Fresh: Praxis

How are we feeling?  We’ve spent a month thinking about freshness.  Was it helpful?  Did we try things that we liked?  Hated?  Did we learn stuff?

In one of my previous lives when I worked in nonprofit as a coordinator of a service learning program, I spent a lot of time thinking about praxis, which is, as my old French teacher would say, a ten-dollar word.  Praxis, in pennies, means the union of theory and practice, in which we think about things, try them out, and then think about what happened.  Then we go around again based on what we learned the first time.

 

So:  what do we want to keep from this month?  What can we let go of?  Where are we off to experiment next?

 

I’d love to know what y’all are doing out there!  And, of course, I’m here for all your wellness coaching, personal training, and Pilates needs.

Monday Workout: Sneaky

It’s the end of the month and I’m feeling sneaky.  So we have squat pop ups this week, which are like the bottom half of a burpee.  Four rounds.

 

1 min cardio
woodchoppers	30
flies	20
squat pop up	10
opposite knees	30
bench press	20
plank saw	10

 

Fresh: 3

We can Pilates in the wild!  Three things to try in daily life:

 

1.     Deep breathing.

2.     Aligned posture.

3.     Efficient movement.

Fresh: Pilates 2

Another way to refresh the Pilates experience is to take it out of the studio and into the world.  This is in line with Uncle Joe’s general philosophy.

What does that mean?  It can mean anything from thinking about how we are moving while we are weight lifting in the same way we do while we are doing Pilates—focusing on what our bones are doing, on how and when we exert effort, on the quality of the movement itself—to watching the flow of our breath in line at the grocery store or while we wait for the microwave to beep.

 

Pilates, like all fitness, is not intended as an end in itself, but rather as a means to a happier, healthier, more zestful life.  (Zest is a word that Uncle Joe liked a lot!)

 

Go get zesty!

Fresh: Pilates 1

Pilates, like all practices, can fall into ruts.  We show up, we plop down on the reformer and we go through the motions.  Uncle Joe would applaud that we showed up and yet be disappointed in our behavior, maybe.

One of the easiest ways I’ve found to wake up in Pilates is to switch equipment.  For a lot of the repertoire, there are versions of the exercises for use on the reformer, or trap table, or ladder barrel, or chair, or spine corrector, or mat, or all of the above.  When we move from one piece of equipment to another, we may find ourselves in a different relationship to gravity.  We may experience resistance in different ways.  We may learn different qualities of motion.

 

If we are habitual users of the equipment, doing a mat workout can be instructive.  Similarly, mat class habitués may find enlightenment in using the equipment.

 

Change is good in this context, friends.

Monday Workout: Balance Lots of Ways

We’re working balance in a variety of ways this week.  Obviously, the single leg work works on it, but the skier jumps and the dumbbell pullovers with bridge also recruit what we need when we have to balance.  Three rounds.

 

tap backs	30
1 leg deadlift	20
1 leg squat	10
squat raise	30
gorilla row	20
curls	10
skier jump	30
db pullover with bridge	20
brains	10

Fresh: 4

More strength fresheners:

 

1.     Change the tempo.

2.     Try a circuit.

3.     Swap machines for free weights or vice versa.

4.     Change the usual order.