lifting_heavy_things | tips for setting motivational goals with bodyweight exercises?

tips for setting motivational goals with bodyweight exercises?

I suffered from some nasty lower back/sciatic nerve pain during the last months. Both my primary care physician as well as the orthopedic specialist thought that there isn't anything particular wrong with my back (like a disc injury or such), but that it was the unspecific kind of back pain due to weak muscles, bad posture, being too sedentary etc. and that it ought to improve with exercise.

So I had about a dozen physical therapy sessions, also took a class for back pain exercises, and thankfully my pain got indeed better, albeit with ups and downs. But of course I should keep doing the exercises to remain pain free, yet the ultimate goal of "I want the pain to not come back" alone isn't great to sustain motivation for me. It's too general and doesn't really offer any accomplishments to work toward and such.

Because the exercises I learned are basically a mix of bodyweight strength exercises, balance exercises and stretches, I figure that I should be able to use the strength exercises to measure progress somehow for motivation. I enjoy tracking things, but I'm not sure how to go about it with exercising.

I mean, I have noticed some progress with exercises becoming easier, so I can manage more repetitions, and sometimes when there were different versions I can now even do the more difficult exercise than just the easiest kind (though overall my fitness level is still pretty bad, like for example I can't manage any push-ups, not even the easier kind where you are on your knees rather than toes, but am still at the level where you push against a wall). But I'd like to properly track things and have a couple of realistic, concrete goals so I see improvements.

I tried looking at the bodyweight strength training books in my library to get an idea for how this is usually done, but I have to admit that the books I found were all rather off-putting. Like the ones aimed at women all seemed to be a horrible assemblage of body image and weight loss issues, and the ones aimed more towards men had a slightly different set of body image and weight loss issues that were almost as awful and often mixed that with some kind of, I guess, weird power fantasies? I'm sure there must be decent strength training books out there, but my skimming led me to think that it is one those genres you best not venture into without recs. So I mostly backed away from consulting those.

Basically I'm looking for advice with which kind of exercises or exercise progressions (like with the different kinds of push-ups getting more difficult) are good to see your progress and motivate yourself, when you don't track increased weight like with lifting stuff.

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I'm not entirely sure of exercise terminology in English, or whether some of these have common names...

The one my physical therapist had me doing most for strength was one where you lie on your back with the feet on the floor and then slowly lift your pelvis up, sort of rolling your spine gradually until you are in a straight line, keeping your abdominal muscles tense. Then later she had me doing that but with the feet/calves on a swiss ball so I had to keep balance too, and then roll the ball towards me.

Also an exercise where you are on your hands and knees, again with the abdominal muscles tensed so the back is straight, and lift your right arm forward, the left leg backward, and then bring them together elbow to knee beneath you and then the same with the opposite limbs. Also from that hands/knees position to lift up your knees from the mat a little bit.

Then abdominal crunches, and also a similar thing where you don't start lying down but sitting up and then lower your torso and try to hold that position.

Then an exercise where you lie on your belly, tense your abdominal muscles and have your arms with the elbow at 90° and lift the arms up a little, and then move them forward and backward.

Then an exercise where you are lying on your side, tense the abdominal muscles and pull your shoulders and pelvis together a little so that there is gap at your waist.

Okay, I recognize all of these, except this one -- not sure how to visualize it:

Then an exercise where you are lying on your side, tense the abdominal muscles and pull your shoulders and pelvis together a little so that there is gap at your waist.

Like this, a sort of side crunch?

http://jsk4832.com.ne.kr/training/rectusabdominis/Side%20crunch.jpg

Do you have a swiss ball at home?

Yeah I have a swiss ball.

And no, the exercise isn't a side crunch. I think it is a pilates inspired thing. It is a very small movement, but takes some effort. The shoulder and the pelvis both remain on the floor, but you pull them together a little with your core muscles all tense, so that this gap forms instead of your middle just sagging onto the floor. That is, the hip and shoulder that are resting on the floor move closer together, while you are on that side, not the upper ones.

Edited 2014-09-22 10:12 (UTC)

Okay, that one I don't know (I'm not very familiar with Pilates; a lot of the exercises are very specialised small movements like that).

The one my physical therapist had me doing most for strength was one where you lie on your back with the feet on the floor and then slowly lift your pelvis up, sort of rolling your spine gradually until you are in a straight line, keeping your abdominal muscles tense.

Right, so that's mostly called a "bridge".

One strategy for progress: do it more times in a row. Do you currently have a fixed number of sets and reps you do?

Another strategy: introduce instability, e.g. by putting your feet (or shoulders) on a swiss ball.

Yet another strategy: go unilateral! Lift one foot off the floor, so the other leg (and your core) is doing twice the work, and it's also harder to balance. Make sure you repeat the exercise on the other side.

Another strategy again: increase range of motion (you can do this by putting your shoulders on a bench). Then it's called a "hip thrust".

Also an exercise where you are on your hands and knees, again with the abdominal muscles tensed so the back is straight, and lift your right arm forward, the left leg backward, and then bring them together elbow to knee beneath you and then the same with the opposite limbs.

That's called various things, I think -- the name I know best is "bird dog". Afraid the only way I know of making it more difficult is by adding wrist and ankle weight.

Then an exercise where you lie on your belly, tense your abdominal muscles and have your arms with the elbow at 90° and lift the arms up a little, and then move them forward and backward

So your back is arching and your head and chest are lfting up off the floor a bit, right?

More to follow when I have time.

