I love being in my body, and I love many different kinds of physical activity. Every discipline I train is tends to say, "You need to train at least twice a week! Preferably more often!" Makes sense. But... there are only 7 days in a week, and the math doesn't end up mathing. Also, I'm not 19 anymore, so recovery seems to be more important now. Hoping the hive mind can help me build a coherent, realistic workout schedule that fits my goals.
Activities I want to include:
- Martial arts: they're incredibly fun! And they let me explore and hone body movements in a structured way
- Weightlifting: I really like picking up heavy things! Plus I'm genderqueer and on T now, and want to take advantage of it to build a more muscular and androgynous body. And I want to lift for general strength and health.
- Swimming: it's good cardio, I'm an ex-varsity swimmer, I enjoy it, I seems to make my body feel nice, and there's a lovely queer swim team with coached practices in my area. But... it's more boring than martial arts, so I'm reluctant to practice more than once a week.
Questions:
1. What should I know about weightlifting? My gut feeling is that once a week isn't enough for my goals, and I should prioritize lifting twice a week. I don't do back-to-back weightlifting sessions to give some time for recovery. Do I need to space my sessions out by more than one day?
2. How should I think about cardio? I'm guessing that martial arts training mostly counts as Zone 2 cardio, and that a coached interval-based swimming workout probably counts as Zone 3 plus some Zone 4 moments. Is once a week for 60 minutes enough for the swimming flavor of cardio, if I'm doing 90 minute martial arts sessions 3-4x per week?
3. How much rest and recovery do I need? If the answer is, "It's different for everybody", then how do I determine what's right for me? Are there rules about when I should rest related to certain activities? What about when I do two things in one day (for example: weightlifting in the morning and martial arts in the afternoon)?
4. What about "active recovery" or mobility? Are there simple routines I can do at home that would help my body? How often would I use these routines?
Additional background info:
- I'm disabled and wear a couple different ankle brace devices. I've been having joint issues on my compensating side for a while now. I'm headed back to physical therapy and ideally that will fix the problem, but there may be a recovery component too.
- I can't run because of my disability. Alternative forms of cardio include going for walks outside, biking around my neighborhood, the elliptical at my gym (booooring), or possibly the rowing machine at my gym, if I can get the angles to work better for my disability situation.
- Yin yoga has felt good for me in the past, but non-gentle weight-bearing yoga is hard on my ankle. I can comfortably do some sun salutations in the morning, but I'm not going to go to a full flow or hatha yoga class. Basically I have a limited quantity of activity I can tolerate in my "barefoot"-style brace (before I need to put the beefier, more restrictive brace back on) and I prefer to save that capacity for martial arts.
- I will also discuss all of this with my physical therapist and personal trainer, so no need to recommend that.
- I have an amazing badass nutritionist, so I'm covered on fueling for exercise.