The Amazing Stickie and Skater Jumps

The Amazing Stickie, being two-dimensional, occasionally has to remind herself that most people live in three dimensions.  Today, she is demonstrating an exercise for those of us who also need to be reminded.  Sometimes life does not just go forward and backward or even just side to side; sometimes we have to twist.  The skater jump is a great way to tap into our twisty nature.

Stickie begins by crossing one leg back behind the other, bending both knees, as if she is curtsying.  From that starting position, she hops the back foot to the side and crosses the former front foot behind, curtsying on the other side.  She uses her arms to pump up the movement. 

 

People who do not enjoy jumping can certainly do the motion without the jump.

 

The Amazing Stickie would like to remind everyone that we want to keep an eye on our knees to ensure that we are keeping them aligned with our toes to reduce strain on the joints.

 

A set of thirty should get everyone’s heart rate nicely elevated.

The Monster

I recently had a conversation or two that reminded me about my belief that there are things I need to talk about because I want it to be more normal to talk about.  That’s a terrible sentence, but I’m going with it.  Here’s the deal:  I have depression.

Most of the time, I have depression and it’s just a thing in the background.  It never really goes away, but it doesn’t wreak havoc, either.  It’s like an ugly picture on the wall that I’m used to even if I can’t get rid of it entirely.  I know I am not the only person running around with this issue.

 

I am one of the lucky ones.  My depression is manageable.  Once in a while, it jumps me and takes a day or so out of my life.  Then I have to deploy my coping skills, which is why I’m writing about this in a fitness post.

 

Exercise is so helpful in dealing with depression.  Yes, it is a real challenge to get started on any kind of workout when the world feels way too heavy, but if at all possible, we need to try.

 

For one thing, exercise gets our good brain chemicals flowing.  We need that runner’s high, baby.  (Note:  we don’t have to run to get it.  Walking or anything cardio will do.  I’d rather be depressed than run.)

 

Another benefit of exercise when we’re depressed is that it gets us out of our heads and into our bodies.  If we’re sweating, we’re thinking about how our lungs feel or how our legs feel or how our arms might fall off if we do one more rep, not about any of the nasty games our minds play with us in depression.

 

Then there is the fact that we are doing something.  A nice, finite task that increases our sense of efficacy in the world is kryptonite for that Depression Monster.

 

Please note:  NONE of this is a substitute for medical or psychiatric care.  If you are feeling suicidal, PLEASE seek help and/or call 1-800-273-8255 for the hotline.  Please stay.

Observation Deck

While my goals for my clients are not nearly as important as their goals for themselves, I still have them.  They vary by the client, most of the time, but one that I have for all of my clients is that they improve their observation skills.

Yes, I know that I teach weight training and Pilates.  Observation is not exactly about strength or coordination.  Except it is.

 

Any time we are learning a skill, we have to observe what is happening.  We listen to the directions, we watch the demonstration, and then we try.  Tuning in to how we execute whatever it is we are learning to do is the first step toward refining our performance.  Additionally, we get useful information back from our bodies.

 

Recently, I had a client do an exercise we hadn’t done in a while.  I talked about where many people feel the work of the exercise in their bodies.  This client considered and realized that they were feeling it somewhere else.  This allowed me to ask them to do something else first to loosen a tight part and then the exercise we were doing in the first place worked much better.  If we had not been observing, that refinement would not have happened.

 

When observation becomes ingrained, we are able to notice our progress.  We remember how hard something used to be that is much easier now.  Or, we can see when something is not quite right, how a particular move is more difficult today than usual, and we can figure out a different strategy.

 

As I say over and over again, we work out not just to work out, but for the benefits of having worked out in the rest of our lives.  Building our observational skills is a thing that benefits us across our lives as we learn to focus on our experiences in a mindful way.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Boxing Circuit

Last week of the month means we do something different!  Yay!  This month, we’re doing a short boxing circuit with some ab challenge.  Three to four rounds, depending on time and energy!

 

straight punches	20
hooks	20
uppercuts	20
inch worm	10
pushups	10
plank
toe reachers	20
star jumps	20

 

The Amazing Stickie and Dumbbell Floor Chest Press

Chest presses, the Amazing Stickie knows, are a classic exercise.  There are, of course, many variations.  Today, Stickie is doing the dumbbell floor chest press.  She doesn’t do this variation that often because she likes to be able to lower her elbows farther, but this is fun once in a while.

To begin, she lies on the floor with her legs in tabletop position, holding a pair of dumbbells directly above her shoulders.  The dumbbells are close together, but Stickie knows that if they touch each other it makes the exercise easier and cheats her of some of her work.  Stickie does not like to cheat.  Maintaining a neutral spine, Stickie bends her elbows to lower the weights toward her chest and then raises them up again to the starting point.

 

Depending on the weight, ten to twenty reps should do it.

