Rocks in a tree?

Last week, one of the exercises I did and my clients did also was a back lunge with a foot on a bench.  It doesn’t look hard.  There are no weights beyond our body weight.  It was surprisingly difficult for many of us, so I learned that we need to work on our proprioception, balance, and core control.

Proprioception is a lovely, fancy word that makes me look smarter when I use it.  It is our sense of where our bodies are in space.  It’s what we use to avoid bumping into furniture.  And, of course, what we use to step back on a bench without looking behind ourselves.  We use it all the time.   The better our proprioception, the more gracefully we can move through the world and the more likely we are to be able to hit a tennis ball, hike a rough trail, and avoid ugly shin bruises.

Balance, not surprisingly, arises in part from our proprioception.  Maybe we don’t want to walk tightropes, but I know we all want to avoid nursing homes.  As we get older, we need to work on our balance to avoid falling. 

Core control contributes mightily to our ability to balance, but that is only one of its important functions.  It helps us avoid back pain.  It keeps us looking trimmer and thinner.  It provides the strong center from which we can base our other strength activities.

We’ll be continuing to work on all these things in the coming weeks!

Monday Workout: Fun with TRX

It’s TRX workout week!  TRX is always fun and challenging because of the inherent instability.  It’s all about the core!  Do three or four rounds, depending on your energy level.

TRX
squat row (mid)	20
mountain climber (mid calf)	20
clock press (long)	20
overhead squat (long)	20
crossing balance lunge (mid)	20
plank (mid calf)	30 sec
crunch	10
hamstring curl	10
low row (mid)	20
burpee (mid calf)	10

Friday Book Report: Lowly Origin

Jonathan Kingdon’s book Lowly Origin traces the evolution of humans.  He contends that what used to be perceived as a linear process is actually more of a family bush with many branches, some leading to extinction rather than to our present existence.  It is an interesting story, framed within an ecological and social context around the question of what brought us to stand up.

Two concepts that are teased out in the text seem particularly relevant to our current fitness situation (note:  I am using the word in the usual context for this blog, not in the evolutionary sense).  One is that our major heritage, as animals, is as opportunists and niche-swipers.  We are not specialized, particularly, in our bodies, but in our minds, where we recognize and exploit resources first discovered by other animals.  This makes us almost endlessly adaptable, which is great; we can learn to cope with many different challenges.  It also means that we have to be mindful of the consequences of our choices and their impact on other creatures, both human and otherwise.  Fitness is about living into our potential.

The second concept arises from the first.  Our experience of the world, given our relatively unspecialized forms, is mediated through technology.  For early humans, this meant that we used tools to make food accessible to us (stones, sticks, knives, fire).  This habit of being has percolated well beyond the survival level.  Perhaps it is not surprising that we have become smart phone addicts given that we evolved in concert with technology.  Again, this evolutionary habit provides us tremendous opportunity for growth and encloses within it a dangerous potential for abuse via disconnect from the rest of the world.

In our current climate, I can wholeheartedly say that it is a pleasure to read about real research and thoughtful theorizing.  If nothing else, this book is good for our scientific fitness as we work to survive the very concept of alternative facts.

More writing it down...

There is a theme to the week.  This notebook is my current journal.  Writing has useful fitness applications, believe it or not, and so wins points with me for efficient use of time.

There have been studies that indicate that journaling reduces stress.  Gratitude journals in particular seem to have beneficial effects.  It may be that journaling is meditative, or that the reflective process of writing increases the brain version of proprioception, or that creativity taps into different circuits than we use regularly.

Whatever the reason or mechanism, journaling provides one more tool for our wellness kit.

Write down more!

This clipboard is a tool familiar to my clients.  This is where I keep track of workouts.  For clients, it gives me a place to write down record-breaking lifts or thoughts for the next workout or exercises that would be good to add to the repertoire.

When I use the clipboard on myself, I use it a little differently because I make myself work out with myself more than once or twice a week.  This is where I write down my goals for the week and where I track what actually happened.  The point is, I keep a record.  I know that Thursdays are the hardest days to work out.  I know I tend to shirk the mat exercises when I do Pilates (so you notice that all the exercises on my Pilates list for the week are mat exercises this time out; I am sneaky like that.).

