.

Anyway. Go check out the rest of those dryland videos, and talk with a good coach to see if they’re a good fit for you.

Sunny and hot. Went up and over Turner and Mountain roads, then had my first battle with Pete’s Mountain road. Hard. Steep. Plus I was running very low on water, and all the mega-mansions up there have gates. So no illicit tapping of the garden faucet for me.

Anyway, it was abou a five hour ride. Epic. Hilly. Hot. I’m still slightly sunburned on my arm. It’s a scar I’ll wear with pleasure.

Since then, I haven’t ridden much. But I have been swimming. That has been marvelous as well, if only because Portland has been in the middle of a Global Warming inspired heat wave. And our AC is dead.

If there’s one thing I need to work back into the rotation, it’s hitting the gym. My shoulders and back have been bothering me, and the cure is quite obvious.

But I have one more day of swimming ahead of me: tonight, I’m swimming up at Klineline Pond in Vancouver. My first open water swim in a while. With luck, it’ll be fun. Without any luck at all, it should be nice and cool!

As long as I make the time. What a great weekend.

But when I can take my anti-lunch, I feel a little better. And even more surprising is that when my morning goes poorly, I know I can always take it out at the gym or in the pool.

I can’t say it has made things better. I can’t say it has turned work around. But it has made it bearable.

I wish I knew how to snap out of the funk, but until I figure it out or find something else, exercise is a giant chasm into which I can discard my frustration.

Sooner or later I’m going to give in to it, play hooky, and go ride my bike down in the Valley somewhere.

I think I man have figured out my back issues. I think it’s my hips and IT band. I stretched them out a little yesterday, twice, and I can already tell a difference.

But I took the bus in today, so we’ll test drive that theory tomorrow when I ride in.

Did incline press and butterflies. That’s what really killed me. The weight I used for flies was hilariously light — 20 lbs. I didn’t struggle, but I sure felt it.

Incline press was better: 8 reps with 115 and I didn’t struggle too much there either. Nice!

Oh sure, there might be a little hiking too. But generally speaking, I expect rest. And naps.

And I think that’s the trick to staying motivated and energetic when re-starting a workout program: keep your eye on the rest periods. When you start to run out of energy, determine if you can push through to the rest period.

And then really rest. Do nothing. Put your feet up. Crash. Get intimate with your couch.

That’s one thing I’ll do wrong this weekend — in all likelihood, it will not be that restful. So I may need to take off the early part of next week to recharge. We’ll see.

I also am trying to focus on staying on my sides longer, enabling a deeper pull. The trick is that I need to keep my shoulder blades pulled tighter when I do so. Otherwise, it kinda leaves the joint out there in a bad way.

I ended up icing the shoulder last night a little. Seemed like it helped, but it’s mostly preventative maintenance. No big problems to speak of.

Today, I lifted weights. Wow. My shoulder, neck and back muscles are not strong. Need to work on that. Gonna be sore tomorrow. Weight lifting is gonna make swimming hard for a bit, but I know it’ll pay off down the road.

Anyway. Good few days. If I take tomorrow off, it won’t be a bad thing. On the other hand, I won’t work out all weekend so I should push through Friday.

Definitely will be adding a few minutes of core work to my morning routine, or I foresee a bad week of hobbling around.

Amanda and I have been swimming for the past two months or so. Maybe even a little more. It’s been great to swim, and while I can’t say I’ve lost any weight, it’s made me feel a little better about things.

I’ve also been doing the occasional trip to the gym. Mostly I’ve been doing that to keep my shoulders from being injured from all the swimming. It seems to’ve worked thus far.

Today, I got back on my bike for the first time in a while. I may try to commute by bike a few times in the next few weeks. We’ll see.

Three things have been going really poorly lately. My food choices are attrocious. I’ve been tossing and turning at night way more than in the past. And work’s been stressful. Possibly more stressful than normal. I’m going to try to get the food thing on track this week too — little changes mostly — and hope that the work thing works itself out.

As for the sleep problems? I don’t know what I can do. Probably my first step should be to cut waaaay the hell back on caffeine. I’ll start there today and see how it goes. Maybe I’ll try the doctor at the end of the month if things don’t sort themselves out.

Yeah. That should work out REALLY well. I’ll make three major lifestyle changes in one week. I feel EXTREMELY confident that they’ll all stick. Ha!