My goal for last year was to do at least 52 strength workouts – one for every week. I was surprised to see that I actually achieved this. I did 74 Peloton strength workouts. It’s possible / probable that I may also have done a few more on my own. I stopped all strength while I was struggling with my IT band injury as I thought the strength was possibly exacerbating my injury, so I thought perhaps I wouldn’t make my goal. I also didn’t do any strength workouts during our month in Virginia. However, I guess I must have been more enthusiastic than I remembered the rest of the time. At $17 / month, I’m paying $2.50 per workout, which I’d call an excellent deal. As we age, strength and flexibility deteriorate without active maintenance. As someone who is neither naturally particularly strong nor flexible, I figure it’s worth a little effort and money to attempt to slow the decline.
I also had a goal to do 26 stretching workouts, or one every other week. I did 8 Peloton stretching workouts. I also stretched 15 more times, for a total of 23 stretching workouts. My goal of 26 was very modest, and I didn’t even manage to achieve that. Still – 23 is better than nothing! I truly despise stretching and doing it even 23 times was pretty torturous.
What about this year? I think my strength goal was reasonable – 52 weeks, 52 strength workouts. I did my first one tonight; 51 to go. After 74 strength workouts last year, I don’t feel particularly strong. I suppose if I hadn’t done them, I’d be even weaker.
I’m going to up the ante and attempt 52 stretching workouts. I feel ridiculously inflexible, and I think it’s not healthy. It’s bad for running, bad for skiing, bad for basic function, increases risk of injury. Sitting all day is just not ideal. But there’s nothing stopping me from doing a quick 10 minute Peloton stretching session a couple times a week. So here’s to 52+ times stretching in ’23. My lack of flexibility stands in stark contrast to L’s extreme flexibility. She is not really naturally flexible and is walking talking evidence that hard work works on just about everything, flexibility being no exception.
Yay Jen! Why are you paying so much for Peleton? I pay $14 a month and they just sent me a $129/year offer. I can forward it if needed.
I have also been incorporating strength and managed almost 50 last year. It feels nice.
I’m actually paying $13 a month + tax now that I look at it. I was lazy and didn’t look it up for the blog entry. Nice to know it’s a bit cheaper than I thought. Yes, please forward the $129 / year offer. I think at this point I’m willing to commit for a year.
Nice job on 50! Do you have a favorite instructor? I do a lot of Callie Guillickson lower body and core.
Also, do you feel stronger? I honestly don’t but maybe it’s just because it’s super gradual. My back has been getting a bit more sensitive as I age, and I’d like to think the core workouts help with that.
There are times I do feel stronger, but I also feel that its gradual. And I often wonder, if I don’t feel much stronger, would have happened if I did not do the strength workouts… I recently went for a DEXA bone density scan, and that came back very good, so it made me happy to know that at this point I’ve got bone density similar to that of a 30 year old. I’m planning to work hard to keep that up if possible.
I am trying to do full-body workouts recently, and before that focused more on the upper body – mostly because I’m also doing about 140minutes a week of indoor cycling (not spin, just steady) so I felt my legs were getting more work than my arms.
I don’t remember who all the folks are, but there seem to be 2 American women and 2 British men that I seem to wind up with a lot. I recently got gloves for lifting the dumbells and that’s been really nice. $15 well worth it. I also got some “micro gainz” 1.25 pound dumbell add ons for Christmas. I find going from 5->10 pounds and 10->15 is sometimes too much for me.
I have thought about getting one of the adjustable dumbbell sets but haven’t pulled the trigger. I have 8, 10, 12, 15 and 30. I would really like a set of 20s but can’t seem to pull the trigger. I store them behind the couch in the living room and it’s just kind of annoying having this messy pile of dumbbells but we don’t really have another place, and it’s not like I’m going to get a dumbbell rack for our living room.
My primary goal when I started this was injury reduction for running, which obviously didn’t work. I think more targeted exercises would be much more effective in that regard, but I find that so boring whereas I enjoy peloton. I should probably do some upper body stuff, though I feel you get it a little bit for free just by holding the weights for the core and lower body exercises. I sometimes do whole body, but usually I just do a 20 minute workout and I feel like the whole body ones are usually longer.
I haven’t had any issues with hand discomfort. Was that why you got the gloves? Or for better friction?
The DEXA scan sounds interesting. I wonder if I should do that at some point.
Regarding feeling stronger, I guess if we accept the baseline premise that we lose strength as we age, then like you say, it’s not necessarily about feeling stronger but about maintaining current levels of strength. I’m honestly not sure I’ve done that either (since I stopped doing hill runs with the jogging stroller) but I’m sure I’d be worse off without the lifting.
I got the gloves because we have metal dumbbells with rough grips. It hurt my hands at 15 and 20 ponds for leg work. I only have sets of 5 pound increments
We have these which are expensive but nice to my hands: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0066AWP06/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_search_asin_title?ie=UTF8&psc=1
They have gone up in price but I believe Amazon sells knockoffs that to me look just the same.