Six for the haters

Here’s a list of things to try depending on what we hate most about exercise.

 

1.     Sweat-haters can try swimming.

2.     Boredom-haters can do Tabata or HIIT because they’re efficient and change often.

3.     Weight-room haters can take their body weight routines outside.

4.     Cardio-machine-haters can run or bike or swim or row in the real world.

5.     Cardio-haters can try yoga or Pilates, which also have beneficial effects on heart health.

6.     Class-haters can go it alone and self-motivation-haters can find a workout buddy.

 

Just keep trying! 

Love it.

People, when they know what I do for a living, feel compelled to tell me about their exercise habits; I’m good with that because I love what I do.  Some people are enthusiastic, some carry around bags of guilt, and some come out and say that they just hate exercise.  It’s all fine.  The enthusiasts are squared away, so I just stamp their validation card for the great gradebook in the sky (no, there isn’t really a great gradebook in the sky).  I reassure the guilt-feelers that they’ll make the changes they are considering when they’re ready.

 

The haters are the interesting group, actually.  A small portion of them do, in fact, hate exercise, but it’s a very small portion.  The rest just need to broaden their perspectives a little.  Maybe they hated P.E., which is entirely understandable.  Maybe they carry the scars from that Little League coach who yelled all the time, or that aerobics instructor who made fun of them.  Maybe they would rather have a heart attack than spend another minute on the treadmill.  All that may be true and valid, but it may not mean that they really hate exercise.  People who hate weight lifting may love swimming or hiking.  People who would rather have dental surgery than take a HIIT class may find that yoga is the key to feeling really awesome.  There are so many kinds of exercise that it really is possible to find something to enjoy for nearly everyone.

 

The key thing is to be motivated by love.  I love my bike.  It is not hard to go for a bike ride because I start pedaling and I am suddenly a carefree nine-year-old.  Some people feel the same way about hiking and swimming and gymnastics and even weight training.  If it’s hard to find an activity that is loveable in itself, we can move on to love at one reserve:  love of how we feel afterwards.  Maybe we don’t love exercise, but we love being able to chase the kids and catch them on the playground, or we love how our clothes fit better, or we love having more energy.

 

We can choose to let go of our traumatic P.E. memories and the bad coaches and the mean instructors and the boring workouts.  We can shed the guilt and the negativity.  Then we can go play because we love it. 

Enough is enough

Culturally, we believe that more is better.  Would you like to Supersize that?  How about a jumbo-pack of toilet paper?  Buy one, get one free!  There are a lot of problems with this mindset, but I’m just going to focus on the ones that relate to fitness.

 

Possibly the most obvious problem with more-is-better and fitness is when it comes to food.  Roughly two thirds of us are overweight.  I’m not into body-shaming, at all, not even a little, but a large proportion of us eat more than we need to be healthy and happy in terms of calories (maybe not so much in terms of the micronutrients we need).  Overeating is so pervasive that a lot of us don’t even recognize when we are satisfied and only stop eating when we are truly uncomfortably full.  The solution, of course, is to unplug from the mindless eating of more more more.  It’s not an easy solution, but it works.  When we pay attention to what we are eating and how it makes us feel, we learn to make better choices.

 

The other big problem with more-is-better and fitness is in workouts.  We do not need to be gym rats to be healthy.  Workouts do not have to last forever.  This one does not have to go to eleven.  We want about half an hour of cardio on most days, a little stretching, and one or two weight workouts a week.  That’s less time than most of us spend surfing the web, or than we used to spend in traffic back when we worked in offices.

 

Eat enough.  Do enough.  And then go do the rest of life.

Monday Workout: Strong and Tired

This week we’re going for the compound exercises again.  I love them because they make us strong and tired.  Three rounds.

 

jacks	30
rows	20
kickbacks	10
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
Arnold press	10
suitcase swings	30
lunge twists	20
quadruped	10

Seven Stress-Busters

Continuing with yesterday’s theme of coping mechanisms, here are seven (non-food-based!) things to do to help reduce stress:

 

1.     Breathe.  I wrote about this yesterday, but focusing in on the breath is a good way to relax the body and mind.  Even five deep breaths can make a significant difference.

2.     Breathe hard.  I am a big fan of cardio for reducing stress.  It burns calories, improves mood, uses up nervous energy, and, for bonus points, it’s good for us!

