AF Biggest Loser/Fitness Challenge-May 3 to Whenever We're Not Fat Anymore

[emjay]

Thanks for the advice but basically I think I've got myself too unfit to be comfortable doing high intensity workouts yet... because I'm worried about having a heart attack... believe me I can't even run/jog 100 yards without feeling like that. So the way I figured it was I'd aim for cardio workouts until my heart was in fairly good condition before I started looking at anything else. So with the upper body I was basically looking for something gentle but repetitive... that would work more on cardio than muscles... but hopefully muscles/tone and weight as well as a byproduct... whatever the upper body equivalent of exercise biking would be. For instance if I had space for it... which I don't... I'd love a rowing machine cos I'd figure that as similar sort of exercise for the upper body as an exercise bike is for the lower. Another option would be lots of reps of dumbbell exercises using the lightest weight etc... just until I feel some sort of confidence in my heart/lungs to be able to handle this... after all this smoking. For instance at last check I couldn't hold my breath under water for as long as I used to, swim as long as I used to or even blow up a balloon like I used to. So all those effects of smoking have snuck up on me and I figure could take quite a while to undo/recover from. So with the exercise bike I'm just going relatively gentle for the moment; 5 mins warming up at 45rpm, 10 mins at 60rpm, then 5 mins warming down at 45rpm, then stretches. When I did it in the past and was much fitter, I went way above 60rpm, including bursts of high intensity speed (since the bike has some cool games/scoring/features to make that interesting and motivating), and for much longer at the same resistance (6th of 8 settings)... but as it stands, 60 or thereabouts seems safest heartwise... gets me a bit out of breath and sweating profusely (but where it's a heat wave at the moment so not necessarily as much indicative of the intensity of the workout) but not so much that I feel I'm at risk of a heart attack.

As for the movement restrictions, that basically comes from a) RSI... which is generally triggered by a combination of bad posture and certain types of tension. I don't have RSI at the moment but I have a history of it and predisposition to it... so certain types of exercises/activities trigger it... like isometric exercises... and I found even situps started to because of the tension involved in keeping the legs down. So after that became a problem I just felt that my repertoire of available exercises started to diminish, until I eventually just gave up on exercise altogether... which is not the best advice for RSI... but is what ended up happening. The other thing, b), was a groin injury/condition caused in part (probably) by smoking, so that made physical locomotion difficult for a long while, and basically ruled out biking... so this use of the exercise bike is actually my first tentative steps back on a bike after that - so far so good, but it's a careful process and certain postures on the bike I still can't really do.

So basically a lot to undo/recover from here, but I am still hopeful that gradually I can improve, even if only in baby steps, and it won't be a waste since I'm no longer smoking.

But thanks for the advice... I'll bear it in mind for when I do feel confident in my heart

You're very welcome! Keep up the good work and good luck in your efforts. The only upper body thing I can think of is rowing, but that's not gentle. There's an exercise that 's like swimming you can do on a weider ultimate bodyworks. I can't find a video. Maybe if you set it on a low enough incline it could be gentle and a cardio exercise.

Thanks By gentle I think I partly mean rhythmic... something you can get into a flow with, change the resistance, and pace yourself... like the exercise bike... so as long as I could change the resistance on a rowing machine it might be something I could get into, but I haven't really got space for one at the moment, or for whatever a weider ultimate bodyworks is... presumably a home gym? Not even enough space for a small weights bench... though I'd love one; think that would help with the situps as well as it would be something to hold my feet in place. But I think I can roughly picture the sort of thing you're suggesting here and I'll bear it in mind in case I ever do get a suitable surface to try it from... it might even work.. with mods... just on an exercise mat... maybe