Set some goals.  Track what happens.  Learn stuff.  Do it again.

Write it down...

Like everyone else, I would like to eat better, exercise more, weigh less, and look cuter.  Most of all, I want to feel good.  Because I am lazy, I love finding ways to accomplish lots of things at once, so this post makes me happy.

The picture is a notebook and pens.  They may be my best weapon for accomplishing my goals around eating.  Numerous studies suggest that writing down what we eat significantly impacts what we put in our mouths.  For one thing, we don’t really want to write down that we ate an entire carton of ice cream, so we might stop at a bite or two, or skip it entirely.  For another, it makes us conscious of the fact that we ate more bread or fewer vegetables than we thought.  It forces mindfulness.

Beyond that, keeping track of what we eat, how much, when, and how we feel supplies us with useful data.  If it turns out that we feel terrible every time we eat eggs and we had not yet made the connection, we can then adjust our intake.  Or we might learn that the days we skip our afternoon snack are the days we Must Have Chocolate in the middle of the night.  We can see the patterns.

As much as I like notebooks and pens and writing, I really really hate writing down what I eat.  It is a challenge not to write down “annoyed” for how I feel every time.  That is why I have added this post.  I have now told anyone reading this that I am going to do it, so it’s out there, in the world.  Ask me to show you!  Hold me accountable!  It is another way to make the practice more effective.  (And, of course, I am happy to hold you accountable, too.)

Let’s do this.

Monday Workout: That Looks Familiar...

Normally I make a new workout for each week.  It helps with boredom, both of the body and the mind.  Last week, I spent the whole week sick, so I didn’t get to try this one out.  If anyone else did, great!  You already know what to do!  If not, here’s our chance!

1 min cardio
back lunge with foot on bench	20
suitcase swing	20
pushups	10
plyojacks or crunch jacks	20
side plank with arm raise	10/side
pretty princesses	10

Monday Workout: with a new exercise in it!

Back to reality!  I have a cold, so I am not actually testing this one today.  I’m sure it will be fun by tomorrow or Wednesday.  (Which reminds me:  resting is allowed when we are sick.  Do only as much as creates energy and health, not more.  No one is helped when we hack and cough and suffer and drip all over everything.)  Anyway, by now you can guess that there are four rounds since there are six exercises. 

The new exercise in the bunch is the suitcase swing.  Stand tall with a pair of dumbbells at your sides.  Squat as usual, but instead of letting the dumbbells hang, keep them in line with your torso (like a backswing).  As you come out of the squat, swing your arms overhead.  Make sure to maintain lovely posture and engaged abdominals throughout.

1 min cardio
back lunge with foot on bench	10/side
suitcase swing	20
pushups	10
plyojacks or crunch jacks	20
side plank with arm raise	10/side
pretty princesses	10

This is a tiki for no reason

I didn’t blog yesterday because vacation and because I spent the day snorkeling at Molokini crater.  Just because I am on vacation doesn’t mean I am not thinking about fitness, however.

Snorkeling, as demonstrated by one of the lovely crew members of the snorkeling boat yesterday, is not a labor-intensive sport.  Pretty much we lie face down in the water staring at fish and flapping our arms and legs a bit when we want to move from place to place to see other fish.  The fitness component comes at a different point in the experience.

The particular boat we took was a catamaran that pulled up to the beach.  No easy walk down the gangplank.  Getting on and off required wading through waves.  While the crew helped out, a certain basic stability was required. 

We may not need to be strong to do the things we really want to do.  But we may very much need to be strong to get to the point where we can even try to do those things.  I saw beautiful fish and floated in clear water and tasted salt and got a little sunburned yesterday because I could get on and off the boat.  I know people who can’t do that.  Let’s stay strong so we can be amazed by life.

Why?

Perhaps I write the same things over and over.  Maybe it is because I need reminding and maybe I am not the only one.

