Love Month: 6

Quick reasons to do Pilates:

 

1.     Increased mobility

2.     Increased flexibility

3.     Better balance

4.     Better posture

5.     Better efficiency

6.     Fun

Love Month: Love your muscles long

Yesterday I wrote about strong muscles.  Today, I need to add a bit about long muscles.

 

OK, not necessarily long.  Muscles at optimum length.  Bear with me here.  In our muscles, there is a relationship between length and tension.  That relationship produces strength in action.  A muscle with an optimal length-tension relationship is as strong as possible.  One that is too short (contracted) or too long (released) can’t do its best work.

 

It’s true that most of us walk around with a lot of muscles overly contracted.  (PSA:  this is a good time to lower your shoulders away from your ears.)  What we may not realize is that this means we are also walking around with a lot of muscles overly stretched.  For every muscle group that bends something, there is a group that extends it and vice versa.  When some are too tight, some are too loose.  We need to balance everything out.

 

So what do we do?  Let me introduce you to my favorite “uncle,” Uncle Joe Pilates.  Pilates (and yoga) as a practice does a great job of teaching us to use the right amount of force at the right time.  We may notice the increased flexibility more, but the increased strength in the opposing muscles is there, too.

 

Don’t want to do Pilates?  That’s cool.  Do some stretching at least, making sure to stretch both sides (e.g., both quads and hamstrings) for best results.

 

(I’m a Pilates instructor.  You can make an appointment with me!)

 

Go play. 

Love Month: Love your muscles strong

Another way we can love our bodies is to love our muscles strong.  Yes, I realize that this means weight work, but again, love isn’t always nice even while it is being kind.

A digression that is sort of relevant:  when I was in high school or thereabouts, my dad was sure I would not survive on my own because I couldn’t open jars myself.  My days as a 90-pound weakling are behind me now.  I can even open jars for other people.  Strength training for the win!  Also tasty jam!

 

We all know that strength is practical.  Not only do we have to open jars, we also have to carry groceries, lift kids, move the furniture around, schlepp the laundry, and so on.  Doing those same tasks will build skill and ability, but we get their faster with strength training.

 

As I mentioned last week, strength training is good for our bones.  It also helps us maintain a healthy body mass distribution:  more lean tissue is good for us!

 

Need more reasons?  It’s good for posture, it makes us look better, and it increases our sense of personal power.

 

Sometimes love looks like barbells.

Monday Workout: Slow then not

We start slow on this one and then we get a bit more intense and complicated with our compound exercises.  Three rounds.

 

opposite knees	30
good morning/deadlift	20
1 leg db pass	10
squat raise	30
(lunge to) curl to overhead press	20
truck driver	10
db circles	30
kickbacks	20
toe reaches	10

Love Month: 6

Jumping is great for both cardio fitness and bone strength.  Here are six things to try:

 

1.     jacks (regular, plyojacks, plank jacks)

2.     burpees

3.     box jumps or depth jumps (jumping on or off a fitness box)

4.     jump squats

5.     jump lunges

6.     lateral hops (extra fun with a BOSU

Love Month: Love your bones strong

Most of us probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about our skeletons, but another way we can love ourselves is to keep those bones strong.  There are a couple of good ways to do this.

One is to eat right, including plenty of calcium.  Y’all know what to do there, right?

 

Another is to work with weights.  Those dumbbells do more than make our muscles strong!  Bones increase strength in response to stresses like lifting weights.

 

Choosing the right cardio can also help.  Bones get stronger in response to impact with the ground.  That means that swimming, while great for cardio, has less of an effect on strengthening bones than walking.  Exercises that include jumping (jacks, jump lunges, jump squats, box jumps, burpees, etc.) help with this, too.

 

Go play.

Love Month: Love your heart strong

One way we can love our bodies is to love our hearts strong.  In other words, we can make sure we do some cardio.