3.     Breathe slow.  Restorative yoga is a gentler way to calm the body and mind if cardio seems like too much work.

4.     Breathe loud.  All right, I mean snore.  Getting enough sleep is crucial to health.  Tired people are stressed people.  Naps are good for you.

5.     Blow bubbles.  By which I mean, put the body in water.  Maybe it’s a pool, maybe it’s a spa, maybe it’s the bathtub, but the gentle embrace of water is great for absorbing our tension.

6.     Drink some water.  It’s good on the inside, too!  Hydrated people are nicer and have more energy to cope with whatever comes along.

7.     Hug people.  Human contact is as much a need as food.  Hugging (vaccinated) people is also a Good Deed—they get to feel good, too!

 

Go play.

Uncle Joe Says to Breathe

We all have our go-to coping mechanisms for when times get tough.  After the last year or so of pandemic fun and games, I’m sure we’ve all had to get creative with our strategies.  Today, I want to remind us all about one of the simplest:  breathing.

 

Unless we are dead (do zombies read?), we are breathing right now.  It happens without conscious thought.  However, in times of stress, some of us hold our breaths and others of us breathe a lot faster.  Neither one is a particularly good idea.  Fortunately, (unless the stressor is zombie attack) we have brains that can choose to regulate our breath on purpose.

 

The easiest way to do that is to focus on taking a long, slow inhale, and then a long, slow exhale.  We can repeat until we feel calmer.

 

What makes breath regulation even easier in stressful moments is practicing it when things aren’t so stressful.  This is one of the beautiful things about Pilates.  When we move in Pilates, we sync our motions with our breath.  Additionally, the mobility and flexibility we gain by doing Pilates enable our bodies to breathe more efficiently.

 

Short version:  in, out, repeat.

Short Circuit (not that kind...)

There are lots of reasons to like circuit training, but the one that seems really compelling to me right now is that it doesn’t require a long attention span.  Done right, there is no time to get bored and in half an hour to 45 minutes, both cardio and weight training are taken care of.  And the next time, the workout can be completely different!

 

So what is this done right I’m talking about?

 

A good circuit includes cardio, upper body, lower body, and abdominal exercises.  Many times, the cardio exercises do double-duty as whole body exercises.  Ideally, after the warm up, we get our heart rate up a couple of times during the circuit and then have a rest period at the end of a round, or we have mini-rests after a few exercises and a longer rest at the end.

 

A short circuit might be six exercises, two cardio or whole body, one or two upper body, one or two lower body, and one ab exercise.  A workout would be three or four cycles through the circuit, depending on time and energy.  Here’s a sample:

 

30 clean and presses (cardio/whole body)

30 squats (lower body)

20 bench press (upper body)

30 mountain climbers (cardio)

20 lunges (lower body)

10 pretty princesses (abs)

 

Notice that the exercises are distributed rather than bunched; cardio does not follow cardio and lower body does not follow lower body.  Also notice that the abs, which involve lying down, happen at the end just before the rest.

 

Try making your own!

Monday Workout: Renegade!

This week we continue to use our core to address the challenges of stability while we work out.  We’re doing extra renegade rows this week!  Three rounds.

 

mountain climbers	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
step ups or high knees	30
deadlift or 1 leg deadlift	20
lateral raises	10
clean and press	30
squats	20
pretty princesses	10

 

Try Five!

 

Following up on yesterday’s post, here are five things to try for fall:

 

1.     Adding intervals to cardio.  It’s nice to get into the endurance cardio groove, but our bodies like the occasional burst of speed.  We will improve our cardio fitness faster and burn more calories.  Just go as hard/fast as possible for a minute every once in a while during the workout and then recover for a bit at the usual pace.

2.     Lifting heavy.  Choose one upper body exercise and one lower body exercise.  After warming up, alternate sets of each, increasing the weight each time until form deteriorates or the lift is impossible.  I like bench press/rows or deadlifts/bench press.

3.     Circuit training.  This is one form of functional fitness.  We cycle through a series of weight exercises plus a few cardio ones thrown in to keep our heart rate up.  It definitely busts boredom.

