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Greetings!
Feb. 6th, 2012 01:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
levendisHello! I'm new here. I've been reading through past entries - you guys are awesome. Seriously, thumbs way up.
I'm also new to the world of lifting heavy things on my own time, though I'm in my fifth (sixth? Time flies, damn) year of getting paid for it. I'm an expo at a mid-sized restaurant, which means anything from carrying three hot drippy plates of lamb shank, flipping over giant mixing bowls of bread dough, lugging around buckets of soup, lugging around buckets of soup with no lids (fluid dynamics: I once found myself drenched in organ meat stock), carrying tables, carrying boxes of beer/wine, carrying multiple boxes of beer to the bar RIGHT NOW hurry up and don't drop them, ice buckets with no handles, stacks of plates up steps, pushing a half-broken cart of liquor over gravel, and one-handing everything from a pan of rolls to a tray of drinks over my head because I'm short and the only free air-space is at six feet.
So, I've gotten reasonably strong, and I love it. Both just the, heck yeah, I can pick this up! And also the looks I get from people when they see a 5"2 girl swinging around a cast-iron table. But until recently, I assumed I shouldn't do strength-training, because then I'd be all busted up when I needed my body to do stuff.
Sorry, this post is endless. Here we go. I recently figured out that if I have a three- or four-day weekend, I get out of the heavy-things habit. I've started looking into functional fitness, and kettlebells (too pricy: I'm waiting for flea market season), and I've been adding body-weight exercises to my routine. Lemme tell you, I feel a heckuva lot better after a long shift. Still brain-dead, but physically fine.
My big problem is my lower back. I'm pretty sure this is from carrying plates and trays: proper foodrunning/bussing form means the load-bearing arm is held like you're halfway through a curl, forearm parallel to the floor, everything you're holding kept as far from your body as possible (then walk fifty paces, and smile, and don't use the pad of your thumb as an anchor, and don't spill the martinis, and ignore how hot the plates are). Aside from general core exercises, which you can also tell me about bc I am a total newb, is there something I can do to strenghten all the muscle-stuff that happens between my shoulder and butt? Does it make more sense to work out the stuff that hurts, or should I focus on improving my arms so I rely on the hurty parts less? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
And again, you guys are so cool, I'm so happy this place exists. The human body is capable of some amazing things, and this is like, hey, you can be a geek AND enjoy your physicality, no matter the level of your ability. Love it.
I'm also new to the world of lifting heavy things on my own time, though I'm in my fifth (sixth? Time flies, damn) year of getting paid for it. I'm an expo at a mid-sized restaurant, which means anything from carrying three hot drippy plates of lamb shank, flipping over giant mixing bowls of bread dough, lugging around buckets of soup, lugging around buckets of soup with no lids (fluid dynamics: I once found myself drenched in organ meat stock), carrying tables, carrying boxes of beer/wine, carrying multiple boxes of beer to the bar RIGHT NOW hurry up and don't drop them, ice buckets with no handles, stacks of plates up steps, pushing a half-broken cart of liquor over gravel, and one-handing everything from a pan of rolls to a tray of drinks over my head because I'm short and the only free air-space is at six feet.
So, I've gotten reasonably strong, and I love it. Both just the, heck yeah, I can pick this up! And also the looks I get from people when they see a 5"2 girl swinging around a cast-iron table. But until recently, I assumed I shouldn't do strength-training, because then I'd be all busted up when I needed my body to do stuff.
Sorry, this post is endless. Here we go. I recently figured out that if I have a three- or four-day weekend, I get out of the heavy-things habit. I've started looking into functional fitness, and kettlebells (too pricy: I'm waiting for flea market season), and I've been adding body-weight exercises to my routine. Lemme tell you, I feel a heckuva lot better after a long shift. Still brain-dead, but physically fine.
My big problem is my lower back. I'm pretty sure this is from carrying plates and trays: proper foodrunning/bussing form means the load-bearing arm is held like you're halfway through a curl, forearm parallel to the floor, everything you're holding kept as far from your body as possible (then walk fifty paces, and smile, and don't use the pad of your thumb as an anchor, and don't spill the martinis, and ignore how hot the plates are). Aside from general core exercises, which you can also tell me about bc I am a total newb, is there something I can do to strenghten all the muscle-stuff that happens between my shoulder and butt? Does it make more sense to work out the stuff that hurts, or should I focus on improving my arms so I rely on the hurty parts less? Any advice is greatly appreciated.
And again, you guys are so cool, I'm so happy this place exists. The human body is capable of some amazing things, and this is like, hey, you can be a geek AND enjoy your physicality, no matter the level of your ability. Love it.