Aware...

The purpose of doing workouts is not just to do workouts.  The point is to feel better than we would if we didn’t do workouts.  Sometimes we lose sight of this, or at least I do.

 

When things get really stressful and I’m overtired or overcaffeinated or both, I get crabby.  I find myself grumbling through my workouts and scrunching up my face and holding my shoulders tightly up toward my ears.  I try to notice when that’s happening.  Once I’m aware, I have two choices:  to keep working or to rest.  Both options have good points.

 

Most of the time, I know that if I keep working, I will end up happier at the end.  The magic of cardio will do its thing on my mood, my brain will work better, and I’ll have the pleasant soreness of after-weights instead of the unpleasant soreness of clenching everything to no purpose.  The awareness lets me release my shoulders, get back in touch with the present moment instead of whatever it is that I’m obsessing over, and get a bit of perspective.

 

Sometimes, however, it is time to stop the workout and rest.  I do this if my body hurts too much, if I have trouble keeping my motion in a safe range, or if I’m too tired to focus.  The final exercise in the set in that case is releasing the guilt.  I am still a worthwhile human even if I rest sometimes instead of working out.

 

Maybe everyone else out there is not like me, but I suspect that I’m not alone in needing to be aware of tension and to decide appropriately how to handle it.  We can do this.

The boss...

I am a trained professional.  This means that I know about fitness in general, along with techniques for losing weight, building muscles, increasing flexibility, and all that good stuff.  What I am NOT is an expert on anyone else’s specific body.

 

We are all unique.  My quirks are not anybody else’s.  No one else has to work around my own personal problems, injury history, anxieties (I hear that collective sigh of relief from way over here!).  I can be the most empathetic person on the planet, but I will never be able to feel anyone else’s pain in a real sense.

 

Because of this, I am never the boss of anybody else’s workout.  I make suggestions and I use my knowledge and experience to guide clients through exercises as safely as possible, but only my clients know when something hurts a bad way.  I can make observations and reasonable inferences about when my clients are reaching limits.  There are times when I certainly tell folks that they are done with a particular exercise.  It’s even more important to note that there are times when my clients need to tell me that they are done—I welcome hearing that and I respect clients’ decisions.

 

I will always encourage clients to go as far as they can.  That’s my job.  But clients have a job, too, and that includes saying stop when their bodies are done.

Monday Workout: TRX

Let’s play with the TRX today.  Do one or two rounds.  (If you don’t have a TRX, that’s all right—all of these exercises work just fine on the ground.)

 

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
low row (mid)	20
burpee (mid calf)	10
crunch	10
hamstring curl	10

 

Make it better...

I think the least useful fitness phrase ever is “No pain, no gain.”  I’m a believer in “No pain, no pain.”  (This does not mean that fitness is never uncomfortable.  There are always exercises that challenge our character as well as our bodies, but less sucking it up is better, on the whole.)

 

However, if we are doing enough in our workouts, we will end up sore from time to time.  This is a good thing and helps us get stronger.  We do need to have a few coping techniques.  Notice that I am NOT talking about injury protocol.  If we get injured, we need to seek medical attention and do what our doctors tell us.

 

Here are a few soreness-fighters, including the classics that all trainers recommend.

 

1.     Rest.  We already build this into our workout plans (I hope) by choosing not to work the same muscle groups two days in a row in our strength workouts.  This also means that if we worked some muscle particularly hard, we give it time to recover before we work it a bunch more.  If we are still really sore on the third day after a workout, we know that we need to dial it back a bit next time.

2.     Ice.  Ice reduces swelling.  If we have an actual injury with swelling, ice is an excellent friend.

3.     Heat.  Heat does not help swelling, but it is soothing.  If muscles feel like they are clenched beyond repair, a heating pad, microwavable pad, or hot bath or shower can help the muscles unfold a bit.

4.     Ibuprofen.  Unless there is an allergy or other reason not to take it.  OTC medications help and we are not weaker humans for taking them.

5.     Massage.  Admittedly, in a pandemic, this is not an easy option to take unless we planned ahead and got quarantined with a talented provider.  However, exploiting our spouses, partners, and/or children to help rub sore spots can be a viable thing, especially if we are willing to reciprocate.

6.     Self-myofascial release.  This works less well than good massage, but a whole lot better than nothing.  Quality time with a foam roller or set of tune-up balls can make the world seem like a friendlier place.

 

Again, we work out to feel better, not worse.  Fight the soreness and then do the next workout.

Lift with legs, not with back...

 

I’m getting ready to move.  I own approximately 75 gazillion books along with all the usual stuff people have in their houses.  This seems like a good time to talk about what kind of activities that are not traditionally fitness-related count as workouts.  (And yes, I am counting packing and schlepping all those books as a workout.)

 

I COULD make a list, but that would be silly.  Instead, I’m going to outline the principles so we can all figure it out in the moment.