4.     Go outside.  It’s finally cool enough!  Trade the treadmill for the park or the spin bike for the real one!

5.     Stretch.  Almost no one I know stretches often enough.  How about we change that for fall?  It’s good for us, feels good, and doesn’t take long.

 

Go play.

Fall Forward!

I have no idea what the weather will be like when this actually posts, but right now it is raining.  What a welcome sound!  The season is changing!

 

I love fall.  Fall is the time of new beginnings, sharpened pencils, cooler temperatures, and renewed energy.  It’s also a great time to start a new habit; all the kids are doing it!

 

May I suggest taking a look at what we’re doing for fitness?  If we’ve been doing the same thing for months and months, our bodies are bored with it and our brains are likely bored, too.  This might be the time to change heavy lifting for functional fitness, or vice versa.  Maybe it’s time to throw in a little Pilates, or to try a different kind of yoga.

 

If we haven’t been exercising at all, this is still a good time to start.  I always recommend that folks start with cardio because it is a great foundation for everything else and it has such mood-boosting power.  Begin small and work up to 30 minutes on most days of the week.

 

We can do this!

Banish the Hobgoblin!

Crazy Uncle Ralph (Waldo Emerson) said that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds.  My mind appears to be hobgoblin-free, because I try not to be too foolish or too consistent.  Why am I thinking about this?  I was thinking about workout plateaus and how to deal with them.

 

Workout plateaus, those times when we don’t seem to be making progress, can be incredibly frustrating.  We look resentfully at the numbers on the weights, which are not going up, or the numbers on the run time, which are not going down, or the numbers on the scale, which seem to be frozen entirely.  So how do we break out?

 

It depends.

 

Sometimes we hit a plateau because we are not working as hard as we think we are.  We’ve actually been coasting a bit on the cardio, or skipping workouts here and there.  It’s also possible that we aren’t eating as well as we think we are.  This is where it is good to renew our commitment to tracking, because that will reveal what is really going on.  Then we can adjust as needed.

 

Other times, we are hitting the plateau because we have been overtraining.  As hard as it is when we are really motivated to DO things, we need to choose to rest a bit at that point.  Easing off gives our systems time to catch up with all the good work we’re doing.

 

We have to check in with ourselves and gently inquire what is going on.  If we are slacking off, we can nudge ourselves back into the work and if we’re overtired, we can treat ourselves with love and take a nap.

Monday Workout: Compound!

This week we are doing lots of compound exercises.  They make us strong and burn lots of calories.  Three rounds.

 

squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
burpees or pushups	10
woodchoppers	30
bench press	20
Arnold press	10
suitcase swings	30
lateral raises	20
brains	10

Somehow Burpees Didn't Make the List!

We all have our favorite exercises.  Here are five of mine, and, as a bonus, why I like them so much.

 

1.     Squats.  Squats are my Very Favorite exercise because they are infinitely practical.  Don’t want to end up in a nursing home?  Do squats.  The line between independence and dependence is whether or not we can get up and down off the toilet alone, which is a squat.  Not enough of a good reason?  Squats also use a whole bunch of joints, which means we burn a whole bunch of calories doing them.  They increase our stability, improve core strength, and give us a feeling of power.

2.     Lunges.  OK, lunges are actually one of my least favorite exercises, but I’m including them on this list because they are so good for us.  Lunges have the same kind of compound exercise benefits that squats do, plus they work our balance and teach us good knee habits.

3.     Pushups.  Pushups work the same muscle groups that bench presses do, but they give us the bonus of recruiting our core at the same time.  There are many, many kinds of pushups, so there is an appropriate variation for nearly everyone, whether we need them to be easier or harder.

4.     Plyojacks.  There’s a theme here:  compound exercises.  Plyojacks, again, work lots of joints, which means lots of muscles have to engage, which means lots of calorie expenditure.  Added to all of that, we have jumping, which gets our heart rates up, helps us build coordination, and improves landing mechanics.  That last one is a good habit to have for any of us who ever trip.

5.     Pretty princesses.  This is my favorite ab exercise because the spine is stabilized, making it safe for nearly everyone, and because it works all the abs from top to bottom.  Also, it uses a great big rubber ball, so it must be fun, right?

 

Don’t like my favorites?  Do your own!

Transformative Tools

A few months back, I bought hiking boots.  A few weeks back, I bought a water pen.  What is the common thread?  (No, not capitalism.  That’s a different sort of post.)  I invested in better tools.

