Sadly, the cake is metaphorical...

In high school, I was blessed to have a Czechoslovakian French teacher (yes, I went to high school a long time ago, before the Czech Republic and Slovakia were things).  Whenever somebody used a particularly stuffy phrase, he would call it a “five-dollar word” and then ask what we meant.  Unpacking five-dollar words is a very educational experience and I ended up learning a lot about English as well as French.  Today’s five-dollar word is synergy.  It is one of those words that gets used all the time in flavor-of-the-month business concepts where management is trying to disguise the fact that they really just want everyone who doesn’t want to be “downsized” or “outsourced” to work harder for longer for less money—“We need to work synergistically across departments…”  This has given the word a bad reputation that it doesn’t deserve.

 

Synergy is when multiple things interact to have a greater effect than we expect.  Kind of like cake:  eggs, flour, sugar, butter and then suddenly a taste celebration!

 

Eventually, I will get to the point.  Which is:  we want to do different kinds of workouts because we get a synergy going.

 

On a basic level, this means that when we do cardio, we make our weight workouts better and vice versa.  Our work on flexibility improves our performance in other areas.  However, that’s not the whole story.  When we combine things like Pilates with our weight workouts, we create results we could not expect—the precision of Pilates and the way it builds connections between our brains and our muscles helps us lift weights with better efficiency and form, while lifting those weights improves our strength to execute the Pilates exercises.  Additionally, by mixing up what we do, we keep our bodies slightly confused, which is a precondition for growth.  But wait!  There’s more!  Working out in a variety of ways helps us prevent overuse injuries since running is not the same as swimming is not the same as yoga is not the same as biking is not the same as lifting weights.

 

I particularly like the results of fun cardio plus weights plus Pilates and/or yoga because that gives us everything we need to burn calories, improve metabolism, boost mood, get flexible, strengthen our muscles, and relax our bodies and minds, but I always encourage experimentation.

 

Go play.  A bunch of ways.