Fitness is not an end in itself.  Fitness is for doing things.  While the hours we spend in the gym can be fun in themselves, the point is to enable fun in other contexts.  All those elliptical workouts translate into victory on the hill hike.  The work on the agility ladder turns into good foot placement between roots and stones on the path.  The view can take our breath away instead of the journey to get to the view.

Work out and enjoy it, sure, but let’s figure out why we want to be fit.

Monday Workout: Even on vacation

On vacation, you say?  Workout, you say?  Of course!  But all body weight exercises because who packs weights on vacation?  It is vacation, so only 3 rounds.  And we’ll try to get some cardio swimming or hiking or something.

squats	20
1 leg squat	10
lunges	20
pushups	10
plank
side plank with rotation	10

Friday Book Report: Sugar Impact Diet

One of my clients passed J.J. Virgin’s book Sugar Impact Diet on to me.  In general, I am not a fan of diet books, or of diets.  I dislike motivational stories.  I distrust claims involving losing x amount of weight painlessly in y days.

This book has all the things I don’t like in it, plus the kind of women’s magazine prose that makes me want to go out and stab people, except that I don’t believe in stabbing people.

In spite of this, it is not really a bad book.  Sugar is definitely the major problem in most of our diets.  It contributes to every health problem we face personally and culturally.  Virgin lays out the evidence and calls out labels.  She provides useful lists of swaps we can make.  I tried one of the recipes (many of the recipes are non-vegetarian, so that took a lot of them right out for me) and found it delicious and the other people around here liked it, too.

Those of us who know we benefit from structure could use the system.  Those of us who like to be presented with information to figure out how to apply on our own can parse out some helpful things from this book.

And still more on goals

Sometimes when we get started on new goals, we get over-excited.  We decide to do All The Things right now.  That can be very empowering and we can often take out a large chunk of the to-do list by massive effort.  And then we get tired.

Getting tired is all right.  We are allowed to get tired.  We are allowed to rest.  We are not allowed to quit.

Let’s listen to our lives a little.  When we need a break, we can take one.  And then we can get moving again.

More on goals

Fitness goals come in many guises.  We all know the obvious ones:  lose weight, run fast, go far, lift heavy, collect compliments.  I would like to suggest that there are some other areas that contribute to our fitness goals.  Here are some questions to consider:

What do we want to learn this year?  Our brains are crucial to our fitness goals.  If we are not learning and growing, we are dying.  Let’s think about skills we want to develop, books we want to read, experiences we want to create.

How do we want to connect?  What sort of relationship weight lifting do we need to do this year?  When we strengthen the bonds between people, we create healthy communities and happy humans.

What feeds our souls?  We spend lots of time thinking about what to eat.  What do our hearts crave?  Maybe we need to go outside, or go to church, or hug a dog, or laugh really hard.  Whatever it is, we need to do it to avoid soul anorexia.

Fitness is holistic (I am allowed to use that word; I lived in Berkeley for 20 years.).  Let’s make fitness goals that address our whole selves.

On goals

We can set new goals any time we want, but at the new year, it seems especially appropriate.  My unscientific guess pegs the number of articles about how to set good goals at about ten gazillion million.  I will offer only two suggestions.

First, make a process goal.  Process goals are the kind where we decide to show up.  We make it a goal to do cardio every day, or to lift weights twice a week, or to floss our teeth on Tuesdays (got to start small, right?).  Maybe the thing we want is better endurance, or more shapely muscles, or gingivitis avoidance, but our goal is to do the activity that will produce the result, not the result itself.  Process goals have the advantage of being concrete and incremental.  It is easy to tell whether we have done them or not.  And, if it turns out that the process goal does not move us toward our desired outcome, we have at least built our ability to accomplish things.

Second, make a big goal.  A big goal in conjunction with a process goal can create great things.  If, for example, we set a process goal of riding our bike every week, we can set a big goal of doing a century ride.  (Guess what I want to do this year!)

We will, God willing, all experience this next year together, whether we set goals or not.  Let’s try to make it the best year ever.