 

The water pen has improved my artwork a lot because it gives me more control over where the water ends up on the page.  It wasn’t an expensive item, but it made a big difference.

 

In the past, I have gone hiking in flip flops, or whatever shoes I happened to have on.  I can say that it is totally possible to have a great time hiking in “wrong” shoes.  That said, I really love how my new boots help me interact with the ground (and by “interact with,” I don’t mean “fall on,” which has been the case in the past).  I could hop from rock to rock a lot more confidently.  I came back without sore feet, blisters, or scrapes.

 

When we are just starting out on something, we don’t need to spend a chunk of money on fancy stuff, but there is a moment when we can enjoy what we do even more with the right equipment.

Not the Boss of Me

I had an interesting week with my Wristy Overlord (aka my Apple Watch).  I was on vacation away from my usual environment.  I closed my exercise ring most days and my stand ring every day, but my move ring languished without my daily chores and activities.  I learned some things.

 

One lesson is that I have done a pretty good job of making my ordinary life conform to my goals.  I am not the couch’s best friend.

 

Another one is that I don’t have to pay too much attention to the Great Gradebook in the Sky.  I talked back to my Wristy Overlord.  I explained that I was on vacation, that vacation is good for me, and that I’d get back to moving when I got home.  I didn’t want to completely ignore the W.O., but I did want to give it a lower priority than having fun.

 

I am the boss, not the W.O.

Monday Workout: Back to Balance

I like the balance set in this workout a lot.  If balance work is not a good idea for you, please feel free to substitute other exercises for the single-leg versions!  Three rounds.

 

kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s	10
1 arm clean and press	30
1 leg deadlift	20
1 leg squat	10
(jump) squats	30
rows	20
Russian twist	10

Five things to measure!

We’re close to the start of a new month, so now would be a good time to check in with ourselves.  Here are some things we might want to measure and how often:

 

1.     Weight (daily or weekly).  We are certainly more than a number on a scale, but it is a useful metric to track when we are evaluating our fitness journey.  Maybe today’s number is a starting point; maybe it is a waypoint on a longer journey; maybe it’s a long-awaited and worked-for achievement.  Write it down and then ignore it until the next time.

2.     Circumferences (monthly).  I like to measure chest (at the nipple line), waist (at the belly button), hips, upper arm, thigh, and calf.  This gives a fuller picture of what our workouts are accomplishing because often these numbers change even if the scale doesn’t show progress.

3.     Workout days (weekly).  How often are we really working out?  What days seem to be the toughest for us?  How can we organize things for success?

4.     Food (daily).  Tracking what we eat helps us make good choices.  I like apps for this because it takes a lot of the work out of it.

5.     HRV (daily).  This is a new one I’ve started tracking for myself.  It requires a wearable fitness device (I have an Apple Watch, but other kinds also measure it).  It stands for Heart Rate Variability.  It’s a highly individual measurement, but in general, higher numbers are better.  Once we have our baseline (average a week’s measurements), we can use it to decide how hard to work out on a given day.  If the number is below average, we want to dial the work back a bit, but we can really go for it if the number is above average.

 

None of these things is essential, but all are helpful.

Demons totally optional

I would really like it if I could work out once and poof!  There I am, strong, flexible, and fit!  I am pretty sure I am not the only one who would like this, but unfortunately, it doesn’t work that way.

 

The good news is that even though we have to keep working out, it doesn’t have to be a terrible struggle every time.  We can reach our goals without working out for hours and hours, drenched in sweat, whipped by demons, and groaning the whole time (unless you want to; I’m not going to judge you.).

 

We want to get our hearts pumping for about 30 minutes, five days a week.  Ideally, we throw in a couple of half-hour weight lifting sessions some time during the week and a few minutes of stretching every day.  That’s it.  We’ve met the basic needs for cardio, strength, and flexibility.  We waste more time than that during the week watching silly cat videos or searching for our kids’ shoes.

 

A lot of people tell me they hate exercise.  It might be true for a few of them, but nearly everyone has had a good time walking in a pretty place, or playing in the water, or chasing around on the playground at some point in life.  If we pick an exercise that we like anyway, that time becomes play rather than work.  This is why I so often end my blog posts the same way:  Go play.