Not trying to hear the dogma.

I just got back from my 4-mile long run of the week. Each mile was broken up with a 200 meter walk, but the run was nice and hard despite the breaks.

Because the Indiana Colts are on our campus, random families came down to track, presumably to see where the Colts trained. Makes since; if the parents work during the day, they would have to come out on a weekend to show their kids where the football players do all their hard work.

It was a little disconcerting to be huffing and puffing out there with families watching, though. Eeks.

I went home Friday night for a physical at my [new] doctor’s office. The physical itself went well. I weighed in at 173 lbs, my blood pressure was 110/70 (which, since no one said anything about it, I’m going to assume is good). The more invasive parts of the exam were a little shaking, quite frankly, but endurable. The doctor put me on Ortho Tri-Cyclen Lo, which I get to wait a few weeks before starting.

I’ll admit that I’m a little uncomfortable at the thought of taking hormonal birth control. My hormones work fairly well and regularly right now, and I have trouble with the idea of potentially mucking that up with artificial means. The ends justifies the means on this one, though.

While I was home (and enduring the teasing from both of my parents about the birth control), I talked to the Old Man about my weight lifting problems. I don’t personally know anymore more well-read on the subject, and I tend to take his advice as gold in this arena.

Except that this weekend, his talk of weight-lifting was full of criticisms and derisions of my current lifestyle and methods: my protein concerns were all “psychological”. The multi-set way of weight-lifting was “traditionalist” and “not forward-thinking” (with the clear implication of “backward” and “inefficient”). Anything I’d read was dismissed as mere “conventional thinking” and with comments like, “Yeah, that’s what ‘they’ say, right? Who’s ‘they’?” My interest in stationary rowing as a method of rounding out my cardiovascular workouts was labeled a waste of my time with the comment, “I’m sorry… I though you wanted to build muscle.” My diet was criticized up one side and down the other.

I think he has some trouble accepting that my main goal is to be runner and be aerobically in shape rather than following his goals of making weight-lifting his primary workout style (it worked for him, so it should work for me too, right? Right.).

He advocates that I switch back to doing one set to failure in weight-lifting. He’s been doing that for years; it’s the “forward-thinking” way to do things; it’s the most efficient (and therefore best) way of doing things.

I wanted help with my current method of weight-lifting. As a result of asking him, I feel rather ridiculed and dismissed.

There may be merit to his methodology; I know good and well that advice delivered shittily does not necessarily negate its validity, and I had good luck with that style of weight lifting years ago, before I took up any cardio. I wonder at his religous fervor in pushing this one style, though. Five to seven years ago, he could talk about weight-lifting without the need to put down other schools of thought as ludicrous.

Then again, maybe I just didn’t hear the criticisms then as well as I hear them now.

I’m going to try the one set to failure method anyway. Two weeks. It can’t go too much worse than my current style is going, and I’ve acquired protein supplements (despite the fact that I loathe the idea of giving up another meal to supplements and fake food).

What’s got me really excited, though, is the fact that I’m teaching myself how to do squats. Dorky thing to get excited about, but I’m anxious to give up the leg press for an exercise that will help strengthen my hips and lower back (a problem area for me) and improve my balance.