Today's strength training assignment: a Lyon St. Stairs workout! I was excited and a bit nervous to see how out of shape I've gotten since I haven't been running (nor doing hills on the bike.) So far my piriformis and hamstring have been behaving so I was ready to go.
I headed out wearing my lovely new Saucony Kinvaras. Don't you like how matchy-matchy I am with my pink top?
I'm fortunate to live near one of the best outdoor fitness areas in San Francisco. After hiking up 3 blocks of 12% grade, then back down a block of 15% grade, you arrive at the top of the stairs. Ignoring the recent graffiti, the view is magnificent. A lot of boot camps set up right here as it's on a low-traffic court lined with lovely mansions like you see here on the right.
If you come for a visit, you'll run down these stairs, through the semi-private gardens of another mansion with a $20m view (owned by one of our liberal elected officials; go figure), down a few more stairs, cross the dead-end street where rich daddies play basketball with their kids, and then you hit the lower set of stairs. These are a lot steeper. Where you see the guy in the white shirt is just a landing, not the bottom:
So... assignment was to see how many reps I could do within 30 minutes without running (to keep piriformis happy). The answer is: 6 in 28 min, plus 2 min to climb the hill at the top to head back home.
I should have worn my HR monitor; this is a killer cardio workout. Especially the lower (steeper) set of stairs. Since I'm working on my base aerobic capacity right now, I slowed things down by rep 3 and took stairs 2 at a time. My quads were on fire for the first couple sets of faster cadence; I've been ignoring them so that I could build up my glutes, and they need a lot of attention.
So the good news is, this didn't bother my hamstring or piriformis. Bad news is that I felt my knees crunching. Knee problems were the first symptom of biomechanical misalignment back in March. When I took it slow, did 2 stairs at a time and really focused on activating my glute and turning out my knee (as much as that's possible for me) then the knee crunch went away. So this is probably a great exercise; I get real-time alerts when my form is off.
Next time wear your HR monitor... I'm curious to know what it is... :)
Posted by: Michelle Simmons | 01/13/2011 at 08:07 AM