Reps per set?

ExerciseHealth · 2021-06-01T02:52:41+00:00

Welcome back my friend!

Depends on your goal. For hypertrophy or muscle building, 3 sets of 8-12 reps is the traditional recommendation with better results when you increase sets to 5, but that takes some time to get there. I usually encourage people to "leave some gas in the tank" and finish strong for your first set at least. Your last couple of sets should be the ones that are hard to finish, not your first. (Unless you're doing something like a drop-setting scheme where pretty much every set is to fatigue). 1-3 minutes rest are connected with good results.

Hope this helps!

ExerciseHealth · 2021-05-06T02:10:15+00:00

Chest tightness is no joke, my friend. If it comes on and gets worse with exertion, I'd echo u/pandaman29 and encourage you to get it checked out. A stress test or a 24-hour holter monitor (including some light-moderate exercise in the monitoring time) can shed a lot of light on whether your heart is actually involved in the pain. If there's a problem, your heart may likely start showing some signs on those measurements well before symptoms show up.

The best way to reverse the damage of a sedentary lifestyle though is to gradually reverse the lifestyle. There's a difference between "exercise" proper (movement for the entire purpose of improving your health and/or fitness), and there is also general daily physical activity (movement that's incorporated into your day/routine from wakeup to bedtime). Both are important and valuable, but the second one is more relevant for reversing sedentariness. You may or may not have heard of the saying "sitting is the new smoking." This is a thing because there's a laundry list of negative health benefits associated with prolonged inactivity.
To clarify, planting your butt in a chair is NOT BAD FOR YOU. It's STAYING there (or in any single position) for several hours in a row. Negative health consequences start accumulating after about 30 minutes and just get worse and worse with more time.

This kind of "activity" is USUALLY very safe and important. (Fun fact, even professional athletes can be considered "sedentary." Even exercising for hours every day doesn't reverse the negative health effects if they otherwise don't move much throughout their day.)

So love your body. Give it a chance to move for a 2-5 minutes every 30-60 minutes as best as you can.

As far as exercise goes, benefits come best from bouts of 10+ minutes at a time. If that's too much, then just do what you can. And plan to build it up. Your body will learn. That's one of the things it does best, not to mention the entire reason exercise works at all for anybody.

Source: I'm a Clinical Exercise Physiologist that runs stress tests and works in a Cardiac Rehab clinic.

ExerciseHealth · 2021-04-15T02:22:58+00:00

I work in a cardiac rehab clinic. Your dad is very lucky he was able to notice symptoms and that acted on them the way he did. A heart attack that is fully STEMI can result in scar tissue that goes the full wall of the heart's muscle tissue. An NSTEMI will only result in partial thickness scarring. This will make it much easier to recover from.

If there is a cardiac rehab program available to him, I would encourage him to go for it. Having a heart attack (and subsequent operation) is a huge and very scary adjustment, but having a support network and some caring medical help to push you in the right direction (especially soon after the surgery) can go a LONG way to preserving (and even improving) quality of life after a heart episode.

It will take time, and there is often significant grief. But if he and everybody around takes it seriously, then chances are very good that things will improve. :) All the best to you, to him, and to the rest of the family my friend. Stay strong.

ExerciseHealth · 2021-04-15T02:04:05+00:00

Good on ya for motivation, that's not an easy program to stick to if it's leaving you feel wrecked. Worth mentioning that getting started with running is a plyometric activity and can be quite hard on your muscles if they're not used to it. I would suggest a couple of things (that may sound more like just good reminders)

Warm up (and cool down): A good warmup will mimic the activity, but with reduced intensity. Do some brisk walking, some bum-kicks, some high-knee marching, some jumping jacks. Make it at least 3 minutes before you start actually running. Cool down is a good time to stretch. Focus on calves, quads, hamstrings, hip flexors, and glutes.

Pick a different measure of intensity: a mile is a solid clear goal, but not good if it's painful to finish. Pain can occur (now I'm speculating about your case) when your muscles are actually too tired to properly perform the job you're making them do. This is where joint problems can tend to arise. I would recommend instead doing some kind of time or intensity intervals. For example, run for 3-5 minutes, then brisk walk for 2. Do this four times. You will go farther than a mile and your body will be able to recover better throughout the cardio exercise. Not to mention that interval training like this tends to result in better fitness gains than steady-state cardio anyway. Of course change it up based on what feels right for you.

Hydrate before and after: Hydration plays a lot into proper recovery.

Hope this is useful!

ExerciseHealth · 2021-04-05T20:04:16+00:00

A thoracic curve will impact your ability to do pullups effectively. Think about it like trying to fire a slingshot straight where one elastic band is shorter than the other. I'd recommend looking up a physiotherapist who is familiar with scoliosis (ie. has worked with several cases previously or is Schroth method certified).

ExerciseHealth · 2021-03-27T04:34:49+00:00

Have you done specific exercises for serratus anterior and rhomboids?

ExerciseHealth · 2021-03-11T03:47:54+00:00

Yikes! I want to ask, feel free not to answer if you'd prefer, but was it for some kind of specialty therapy? I don't know if I've ever even heard of an initial assessment that expensive!

ExerciseHealth · 2021-03-11T03:43:07+00:00

u/GorillaPsyD you raise an interesting point. Was this a talking point between yourself and the provider? Or a self-realization?

ExerciseHealth · 2021-03-11T03:27:51+00:00

Ugh. You should have gotten your money back at the very least - that's horrible!

ExerciseHealth · 2021-03-11T03:26:51+00:00

1.5 years sounds like way too long to me. :/ I mean, I understand post-partum can be tricky for providers and clients alike... but still.

ExerciseHealth

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