 

If we end up sweating, it’s probably a workout.  I qualify the statement with that “probably” because if it happens to be a hot day and we’re sitting on our behinds in the yard leisurely picking a weed or two, we are likely to be sweating, we are technically gardening, but we’re probably not getting a workout.  If we’re lopping branches and hauling them, or raking and sweeping vigorously, or turning over soil, we are gardening and working out at once.

 

If we are sore the next day, it’s probably a workout.  This one doesn’t help so much in the moment, but it’s still useful.  It helps us distinguish between the kind of housework where we move all the furniture and really get in and scrub the floors or walls or whatever and the kind where we just wave a duster over things and call it a day.

 

If we get breathless, it’s probably a workout.  We all have those days, particularly if we have a house with stairs, when it seems like we are up and down them all the time bringing something to where it is supposed to be.  I call this the tidying version of interval training.

 

There are benefits to getting our workouts in a non-gym setting.  The fancy name for it is “functional fitness” and there are plenty of gym workouts that try to mimic the effects of this kind of activity.  We learn a lot about the practical application of physics and about how many heavy objects in normal life would be easier to move if they were only shaped like dumbbells and barbells.  That said, all those gym workouts make things like moving less of a struggle.

 

We can do this.

Spiral up

 

We human organisms adapt.  This allows us both to build habits and to change those habits to accommodate different circumstances.  So far, facts.

 

Now for the interpretation part:  there is good news and other news in this.  The good news is that we can ride the upward spiral of our habits.  An example?  My body now pretty much demands yoga every morning.  I don’t have to think about it or force myself to schedule it—I just start.

 

The first part of the other news is that even our good habits need to adapt.  We need to recognize that our bodies are getting stronger and increase the load on our muscles, or that our lungs and heart are working more efficiently and give them more challenge in our cardio workouts, or that our growing flexibility has made other poses more accessible to us.  We may not have to expend brain energy to get ourselves to show up anymore, but we do have to use our brains to sort out how to challenge ourselves enough.

 

The other part of the other news involves the direction of our spiral.  As much as we can build good habits, we can also build bad ones.  We need to remember that we don’t really WANT to spend the rest of our lives eating M&Ms on the couch watching cooking shows (well, maybe some of us do, but I find that stuff is better in small doses.).

 

The take-away here is that starting is the hard part.  One of the yoga mantras that speaks to me sums this up:  to begin is the victory.  Once we start, we can build fabulous things.

 

Let’s do this.

Monday Workout: Choices

This week, I am providing even more choices than usual.  This is everyone’s chance to build a workout to order!  I’ll provide the framework, and then everyone can choose.

 

The basic format is our trusty 30-20-10.  We do three sets of three exercises, doing 30 reps of the first exercise, 20 of the second one, and 10 of the final one.  Then we repeat the whole thing three times.  (If you have been reading my blog or working out with me, this should look familiar.  If not, don’t worry; there will not be a test.)

 

Choice Workout: Choose three from each column
30	20	10
woodchoppers	squats	med ball rescues
mountain climbers	lunges	round lunges
jacks	deadlifts	lateral raise
plank jacks	bench press	skullcrushers
jump squats	fly	YTA
jump lunges	row	pushups
ball slams	kickback	burpees
overhead high knees	curls
opposite knees	reverse fly
clean and press
1 arm clean and press		Russian twist
		pretty princesses
		brains
		femur arcs
		quadruped
		roll out abs

 

Using the chart above, choose three from each column.  When I design workouts for clients, the final exercise of the round is always abs, helpfully located after the space in the 10 column.  Choose based on what you have on hand in terms of weights, what you like, and what you need.  Have fun with it!

 

Go play.

That is one funny hat.

Sometimes we get all bogged down in the soup of unhappiness that surrounds us.  It seems wrong somehow to be happy in the face of all the ick.  Except it isn’t.  We can spread a little happiness around if we get some.  (If you need permission to be happy, I’m here to give it to you.  Go forth and laugh!)  Three (fitness) things to increase happiness today:

 

1.     Do something you love.  Or as close to it as you can.  Maybe I can’t go skiing right now, but since one of the things I love about skiing is going fast, I can hop on my bike and see how fast I can go.

2.     Do something new.  Curiosity and exploration wake up our brains and awake brains tend to be happy brains.  Try a new route.  Take a different class.  Do the workout backward.  Even if it goes wrong, it will give us a chance to laugh at ourselves.

3.     Do something that makes your heart pound.  In a good way.  Which is to say, some cardio.  It makes us happier and smarter.  Really.  Science says so.

 

Go play!

Let's dance...

I called my business Recess on purpose.  While it is true that one way to describe my work is that people pay me to make them do things they don’t want to do, that’s not the whole story.  I do my best to help people like doing stuff that is good for them.  I try to bring a sense of play to fitness because we tend to do more of what brings us joy.

