The trainer is moving back to Canada in a few weeks, it turns out, and I think she decided sometime midweek, “Eh, what the hell, I’m leaving. I’ll give her the old standard and fudge the sets a little.” And, you know, she’s busy, she’s in a big life transition, it happens. That doesn’t help me much, though. I’ve got a pretty good handle on what’s workable and what isn’t. This program of hers is unworkable. The cardio section in particular is braindead and contrary to what I told her about heart rate elevation. The plan includes no free weight work, which I specifically asked for, nor does it give me any idea of when I might move to free weights if this is an inappropriate time. (Free weights build better joint stability.) There’s no balance work. And who does traditional crunches anymore? I’ll have to rip this plan apart and stitch it back together right.

My new plan is to work upper and lower body on alternating gym days, omit all the cardiovascular work outside the warmup (so I have a little something left for the rest of my daily life), and use only Pilates and yoga for the core work. (E.g., never do traditional crunches again.)

Also, I’m not really built for swimming. My biomechanics are all about walking and running.

Weights don’t aggravate it as much, or that’s my hope anyway. Yoga and Pilates don’t aggravate it too much, and I think that’s because my heart rate isn’t elevated. In fact, the meditative aspects of both yoga and Pilates tend, I think, to slow my heart rate somewhat. I intend to do the weights much more slowly than most people, possibly even trying the super-slow method.

Other CFS patients and researchers have found the same thing wrt aerobic vs anaerobic exercise. It may even be that overdoing the aerobic exercise could cause long-term damage. Certainly I’ve felt much better having adopted my Don’t Be Dumb philosophy of aerobic exercise.

Purple potatoes look like poi, mashed.