Edited 2014-09-22 20:39 (UTC)

Thanks for the ideas with the bridge exercise, I appreciate the pointers. So far I haven't really been doing a systematic sets/reps kind of approach, though I might start that now. I have managed to increase the number of times I can do it though, like at first I could only manage it about three or four times properly before I started trembling, and now I can manage eight times with no problem even on the swiss ball, though that often is still hard on my upper legs when I add the difficulty of pulling the ball towards me.

So your back is arching and your head and chest are lfting up off the floor a bit, right?

Er, no. I the one I was shown the head remains low. Not really resting, it's another one of these tense things, but the nose remains towards the mat so the back isn't arched, and you have to lift your arms up from the mat and move those. Like in the class we did different things, forward/backward like I mentioned, also a swimming kind of motion and chopping motion, but I think the main difficulty comes from not letting your arms down while you do all this stuff. At first it doesn't seem so hard to just lift your arms to not touch the floor just this little bit, but for me keeping them up gets harder quickly and becomes quite difficult, and then I just can't hold them up anymore and collapse like a wet noodle. Probably to measure progress with that one you'd have to time how long you can keep up this kind of arm position.

it's another one of these tense things, but the nose remains towards the mat so the back isn't arched, and you have to lift your arms up from the mat and move those.

But your head and your shoulders/arms are off the mat, at least?

Probably to measure progress with that one you'd have to time how long you can keep up this kind of arm position.

Yup. With a bunch of exercises, you'd aim to do a static hold for a fixed amount of time (then rest for a bit, repeat, rest, repeat -- three sets is a good rule-of-thumb amount). As you get stronger, you increase the number of seconds you hold them for.

I have a cheap watch with a stopwatch, and plonk it on the floor somewhere where I can see it. Other people will set a timer that beeps when their time is up.

Yeah, you are to hold the head up a little, like not smush the nose on the mat, but keep just the tip against it, and keep the arms up, and move them, while the sternum remains on the mat.

Okay, this is NOT that exercise, but it's not unrelated.

Try "superman":

http://www.stumptuous.com/back-pain-3-exercises-for-low-back-pain (scroll down to reach it, and do note the thing about how some people find the compression isn't helpful for their backs, so YMMV)

To make it easier, move your arms back so they're alongside your body, pointing towards your toes.

(That's actually identical to a yoga pose called "locust".)

If that gets easy, try a back hyperextension -- I found this works really well at home if you lie with your hips on the swiss ball and your feet wedged under something:

http://www.stumptuous.com/good-mornings-and-back-hyperextensions

YMMV, but for me, unweighted back hyperextensions really helped keep my back in good shape after I'd had a run of lower back strains.

I think I'm going to be careful with the superman one, because in the back exercise class we were introduced to one that I think stretches the lower back in a similar way -- looking at English sites that one is called "Sphinx pose", but I find that quite uncomfortable. It doesn't cause me an alarming pain or anything like that, that would make me break off a movement, but it doesn't feel good either, like for example stretching my back in the other direction, i.e. really making it round, like in that position that yoga calls "child pose" for example, does. Though the superman/locust one seems to bend the back less, so maybe it is worth a try to see how that one feels.

Though the superman/locust one seems to bend the back less, so maybe it is worth a try to see how that one feels.

Yes, one difference would be that in Sphinx, you're using your arms to push your spine into the curved shape.

Whereas with superman/locust, you're lifting into it, and you can't go any further than the strength of your back muscles can take you. So, it might be different. Or not.

But if it doesn't feel right, definitely don't do it! It's certainly easy to compress your lower back in unhelpful ways with backbends.

Yeah, I'm tending to be cautious with movements, because I don't think my bodyawareness is that great. I mean, there is a range of sensations you can have that aren't pain, but are unfamiliar and sometimes uncomfortable, and sometimes you are supposed to feel these to some extent with an exercise (like with that muscle stretching feeling), and sometimes they are the first warning that you are doing something not good. And I'm not experienced enough with using my body with exercises (yet) to really judge which is which.

*nods a lot*

It's very good that you know that you don't know!

I'm at a point where I've got a pretty sharp sense of the difference, so I can push things in certain ways because I know I can tell what's "good discomfort" versus what's "bad discomfort".

I expect you'll find that you develop your own sense of this and how they feel for you over time.

And there are some useful rules of thumb -- as they're usually given, "good discomfort" or "good pain" is generalized (over a fairly wide area), has a more dull/achy quality to it, comes on slowly, and goes away once you stop the exercise/stretch. It often has the "hurts so good" quality of a deep massage.

"Bad pain" tends to come on suddenly, be sharp and /or localized, and/or hangs around once you're finished.

I'd add that in my experience "good pain" tends to be felt in muscles, "bad pain" in joints.

But if you know you don't have your own sense of it developed yet, best to be cautious, as you're being. And trust any little "uh-oh, this doesn't feel quite right" hunches.

I've tried out the locust pose today and it really feels better than the sphinx pose. I could only hold it briefly (though slightly better than superman with the arms in front), not quite twenty seconds before collapsing, and I didn't get up very far, but it didn't feel uncomfortable in my lower back like sphinx, just hard to hold. So thanks for pointing me to these. Maybe over time my back will get stronger and better with movement in that direction as well.

Twenty seconds is a lot for that, actually! You could try doing multiple, briefer repeats, and see how that feels.

Oooh, forgot to mention -- it can feel really nice to alternate between locust and child's pose. The child's pose helps stretch out the lower back and relieve any compression from the backbend.

Yeah, I do the child's pose after locust for exactly that reason.

Then abdominal crunches, and also a similar thing where you don't start lying down but sitting up and then lower your torso and try to hold that position.

So you're sitting on the floor, with bent knees and your feet on the floor, and you lean back towards the floor and try to hold that?

Yes.

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tips for setting motivational goals with bodyweight exercises?

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