 

It is absolutely true that some things are joyful in themselves and others are joyful at one remove.  We need both.  What do I mean?  Take dancing.  Dancing is fun.  Every human culture that I can think of has had some kind of dancing (or else a need to frown upon dancing, which proves my point in a different way).  Kids do it spontaneously.  It plays a part in celebrations, religious ceremonies, and high school rituals.  No one needs to make us dance, at least before we get all self-conscious.  It’s just joyful.

 

Burpees, on the other hand, don’t make very many people joyful in and of themselves.  They are joyful at a remove (no, not because we rejoice when they’re not part of the workout).  We get joy from burpees because of what we get from having done burpees—more energy, strength, stamina for the things that make us happy.  Maybe burpees give us joy by way of chasing our kids around for hours or by helping us find the perfect outfit to knock someone special’s socks off.  We have to wait a little for the burpee kind of joy.

 

So when I design workouts or when I talk about what we all need to do for fitness, I try to include both kinds of joy.  The first kind is easy:  we pick stuff we like to do, like dancing or biking or curling or whatever.  The second kind requires a two-pronged approach.  We keep in mind the secondary kinds of joy we want to achieve by doing the less joyful exercise, and we employ coping techniques.

 

Some of my favorite coping techniques are:  friends, loud music, bribery, and speed.  Other people like classes, fancy workout clothes, or special tools.  Whatever works.

 

Let’s play.

Wear your bathing cap if it helps...

In so many of the conversations I have with people right now, I find that we’re all feeling overwhelmed.  We struggle to sleep.  We are easily distracted and often irritable.  There is too much of everything—disease, distress, ash, heat, noise, laundry.  People tell me that they just can’t.  I hear it.  I feel it.  And yet, somehow we have to cope and do.

 

For some of us, dropping the workout is the obvious way to get a bit more time.  I am not going to blame anybody who makes that choice.  I will, however, tell why that is not my choice, even when I feel like there is too much to bear.  Maybe my experience applies to more than just me; maybe not.

 

I work out for a lot of reasons.  For one, it is wonderful to have something finite that can be checked off the infinite list of things to do.  I show up, I get sweaty, I check it off.  There is no lingering sense of incompletion.  That workout is done forever.  I get to feel an increased sense of my own power because look!  I did one whole thing!  Maybe I can tackle the next thing!

 

Some of the things I do in my workout are plain fun.  I got to go swimming last week (thus the silly photo of little me in my bikini and my grandma’s bathing cap).  I love swimming.  This is a good time to choose the kinds of workout that are joyful rather than the horrible guilt-inducing ones.  Even in these times, it is all right to pick things that make us happy.

 

Speaking of making us happy, cardio exercise boosts mood.  I know I say this all the time, but it bears repeating.  When we have limited energy to spend, we need to choose to spend it on stuff that helps us.  Cardio can be one of those things.  I will never tell anyone to stop taking their antidepressants, but I will say that cardio is an excellent adjunct to medical and therapeutic help.

 

That focus thing?  Working out helps with that, too.  The science shows that our brains work better after exercise.

 

These are my reasons to work out, even when I’m tired, even when the world is full of chaos.  Join me if it seems like working out will help you, too, or rest if you need that more.

Monday Workout: Cardio Poker

This week’s body weight workout is the return of Cardio Poker!  It’s a buddy workout, so grab your partner or your kid (dogs usually can’t read, but if your dog wants to try…) and a couple decks of cards.  Choose a space that is big enough to run back and forth in.  This might be inside or out in the yard if the air allows.  You and your partner will stand at either end of the space, each with your deck of cards.

 

Both players flip over the top card of their decks.  Use the chart below to figure out what exercise to do (or make up your own chart) and do the number of repetitions based on the card (e.g., 9 of hearts means nine jump squats).  Then run to the other end of the space, flip a card, do the exercise.  Continue until both players have a full “hand” of cards to give bragging rights to the best hand, or until you are tired.

 

As always, modify as needed.  If running is not your thing, brisk movement back and forth is totally fine.  If you don’t want the kids running in the house, you can tell them to hop back and forth.  Hate squats?  Swap in jacks or something else.  What I love about this workout is that it is a great template for many workouts.

 

Go play.

 

Suit	Exercise
Hearts	squats/jump squats
Diamonds	lunge punches
Clubs	pretty princesses
Spades	pushups

Keep breathing

Almost every list of mindfulness techniques includes some kind of breathing.  I’m in favor of breathing.  It keeps us alive.  Here are four things to do to make breathing easier.

 

1.     Quit smoking.  If you don’t smoke, you’re already ahead and you can just cross this off the list.  If you do, I encourage you to quit when you’re ready.  It will help.

