tips for setting motivational goals with bodyweight exercises?

[ratcreature]

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.

Comments

[rydra_wong]

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.

[ratcreature]

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.

[rydra_wong]

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.

[ratcreature]

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.

[rydra_wong]

*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.

[ratcreature]

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.

[rydra_wong]

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

[rydra_wong]

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.

[ratcreature]

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