Burn(out), Baby...

Burnout is real.  The Mayo Clinic talks about signs of job burnout here.  But we get it in exercise, too.  When we find our workouts end up giving us less overall energy, when we stop making progress, when everything hurts, when we can’t sleep well or recover well, we might be looking at a burnout situation.

Usual disclaimers here:  I am not a doctor, physical therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist, or nutritionist.  Those are useful professionals to consult.  My specialty is exercise.

 

The first thing we want to do when we suspect burnout is to stop.  Yes, I know this is very very hard.  We have real pressures to keep going.  There are a couple of ways to address those pressures.  One is to be countercultural by remembering that we are valuable intrinsically, not just because of what we do or accomplish.  Another is to Jedi mind-trick ourselves by remembering that taking a break now will improve our overall productivity.  Maybe we use both?

 

How long we stop will depend.  We need to take a moment or two, while we’re not doing All the Things to take stock of the situation.  Here are a few questions to ask:

 

Am I eating foods that are good for me?  In appropriate quantities?

Am I getting enough sleep?

Am I having any fun?

What is important to me?

 

The answers to those questions might reveal some interesting pathways to get out of the burnout hole.  We can’t get anywhere without decent fuel.  We require rest.  Not everything has to be difficult and painful and unpleasant.  Some things that we do might not be in line with what we really want.

 

We only get one life.  Let’s do our best with it.

Monday Workout: Coordination and Control

We’re working on coordination and control today!  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
kickbacks	20
Arnold press	10
kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s	10
squat heel lift	30
underhand bent over row	20
windscreen wiper	10

The Amazing Stickie and Dumbbell Knee Banded Hip Thrust

Sometimes the Amazing Stickie wants to use All The Things.  Today she’s doing dumbbell knee-banded hip thrusts, for which she needs a bench, a dumbbell, and an exercise band.

She secures the exercise band around her thighs just above her knees.  She holds a dumbbell by the ends with both hands at her waist.  She sits on the floor next to the side of a bench with her shoulder blades against the bench.  From there, she lifts her hips until she herself is bench-shaped, keeping the exercise band taut around her legs.  Then she lowers back toward the floor without actually putting her behind down on the floor.  A set of ten is good.

Falling (or not) into Fall

Since we’re into fall now, let’s talk about falling.  As we age, falling can become more and more of a risk.  Unless we work really hard, those of us who are over 30 are losing muscle mass, a process which accelerates as we get older and older.  Our balance may get more precarious.  Our bones get more fragile.  All these things put us at greater risk of falling and of having injuries that are difficult to recover from.

Interestingly, in a small study done on Pilates for people classified as high risk for falls, the greatest predictor of actual falls was fear.  Having positive movement experiences that were not targeted at improving balance or strength or even core control moved people out of the high risk group.  There was no significant correlation between strength and risk in this study.

 

What does that mean?  It means that we are people who need to keep moving.  We need to keep our focus on doing what we can do rather than dwelling on what we can’t do.  We need to take ownership of our experience.  (Yeah, it sounds pretty darn woo-woo to me, too, but it turns out to work.)

 

Don’t know where to start?  Poke me.  I can help.

That's Right...

Good news for women!  Apparently women’s bodies work smarter.  According to a recent study (link here!), women get “maximal survival benefit” from about 2 ½ hours of moderate to vigorous aerobic exercise per week (that’s a half an hour per weekday with weekends off, y’all!) while it takes men about 5 hours to get the same benefits.

 

That said, everybody still needs to get out there and do the work.  Even if we don’t hit the targets, doing something is better than doing nothing.

 

Go play! 

Monday Workout: Hard!

We’re working extra hard today.  Modify based on time and energy!  Three rounds suggested!

 

skater jump	30
flies	20
shoulder tap pushup	10
tap backs	30
good morning	20
burpees	10
suitcase swing	30
bench press	20
db (banded) hip thrust	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Squat Pop-Up

The Amazing Stickie loves a challenge.  Today she’s working on squat pop-ups.  She would like everyone to know that this exercise is kind of like the bottom half of a burpee.

To begin, she gets into plank position.  From there, she jumps her feet forward toward her hands while lifting her torso up.  She ends up in a squat position with her arms in front of her.  From there, she puts her hands on the floor and jumps her feet back to plank position.  A set of five is good.

Mad About...

From time to time, I read some of the mass-market fitness magazines.  Sometimes I learn a new exercise or two, or hear about a new trend in workouts.  A lot of the time, I just get mad. 

Here, in no particular order, are things that annoy the heck out of me when I read magazines.

 

People “working out” without sweat.  The bulk of us do not look Insta-worthy at the gym and we really don’t need another layer of gym anxiety about how we look.  This also applies to people with super double extra fancy workout outfits.  (If cute workout clothes motivate some of us, I am not here to yuck your yum.)  If we still look picture-perfect at the end of the workout, we’re not working hard enough.

 

Product “solutions” for stuff we can do free.  I recently saw an article touting some kind of essential oils that mimic various locales in nature like forests.  Go outside, people!  (Yes, if you don’t live close to a forest, that might be a challenge, but nearly all of us live where we can go to a park.)

 

Scare articles.  Most articles about rare weird conditions fall into this category as well as most of the stuff about supplements.  The great majority of us get plenty of nutrients from our diets and can cover gaps with a basic multivitamin. 

 

Stupid recipes.  I confess, I’m a little judgy here.  Who needs a recipe for avocado toast?  On the other extreme, who has time to make tiny pancake sliders with an individual blackberry and blueberry toothpicked through each one?  And what was the person smoking who decided to do a multi-page spread on “healthy” yogurt popsicles for breakfast?

 

Individual solutions for systemic problems.  The articles and ads touting weight loss drugs spring to mind as a shining example of this.  (I am not judging those of us who find the new generation of weight loss drug to be a Godsend.  As should be clear as I keep writing here…)  We live in a society where it is harder to eat real food than it is to eat super processed stuff.  It is harder to be healthy than to be unhealthy.  Our culture pushes us to run on sugar, caffeine, and alcohol as well as other drugs and then offers us more drugs to combat the problems that ensue.  It’s real work to unplug from our unhealthy systems and magazines are not likely to help us with that because unplugging does not usually involve buying a bunch of products.

 

What makes you annoyed when you read fitness magazines?

 

Time and Energy

Obviously, there are an infinite number of possible workouts out there.  What we choose to do on any given day depends on a lot of different factors, but let me suggest that there are two that we particularly need to pay attention to:  time and energy.

When we have plenty of both time and energy, we can do whatever the heck we want.  Those days we can go on that long run or that endurance bike ride or take forever working up to our one rep max lift on a number of exercises.  That one’s easy to figure out.

 

When we have not much of either, it’s also pretty easy to figure out.  That’s a great time to do half an hour of yoga or cardio (and, hey, that cardio might just give you a little more energy!).  We stretch a bit, move a bit, and get on with our days.

 

When we have a fair amount of time but not a ton of energy, we can try a class to reduce the mental load.  We can lean into our flexibility work, yoga, or Pilates.  We can go for a walk or choose some less-vigorous version of our cardio.  This is also a good time for social workouts, like finding a friend to play pickleball or bike to the farmer’s market.

 

If the energy is high and the time is low, we can go with interval training or Tabata-style weight workouts.

 

One note:  there are certainly days when the energy level is so low that the right answer is to work out by rolling over in bed.  Rest is as important to our fitness and our health as working out.