2.     Stretch.  Breathing uses muscles.  Muscles work better when they have some flexibility.  In the context of breathing, we want to stretch the muscles of our torsos, so do a few side bends, a forward bend or two, and maybe a bit of a backbend every once in a while.

3.     Do my favorite exercise.  Really.  It’s my favorite.  And you get to do it lying down.  Lie on your back on a firm surface (bed is ok, but the floor is better) with your knees bent and your feet flat.  Lift your arms toward the ceiling and put your hands together so that they are directly over your shoulders.  Holding your head still, move your hands from side to side, keeping your arms straight (one shoulder will move off the ground when you go to one side, the other on the other).  Do this ten times.  Now do it again, but this time move your head along with your arms.  After ten repetitions, do a set where you turn your head away from your arms.  That’s it.  It feels good and it loosens up all the tiny little joints in your thoracic spine so that you have more room to expand your ribcage when you breathe.

4.     Practice.  When we get stressed out, we tend to breathe shallowly, using the muscles of our neck to lift our shoulders instead of using our diaphragm and abdominals to breathe lower into our bellies.  When we practice deep breathing, it becomes habitual.

 

If you want, ignore all of these ideas except this one:  keep breathing.  The world needs you.

All Systems Go!

I love systems.  I love them even more if they involve office supplies.  We all have our favorite, most-cherished delusions, and one of mine is that one day I will get the right office supplies and the instant magical result will be that I am Organized, Successful, and Generally Fabulous.  In the meantime, I have a bunch of pens and clipboards and binders and I live in mostly happy chaos.

 

Because I am a Trained Professional, I am actually organized about my clients.  I keep track of their workouts, preferences, dislikes, injuries, and goals.  It helps me help them.

 

What I notice for myself is that doing even a little bit of organization and tracking helps a lot.  The small, incremental changes don’t show up until I look back a ways.  That thing that used to be hard is much easier now.  I understand the point of that Pilates exercise on the 854^th attempt.  I realize that Thursdays are not the best day to try to accomplish anything, if only because it turns out that I never manage to write down what I did for a workout on a Thursday.

 

Some people are doubtless scoffing at my hapless self.  Some of us were born color-coding and filing.  Others of us are rolling their eyes because WHY would anyone waste time on this whole organizational business when there is important stuff to do.  That’s okay.  The world needs the whole spectrum of us with our varying gifts.  The slightly obsessive organizers could probably benefit from getting on with the actual workout and the more free-spirited might learn something from a pause to analyze.

 

My job is to suggest tools.  Then we get to use them together to make amazing stuff.

Done and not done yet

I was thinking (no, that is not what caused the fires).  My head was churning over all the stuff I have on my to-do list and I was getting all caught up in how behind I feel.  I was specifically thinking about my (self-imposed) reading goals, but it could have been any of my various not-yet-completed projects.  Then I looked up at the bookshelf in front of me.  Which is full of books I have actually read.  Right.  Maybe I don’t need to obsess about what isn’t done yet since I know, and have evidence, that I can do things.

 

Working out can be like that.  I know a lot of us want to be thinner/fitter/stronger.  We struggle to fit in a cardio workout, or some weights.  We hear about some new study touting some other kind of exercise and we sigh inwardly because how the heck are we going to manage to incorporate even one more thing.  Might as well just give up now. 

 

Except.  We don’t lose workouts.  We get to keep the ones we did.  Our bodies remember how, even if they might take some reminding and even if we, as always, have to adapt to the body we have in this very moment.

 

We have power.  We get stuff done.  Maybe we’re not done yet, but that’s all right.

Monday Workout: Ropes

I’m in the mood to pretend things are back to normal, so this week’s workout uses battle ropes.  If you don’t have battle ropes, substitute the cardio exercise of your choice (jacks, high knees, woodchoppers, burpees, whatever) for the rope work.  Do three rounds.

 

double rope slams	30
squats	20
pushups	10
alternating rope slams	30
lunges	20
renegade rows	10
rope circles	30
deadlifts	20
pretty princesses	10

Three

We get healthy in lots of ways, not just by exercising.  Here are three things to do that will improve our health without breaking a sweat!

 

1.     Get enough sleep.  I feel a little bad about putting this on the list because I know too many people who are having trouble sleeping right now.  I can see them rolling their eyes saying, “Yeah, and while I’m doing magic, I’ll make my house a purple castle and create world peace…”  Fine.  I know it’s tough.  But we all could try.  And we can at least work to deglamorize the whole I’m-so-busy-and-important-I’ll-have-to-wait-til-I’m-dead-to-sleep thing.

2.     Cook.  When we cook, we take control of our nutrition.  We can eat more whole foods.  It’s cheaper than eating out and better for us.  It can even be fun.

3.     Laugh.  Humor helps us cope with stress and pain.  It connects us with other humans.  It feels good.