The Amazing Stickie knows that using kettlebells challenges her in ways that dumbbells don’t because of how the weight shifts in different positions. Today she is doing the kettlebell hang, clean, and jerk.
She begins holding a kettlebell in one hand. She squats down, lowering the kettlebell toward the floor. Then she stands up straight again, lifting the kettlebell to shoulder height. From there, she lifts the kettlebell overhead. Then she returns to the start position for the next rep.
Sometimes the best way to get out of our own way in fitness is to do something we like that we are not good at.
Counterintuitive, right? I’m supposed to be telling everyone to excel or something. Actually, I’m not. I’m here to promote health. And sometimes health is about playing.
Playing doesn’t have a goal in mind. When we play, we do whatever it is we are doing for the joy of doing it. It doesn’t mean we don’t play hard, but we’re not attached to some outcome beyond the present enjoyment.
Take me and swimming, for example. I am not a great swimmer. I’m unlikely to drown, but that’s about all that can be said about my abilities. But I love swimming. I love being in the water and the feel of my body moving through it. Because I love it, I’ll do it and have a good time even if objectively I’m doing a poor job of it. My body gets to work and I get to let go of all the judgments that I might put on myself about my performance (other people who want to judge my performance can go pound sand; I’m too old for that crap.).
Of course I’ll get better at swimming over time, but I’m not thinking about improvement. I’m just enjoying what I’m doing.
Go play.
Some folks are not going to like this one. I’m okay with that. Competition is not our friend when it comes to fitness.
Sure, there are people who are motivated by contests. Who can lose the most weight? Who can win the gym’s bingo game by going to the most different classes? I’m not trying to ruin anybody’s day or take away their joy or whatever.
Here’s the thing: competition requires someone to lose. In fitness, the goal is for everyone to win. Further, because we’re all starting from different place, my win may not look anything like someone else’s win. The comparisons are useless and/or unfair.
It’s hard to do, but here’s what we’re aiming for: doing our best on a daily basis. We do this not by looking at what anyone else is doing. We also don’t need to look at what we did yesterday or what we think we should be able to do today. We just need to show up, be present, and work hard.
Go play.
Time for another shorter circuit! Four rounds full of compound exercises should be fun!
1 min cardio | |
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squat to leg lift | 30 |
flies | 20 |
overhead press | 10 |
deadlift to curl | 30 |
renegade row | 20 |
brains | 10 |
The Amazing Stickie has amazing-looking arms, of course. To maintain her beautiful shoulders, she often does goblet pours.
She begins standing with good posture, holding two light weights at shoulder level with the ball parts of the dumbbells pointing up and down. Then she twists her arms as if the weights were goblets and she wants to empty them on the ground. She repeats this motion about ten times.
Yesterday I talked a little about spring cleaning. Today I’m going to add some stuff we might want to pitch:
Perfectionism. The best workout is the one we actually do. Doing something is always better than doing nothing.
Negativity. It doesn’t help to focus on what we can’t do, on what is going wrong, and the like. Let that stuff go.
Other people’s opinions. Our fitness is our business. We need to work out in the ways that feel best to us. Anyone who wants to criticize our current fitness level, our choice in clothing, or our dance styles can just get lost.
Punishment. Workouts are not punitive. We don’t have to do them because we ate cake. We don’t do them to become worthy of something. We are worthy. We work out because we are valuable humans who deserve to be healthy and happy.
Go play.
We’re getting to real spring now, which means it’s time for… spring cleaning!
In the fitness sense, this means we get to stop and take a look at what we’ve been doing and see what needs to shift. Bodies like change because change promotes growth. Here are some questions we might want to consider for our spring fitness:
Is my stuff in good order? What needs some maintenance? Does the bike chain need some lube? Are our shoes wearing out? Do we have the right kind of layers for our outside workouts? Where did we hide our bathing suit?
Am I getting the results I want from what I’m doing? Do I feel good? Do I look good? Am I meeting my fitness goals? If not, it’s definitely time to change stuff up.
What would it be fun to learn? Now that it’s less cold, maybe we want to try outside workouts. Maybe we’ve always secretly wanted to take karate. Maybe now is the time to sample a different yoga class or even to try out some other kind of cardio machine.
What would make my workouts seem fresh? Maybe we just need a cool workout shirt. Maybe we need to do our workout backward from how we usually do. Maybe we just need to bring a different gym buddy with us or change up the music.
Let me repeat: change promotes growth. Where do we want to grow this season?
There are a couple of weight bearing exercises on the arms this week, just for fun. Three rounds.
kb swings | 30 |
kb twists | 20 |
kb 8s or overyets | 10 |
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squat raises | 30 |
bench press | 20 |
spiderman pushup | 10 |
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skier jumps | 30 |
flies | 20 |
pretty princesses | 10 |
The Amazing Stickie knows that many of us don’t do enough work on rotation. Uncle Joe Pilates to the rescue! Today she is doing his Twist exercise.
Stickie begins in a side plank position, the upper arm raised and her top foot in front of her other foot. From there, she lifts her hips and pokes her non-weight-bearing arm through the arch she has created with her body. Then she returns to the start position.
She likes to do about five reps on each side.
One thing I want my clients to know is that I am not the boss of them. Sometimes they are glad to be reminded of this, but sometimes not. If I am not the boss, then it means that they are actually responsible for their own results.
