Fitness Friday – Ernie the Hernia is No More!

Sooo, I’ve been blogging for about a month now and this blog is called ‘Fit to Teach’ so I thought I should maybe chat about a couple of my workouts. I used to be REALLY good at throwing together routines and loved to ‘train’ my friends with these but getting out of the gym momentum for so long has made it a bit weird being there lately but I think I’m finally getting the swing of it again.

My last gym based workout consisted of:

10 minute warm up on the elliptical

1 set lat pull downs coupled w/ 1 set bicep curls with a squat (repeat 3 times)

1 set upright shoulder rows coupled w/1 set bent over rows (repeat 3 times)

1 set shoulder press with bar (repeat three times)

1 set back extensions (repeat three times)

10 minutes rowing machine

10 minutes elliptical

My last workout in general (this morning) was my new FAVE activity, swimming. And yes, I’m working on developing a couple of aquatic routines. I bet I look like a real winner to my neighbours but I like to think they are just jealous we’re not having a neighborhood aqua-fit class like this:

Source: https://fittoteach.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/b17d1-aquafit.jpg

I’m obviously the one in the front with her glasses on.

I start with a 5 minute ‘run’ around the pool. I swear, this is the only environment in which I actually enjoy the running motion.

I then swim ten laps at a time and break it up with some targeted body moves. My fave and the one that makes me sweat, if this is possible in a pool, is to do a set of 50 high kicks in the water. I stand almost in the deep end so that I can get a good kick on.

After the next ten laps I targeted my arms with a water chest press.

I then continued alternating between the high kick and chest press until I had done 50 laps.

I finished off with 50 water crunches.

Up until this afternoon I thought it was the only safe place for me to do an ab work but then I went to the Shouldice Clinic in Toronto and found out……

I DO NOT HAVE A HERNIA!!!!! I can finally get rid of my t-shirt:

Source: http://rlv.zcache.com/no_heavylifting_hernia_below_tshirt-rbf18e2bb16a14d739fda042d2b899408_va6lr_512.jpg

Apparently the Shouldice Clinic sees 20,000 patients a year and less than half of them have an actual hernia. It is one of the most over-diagnosed medical problems going. The doctor thinks I had a tear in the muscle surrounding the area which accounted for the pain I was experiencing. More than likely I have re-injured it a few times because I have NOT been using my ab muscles. This is really amazing news because I actually loved working on my ab muscles at the gym. Not that you could tell, ever, but my arms and abs have always been my ‘fun’ days at the gym. I’m excited to get back to planks, push ups, all my go-tos in the work-outs to come.

The  doctor did say I’m probably one of those people whose umbilical area never fully closed and it could mean that I will get a hernia in the future and that I should carefully monitor it. This potentiality actually made me happy because once I got to the Shouldice Clinic, I kind of didn’t want to leave…I mean the place is gorgeous. It’s an old converted mansion and looks like this:

Source: http://nationalpostnews.files.wordpress.com/2012/09/shouldice.jpg?w=620

And the grounds look like this:

Source: http://shouldiceherniarepair.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/shouldice-grounds9.jpg

All of the patients were wandering around in the mansion laughing, smiling, playing cards, working out on the grounds, etc. I feel like it’s kind of what a utopian cult would look like and I wouldn’t mind joining these hernia repairing fanatics.

Overall, it was a very good news day for my physical health and an even better one for the potential of my future workouts.

While I leave you with thoughts of a healthy and happy weekend…I’ve got to ask, what is your go-to workout?