The pain in my right foot flared up, just a teensy bit today, so I only spent 10 minutes on the treadmill.
Not really a full workout. (Right now, as I get up to speed, I'm trying simply to move a half-hour a day.) But I'm not ready for a weights day. What can I do?
How about the arm ergometer?
The ergometer is basically an arm bicycle machine. And mostly, it's designed for the old and the injured.
Me, I'm injured. Not just the foot -- that should go away. But my torso is pretty badly broken, the result of some invasive surgeries I had nearly a decade ago that saved my life but left me, ulitmately, less than whole. Finding a good exercise regime since then has been difficult: So much of modern exercise is based on strengthening the core and I don't really have core muscles anymore. Yes, this sucks. But it's also the way things are. So.
The ergometer is a great machine. It isolates movement pretty much to arms and shoulders. I don't get quite the aerobic workout I might on a treadmill, but for me the point is to keep moving. I feel better after a half-hour on the ergometer than I do if I do nothing at all. Something, exercise-wise, is almost always better than nothing.
Today, I chose something.
