Gifts: Peace

Peace may not spring to mind as a fitness gift, but let me explain.

When I work out, I burn off negative emotions.  Rage workouts are good workouts.  Nothing fights the Depression Monster like some nice, hard cardio.  If I’m crabby, I really ought to choose the gym every time.

 

Further, workouts make me tired, and tired people are usually peaceful people.  After I’ve worked out, I just don’t have the energy to act out.

 

Not enough?  Fine.  I’m also going to give myself peace in my workouts by letting go of my attachment to the outcome.  Maybe I didn’t do the best workout ever, but I did a workout.  I can be at peace with that.

Gifts: Joy

The next gift I’m giving myself is joy.  In the current world, joy can be a rare thing because there are so many things to worry about and stress over.  We all have too much to do, personally, socially, politically.  That’s all true.

And yet.

 

Every single time I get on my spin bike, I feel better afterward.  When I get up early in the morning and the sky is blue and pink and the sun is coming up, it’s beautiful.  Things are growing in the garden.  I get to hug my loved ones.  There are books to be read and naps to take and I love taking photos and cooking things.

 

Some of those things are fitness related and some not so much.  However, one aspect of my fitness practice helps with all the things I need to notice joy.  It’s my daily yoga and meditation and my Pilates work.  The mindfulness I get from moving my body (and quieting my mind) makes space for joy to emerge, even when things are less than perfect.

 

What gives you joy?  How do you notice it?

Monday Workout: New

New month, new challenge.  Usually we do ten pushups.  Today we’re trying a set of twenty.  Three rounds.

 

suitcase swing	30
rows	20
kickbacks	10
mountain climbers	30
pushups	20
reverse flies	10
db circles	30
(lunge to) curl	20
hamstring curls	10

 

Gifts: 4

Four ways to love movement:

 

1.     Slowly.  This kind is for building mindfulness, learning new skills, and integrating complex movements.

2.     Fast.  Speed is fun.  Think about the breeze on your face as you zoom down a hill on a bike.

3.     Daily.  Habits are reassuring.  The morning just makes more sense with movement in it.

4.     With music.  Whether this means dancing or just getting the Led out while lifting, it’s easier to love a workout with tunes.

Gifts: Love

Welcome to April!  I happen to be an April Fool, in that my birthday falls in this month.  Naturally, what’s on my mind this month is gifts.  (Books.  Books are always a good gift.)  What do gifts have to do with fitness?  Well, I’m making a list of fitness gifts to give myself this month and maybe you’d like to do the same along with me.  It’s a virtual party!

I’m not going to start small.  The first gift I’m giving myself this month is love.  As we all know, love is what love does.  So I’m going to love myself with weights and cardio and, weather permitting, swimming.  I’m going to love myself with vegetables and sunlight, walks, and sufficient sleep.

 

But let’s back up a minute.  Love can also be expressed in words.  I’m going to try to give myself the gift of nice words.  I talk to myself in ways I would never talk to someone else.  Other people make honest mistakes; I am a mumblety-mumble idiot, except I use other words where the mumblety-mumble is and they’re not nice ones.  Love might be giving myself the same grace I give other people.

 

What would the gift of love be to you this month?

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