I Have Answers

Because I do both personal training and Pilates, folks sometimes ask me which they should do.  I have two answers:  it depends and both.  (Yeah, I know.  I’m annoying like that.)

The “it depends” answer springs from the fact that we are all coming to fitness from our own special spots in the universe.  We have individual needs and goals.  For most of us, it will be pretty clear whether the usual outcomes of weight training or Pilates will align better with what we need and want.

 

The “both” part comes from the synergistic nature of weight training and Pilates.  When we do both, we improve our outcomes even more than just by getting the individual benefits of each of those training modes.  The strength we gain in weight training opens up opportunities for us in the Pilates repertoire.  The finesse and balance and alignment we learn in Pilates translate into better form and performance in our weight training.  Our powerful brains benefit from the mindset of both disciplines and from the challenge of switching between them.

 

The good news is that we can start anywhere.  It’s all good.

Change the Input

Recently I listened to a webinar about neuroplasticity.  At the risk of sounding far out there, it made me realize how much we create our own reality.

Yeah, that’s pretty woo-woo, even for me.  Let me give a practical example that can also be a party trick, depending on the kind of parties we go to.

 

Don’t try this if you have bone loss in your spine.  Everyone else:  stand up and then bend forward as if you are going to touch your toes.  It does not matter how far you can reach, but note how far you can reach.  Stand back up.  Now think about that problem part of your body, the ankle you keep spraining, the scar from your appendectomy, that shoulder that hurts in the morning.  Once you’ve settled on one (any one will do!), rub that part of your body for a minute or so.  Longer is better for this exercise, but a minute is enough.  Then do that forward bend again.  I’ll bet you could reach farther than you did the first time.

 

Why does it work?  Because we distracted our brains.  We gave a bunch of input to our brains from something that wasn’t reaching for our toes.  Our brains stayed so busy with that that they couldn’t focus on our limitations in the direction of our toes.

 

We just changed our reality.  When we change the input, we change the output.

 

Go make some stuff real.

Monday Workout: Rev Up

This week we’re keeping on with our compound exercises to build strength and rev up our metabolisms.  Three rounds.

 

tap backs	30
renegade row	20
lateral raise	10
squat to leg lift	30
(lunge to) curl	20
YTA	10
jacks	30
good morning/deadlift	20
pretty princesses	10

The Amazing Stickie and Farmer's Carry

The Amazing Stickie knows that sometimes simple is best.  There are not many exercises out there simpler than the farmer’s carry.  The level of challenge will vary depending on the weights she chooses.

Holding a dumbbell (or weight plate!) in each hand, Stickie ensures that her posture is good (ears over shoulders over hips over knees over ankles).  Then she walks forward holding the dumbbells without swinging her arms.  That’s it.  When she feels like she has taken the weights for a long enough walk, she stops.  She usually takes about ten steps in one direction and ten to return to the weight rack, because she is efficient.

Do your own!

It is really tempting to let other people set our goals for us.  I get it.  I’m the “expert,” so I should know what it is my clients should do.

Yes, I do have expertise and education and experience.  Those things are useful.  But no matter how smart I am, I can’t know what is crucial to my clients without them telling me.

 

My ideas about what my clients should want don’t really matter.  What they want does.  My job is to apply what I know to what they want.  I show up with curiosity.  I watch.  I ask.  Given what I see and what I hear and what I am told, I adapt what we do to optimize for what my clients have their hearts set on.

 

A lot of us are so used to people telling us what to want (and what to do) that it can be a challenge to tease out what is important to my clients themselves.  It is worth the effort, however, because ultimately the only goals worth working for are the ones we choose for ourselves.

 

(On a related subject, positive goals along the lines of “I want to be able to dance all night” beat the heck out of “I don’t want to die immobile.”  We do best when motivated by love, excitement, joy.)

 

All goals present challenges.  We’re not going to sail, trouble-free, straight to what we want.  This is why it is so crucial to ensure that the goal is worth it to us.  That worthy goal keeps us working when things get hard.

 

Whatever my clients want, I am there to help them get it.

Happiness and Joy

Today we’re going to talk about happiness versus joy.  (My brain just imagined the two as Luchadores, but, aside from making me laugh, that’s not relevant right now.)  Happiness is a circumstantial thing.  We feel happy when things are going right, when we have cute shoes, when there is no traffic on our commute, when we get tasty snacks.

 

Joy, however, is not.  Joy is a way of being in the world, more of a mindset than something dependent on how things are going.  We achieve joy in a variety of ways, including integrity and gratitude.  Joy is a practice.

 

So what’s the connection with fitness? 

 

The most obvious connection is… connection!    That mind-body connection is a real thing.  When we tune in to what makes our body feel good, when we experience ourselves as moving beings designed to move, we open ourselves to the joy of existence.

