The Amazing Stickie and Medicine Ball Rotational Toss

The Amazing Stickie knows how important it is to work in all planes, even though she herself is two-dimensional.  Today she is doing a medicine ball rotational toss.

To begin, she kneels in the proposal position, holding a medicine ball next to her back hip with both hands (i.e., twisting toward the back leg).  From there, she tosses the ball across her body.  (It is helpful if she has a partner to fetch the ball back for her between reps.)  When she has done a set on one side, she repeats on the other side.

Halloween Hint

Today I’m just going to offer a small Halloween hint.  It is:  buy candy that you don’t personally like.  Then there is no temptation to snarf it all instead of giving it away.

Routine

I am a big believer in routine.  For a long time, I resisted this.  I mean, I wanted to be one of those floaty creative people who went as the spirit moved and somehow managed to be interesting and well-dressed at the same time.  Yeah, OK, I was deluded.  And not just about the part where I am ever going to achieve well-dressed.  (I’ll settle for clean.)

It turns out that, for me, routine is the thing that unlocks both creativity and achievement.  I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

 

What I observed, when I looked at my life, was that the things I did automatically always got done.  I, like most of us, do not forget to brush my teeth when I get up in the morning.  I have forgotten to eat approximately twice in my entire life.  Attaching other things I wanted to do to those automatic tasks eventually turned them into automatic tasks, too.  Which means that now, when I get up in the morning, I know that I’m going to get certain stuff done without devoting a lot of mental energy to it.

 

One of those things is my workout.  It just happens, along with brushing my teeth.  (Haven’t tried working out and brushing my teeth at the same time, but I don’t think it would work very well.)

 

Please note:  I am a morning person.  Attaching stuff to my morning routine is relatively simple for me.  Even making an evening routine is a struggle because I am extra stupid at that time of day.  We need to do stuff at times that work for us.

 

Try it.  Then tell me how it worked!

Monday Workout: Halloween!

The end of the month means a different workout style, which seems appropriate for Halloween week.  Costumes optional.  Three or four rounds, depending on time and energy.

 

H - high knees	30
A - Arnold press	10
L - lunge	20
L - lateral raise	10
O - oblique crunch	10
W - woodchopper	30
E - extend triceps	20
E - elbow plank
N - narrow squat	20

 

The Amazing Stickie and Plank Saw

The Amazing Stickie is working her amazing abdominals today with the plank saw.  She begins in elbow plank position, her body resting on her elbows (forearms straight in front of her, hands not touching) and the balls of her feet, a nice straight line from her heels to the top of her head.  From there, she rocks her body back toward her feet and then forward again.

A set of ten is good.

Don't Apologize

When people hear what I do for a living, they tend to apologize to me.  They tell me that they really mean to work out, but they don’t.  Or they look anxious as they take a bite of cake.

For the record, I am not the Fitness and Diet Police.  (I really hope that there is no such thing!)  While I firmly believe that our lives are better if we move our bodies and feed them good stuff, we are happier, I also understand that life is complicated.

 

I can’t (and don’t want to!) make anybody do anything they don’t want to do.  Sure, I think that we’d feel better if we moved more often.  Yes, it would probably be healthier to eat more veggies and less candy.  But the impetus to change has to come from inside.  Otherwise it just won’t work.

 

Change, my friends, is hard.  We have to know, deeply, what we want and why we want it to do it.  It also doesn’t happen in one fell swoop.  The occasional piece of pie is going to happen to all of us.

 

My job, as a human and as a trainer, is to be there when folks are ready to do the work.  I bring my skills and knowledge, my encouragement and accountability, and my clients do the hard part.

 

Workouts will always be there when we’re ready.

For the Brain

It’s not a secret that I think exercise is good for our wellbeing.  Healthy bodies make life better.  But exercising is also helpful for our brains.

Interestingly, I find that this works in two opposite ways.  One of those ways is that exercise, especially cardio, allows us to zone out.  The rhythm of walking or swimming or biking or running produces an almost meditative effect on our little monkey minds.  Our thoughts (assuming that what we’re doing does not end up focusing on “OW!”) can wander around and we don’t get attached to them.

 

The other way is that exercise can compel us to focus on just one thing:  what we are doing.  This tends to happen when we’re doing something less familiar or something where a lot of things have to come together to make the motion work.  All our worries about the past and all our compulsive plans for the future fall away leaving us with just where our bodies are in space right this minute.  We have to be present.

 

Both of these can leave us, after our workout is done, feeling more creative and sharp.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Various Core

This week we have exercises that challenge our core in various ways.  Three rounds.

 

jacks	30
bench press	20
lateral raise	10
sumo squat to high pull	30
flies	20
renegade row	10
1 arm clean and press	30
curls	20
plank up down	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Frog Reverse Hyperextension

The Amazing Stickie loves different ways to work her body.  Today she is doing the frog reverse hyperextension on the bench.

To begin, she puts her torso on a bench, holding on with her hands, knees bent and feet together hanging off the end.  Then she extends her legs straight back behind her until she is a straight line from head to heels.  She lowers back to the starting postion to complete the repetition.  Sets of five are good.

Neutrality not Stillness

Recently I was watching a webinar about Pilates topics.  Most of it was not super engaging, to be honest, but one concept in particular stood out:  neutral, in our bodies, is dynamic.

I think that most of us conceive of neutral in our bodies kind of like that poor guy in the Operation game, except standing up.  We’re still, arms at our sides, facing front.  That’s just not real.

 

Our bodies are constantly moving.  Don’t believe me?  A hand on our chest or belly while we inhale and exhale should convince us.  Our outsides may be relatively still, but inside all kinds of stuff is rushing around:  blood, food, air, lymph, nerve impulses.

 

Neutral, in this context, is a place of rest amid the busyness.  Neutral is where we don’t have to do a bunch of work to hold some arbitrary position.  To paraphrase Anne Morrow Lindbergh, we need to find our still axis within the revolving wheel of our movements.

 

This is where we breathe and come home to ourselves.

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.