This is not to say that I don’t have useful knowledge and expertise. I have studied and observed and tried a bunch of stuff. The thing is, I have never lived in their bodies. They are the ultimate experts on what works for them, what feels good, what makes a positive difference in their lives.
What I like best is when my clients adopt an attitude of curiosity. We can try things and see how they work. We can experiment, keep the good stuff, and tweak the less good stuff.
I’m always curious to see how things turn out!
Fitness while traveling can be a challenge. We’re out of our normal routines, we’re away from our gym or our instructor or our equipment. We may have to deal with jet lag.
This is where our adaptability comes in.
If we’re traveling for work, we can maintain some of our normal frameworks and habits. We can seek out places to stay that include some way to work out, whether that’s a hotel gym or a pool or just a neighborhood where we can walk or run.
Pleasure travel is a different animal. We’re going to relax or to experience new things or both. We want to see what there is to see, do what there is to do, and try all the fabulous foods. I find that I generally get in a lot more steps when I travel than I do at home and I do a whole lot less weight lifting, even if there is a gym in my hotel. It is absolutely all right to have vacations as vacation. I do notice, however, that as we get more fit, we tend to choose more active kinds of vacation. We’re inclined to walk through the cities we visit or we seek out the scenic hike or we decide to swim in a different ocean than our usual.
As always, we need to use our good judgment about how much we move and how much we eat. And, if we blow it and eat our way through our trip, we need to accept the consequences, return to our healthy habits, and avoid punishing ourselves.
There are a couple of challenges built into this one. Obviously, burpees are back. But we’re also adding jumping (if appropriate!) to our squats and recruiting our muscles a little differently with star plank. Three rounds.
woodchoppers | 30 |
rows | 20 |
burpees | 10 |
| |
suitcase swings | 30 |
skullcrushers | 20 |
1 leg deadlift | 10 |
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(jump) squats | 30 |
lateral raise | 20 |
star plank | 10 |
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The Amazing Stickie knows that when Uncle Joe Pilates does a version of an exercise, it’s going to be interesting. The Pilates pushup is a whole-body experience.
Stickie begins standing with good posture. Keeping her weight toward her toes to keep her hips from falling back as long as possible, she curls her spine forward until her hands touch the ground. From there, she walks her hands forward until she is in plank position. Keeping her elbows close to her body, Stickie lowers and raises her body three times, maintaining a straight line between her head and her heels. Then she walks her hands back toward her feet, returning to the forward bend position before stacking her spine up again to return to her starting position. Stickie likes it that each Pilates pushup incorporates three pushups.
Patience is one of those boring virtues. It’s just not sexy. No one goes, “Whoa! Look at the patience on that guy! So hot!” And yet, under whatever it is we do find sexy in that guy, I am guessing there’s a fair amount of patience.
It takes patience to put in the work to get and stay healthy. No matter how much we try, there are going to be some boring or unpleasant parts of our workouts. (Which parts those are vary from person to person. One person’s treadmill torture is another person’s happy place.) And, when we start from the couch, we’re going to need to exercise our patience along with our bodies as we wait for the results of our actions to show.
The good news is that, much like the rest of our work in fitness, the patience we build is something we can use in the rest of our lives.
We can do this.
Captain Obvious has some things to say today. She would like to remind us that things that feel good in the moment are not necessarily good to have as habits, that things that feel a lot less good in the moment might make good habits, and things that hurt are to be avoided. (It is OK to stop reading now; the rest is just unpacking this part a bit.)
So: things that feel good in the moment. Some of them, like massage, are fabulous habits to have. If I ever have more money than I know what to do with after saving the world and feeding all the hungry people and all that, I’ll be getting a massage every day. There are plenty of things in this category, like getting enough sleep and hugging people and petting puppies and hot showers. However, there are some things that feel good in the now that are not that great long term. I’m giving the side-eye to Haagen Dasz right now. While I’m eating all that sugary dairy deliciousness, I feel fabulous. Later, when my innards react to all that dairy and I’m headachy with a sugar hangover, not so much. It is all right as an occasional indulgence, but a pint a day is just too much for my health. When we’re stressed, it can be challenging to choose something that feels good and is good for us in the larger sense. It’s worth trying.
As for things that feel less good in the now, my whole career is based on those. My job is to get people to do stuff they don’t want to do for their own good. Tough workouts are tough. We may not enjoy them. We may feel sore and grumpy afterward. And yet, in the long term, those very workouts make us healthy and strong to live long and enjoyable lives.
That last category of things, the things that hurt, should be self-explanatory. Sadly, the no-pain-no-gain crowd is way too popular. It’s a Mean Girl of a motto, ready to abuse us at any time. We do not need that kind of negativity in our lives. We want our workouts to be enough work, but not so much that we actually hurt ourselves and suffer. When I was studying flexibility and stretching, the course had to emphasize again and again that pain is counterproductive to improving mobility and flexibility. No pain is a Good Thing.
Now go play.
This week, we’re doing a couple of things that work the back of the body. Three rounds.
jacks | 30 |
flies | 20 |
bench dips | 10 |
| |
step ups | 30 |
renegade row | 20 |
1 leg squat | 10 |
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mountain climbers | 30 |
bench press | 20 |
plank | 10 |