 

Then there is that whole practice bit.  When we move with intention, we learn.  We grow.  We learn to appreciate our capabilities.  We practice being grateful for bodies that can do so many things in so many interesting ways.

 

Finally, as we move our bodies, we treat ourselves with love.  That love spills over into things like better sleep, good-for-us food, reduced pain.  All those things contribute to our sense of joy in the world.

 

Bottom line:  happiness is good and joy is even better!  Get both! 

Monday Workout: Sorry/Not Sorry

So I’m pretty sure that some folks aren’t going to like me much this week because I have made renegade rows harder by adding that pushup in there.  Sorry/not sorry.  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
bench press	20
pushup renegade row	10
1 arm clean and press	30
flies	20
front raise	10
split squat pulldown	30
kickbacks	20
butterfly crunch	10

The Amazing Stickie and Gorilla Row

The Amazing Stickie has amazing posture.  One way she maintains this level of amazingness is by working the back of her body.  Gorilla rows are a great way to do that.

She begins by squatting down with her legs fairly wide apart.  She hinges at her hips so that her back is nice and straight and parallel to the floor, her hands holding dumbbells between her feet.  From there, she lifts one dumbbell up toward her armpit (stopping before she runs into her own body!) and then lowers it back toward the floor.  She repeats on the other side.  Letting the dumbbell rest on the floor is easier than keeping it hanging, but both ways of doing the exercise are good.  Sets of ten to twenty are good, depending on how heavy the weights are.

Say What Now?

I am nothing if not a repository for random factoids.  Today’s tidbit comes from a webinar I watched recently.  It was not central to the topic of the webinar at all, but I had one of those “Wait, what?” moments when a presenter said that overuse of antibiotics is driving a rise in ruptures of the Achilles tendon.

 

That sounded fishy to me.  While I certainly do not think we should be taking antibiotics unless they’re really necessary because we don’t want superbugs out there, I did not see any inherent connection between those drugs and our tendons.  I could have just gone on with my life, but instead, I checked it out.  Internet search for the win!

 

It turns out (link here!) that certain common antibiotics do have adverse effects on our connective tissue.

 

The lesson here, besides taking antibiotics when necessary and not willy-nilly, is that we need to be open to examining things we find surprising or counterintuitive.  Science is our friend.  When we hear something unexpected or surprising, we need to evaluate what, if any, evidence there is.

 

Play smart! 

Exercise for Menopause!

At the risk of sharing TMI, I’ll just say that I seem to be fairly well along in my menopause journey.  Where exactly I am is hard to say because I haven’t had a period since my hysterectomy in 2017.  But boy, howdy, was I unprepared for the variety of changes this particular hormonal journey had in store for me.

So:  I’m going to talk about it.  Those of us who don’t expect to experience menopause can feel free to tune out, even though I’m pretty sure we all know someone who will at some point go through it and knowledge is power.  The more we know, the more we can get mad.  Just kidding.  Sort of.

 

Anyway:  menopause comes with a host of possible symptoms and effects.  Here is a link to a handy questionnaire that lists a whole bunch of them.  As is the case with everything, different people are going to have differing experiences.  Some of us will sail through with no problems and others of us will tick every box as if we wanted the full Spinal Tap reference.

 

How we deal with our personal battery of effects will vary.  It is beyond the scope of my practice to prescribe or treat or diagnose.  What I can do is let everyone know what exercise can do to help.

 

At menopause, women begin to lose bone density at a greater rate than before.  Weight-bearing exercise becomes even more important to keep our bones strong as long as possible.

 

Those of us who have sleep disturbances can improve the odds of sleeping well by getting plenty of exercise.  Ditto for fatigue, concentration problems, and mood swings.  Exercise reduces stress, which can, in turn, reduce muscular pain.  We will improve our breathing, reduce our likelihood of having headaches, and we’ll generally feel better.

 

Exercise is not the key to everything, but it can improve our quality of life.  Go play.

Monday Workout: Good Judgment

As always, we need to do exercises that work for us.  Those of us who are not jumpers should choose the side lunge over the lateral bound.  Jumpers can make the lateral bound more fun if there is a BOSU available.  No matter what we choose, we have three rounds.

 

kb alt arm swing	30
kb hammer curl	20
kb halo	10
lateral bound/side lunge	30
prisoner squat	20
Arnold press	10
mountain climbers	30
rows	20
plank up down	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Shoulder Tap Pushups

The Amazing Stickie, while having an amazing attention span, occasionally wants to change things up just a little to keep herself sharp.  This means she loves variations on classic exercises, like this one for pushups.  It’s called a shoulder tap pushup.

She begins in classic plank position (the modified pushup position would also work!).  from there, she lifts one hand and taps the opposite shoulder and then repeats with the other hand.  Then she does her regular pushup.  The whole time she uses her abdominals to keep her balance.  A set of ten is plenty.