Cardio has a reputation for being boring, but it doesn’t have to be.  Sure, it’s boring to walk on the treadmill for half an hour, even (or in spite of) the tv being on.  It’s a lot less boring to do intervals that get our heart racing.  Or, we can take the walk outside where there is plenty of variety.  Even better, we can mix up the kinds of cardio we do; some days we can walk, others we can swim, still others we can bike or play sports or do Zumba.

 

Doing the cardio is one part of the love.  The other part is making the cardio as pleasant as possible.  The above-mentioned variety can have a role in that.  So can workout buddies, good music, time in nature, and workout clothes that are comfy and make us feel good.

 

Need more help?  That’s what I’m for!  Poke me!

Monday Workout: Strong Arms

I am in the mood for arm and core strength, so we have exercises that work all the way around the arms, some upper body weight-bearing, and various core challenges.  Three rounds.

 

squat to leg lift/ticktock	30
bench press	20
bench dips	10
woodchoppers	30
flies	20
renegade rows	10
1 arm clean and press	30
curls	20
butterfly crunch	10

 

Love Month: 3

How to show yourself some real love:

 

1.     Eat breakfast.

2.     Sleep enough.

3.     Move your body.

Love Month: Love is kind, but not always nice.

Captain Obvious would like a word here.  Love isn’t always nice.  (I’m not talking about abusive relationships here.  That’s well out of the scope of my practice.  If you feel like you’re in one, PLEASE get some help because nobody deserves that.)  We always see the cozy bits of love in popular culture, the snuggles and the chocolate and the laughter.  But sometimes love has to do hard stuff, like getting a toddler to bed or wearing that ugly bridesmaid dress or, more relevantly for my purposes, moving the body for its own good.

Love takes responsibility for the maintenance stuff.  It pays the bills and does the grocery shopping.  Nothing says love like finding enough toilet paper in the bathroom.

 

In a fitness context, that means that when we love ourselves, we push ourselves the right amount.  We acknowledge the parts of ourselves that want to roll over and sleep another hour and then we get our butts out of bed and work out anyway.  We eat the veggies first.  We meet our friends for a walk rather than an ice cream.

 

That bit about the right amount is important.  Love is also smart.  There are some days when love does the math and realizes that we do, in fact, need the extra hour of sleep.  Notice I said “some days.”  Love keeps the score and gently kicks us out of bed if we’ve missed too many gym days.

 

Love is kind, in the deepest sense.  It gets us to do stuff for our own good.

 

Go play.

Love Month: Motivation

I personally am not a fan of Valentine’s Day, as I’ve said over and over for years.  (No shade on my husband, who is a wonderful human I happen to love EVERY day of the year.)  However, love is a great thing and February, for better or worse (see what I did there?) in the popular consciousness is about love, love, and more love.

 

Love can provide powerful motivation for us.  In fact, love is the very best motivation there is for positive change in our lives.  I’m spending this month discussing how we harness love to make our fabulous selves even better.

 

A whole lot of people embark on a fitness routine because of negative emotions.  We work out because we feel ashamed of how we look or because we feel inadequate.  We try to punish ourselves into what we think of as good behavior.  Spoiler alert:  it mostly doesn’t work, and when it does, it does not make for a holistically healthy human.

 

When we work out from a place of love, we are far more equipped to deal with the fact that working out is often hard and unpleasant in the moment.  The negative brain will tell us that we are having a hard time because we actually suck and we see proof that we are never going to get better and on we go from there.  Doesn’t really help with the weight lifting, right?  When we are motivated by love, we tend to talk to ourselves more like we’d talk to a kid we love:  oh, honey, yes, this is difficult, but you’re going to feel better at the end and it is so important to take care of yourself.  And then:  look at you!  You did it!  I am so proud of you for persisting!  I know which voice I’d rather work out with.

 

Go play. 

Monday Workout: Impact and Balance

We’re working on impact and balance today.  If jumping is not your thing, sub regular squats and side lunges for the jumping kind.  Three rounds.

 

(jump) squats	30
rows	20
round lunges	10
kb swings	30
kb twist	20
kb 8s	10
lateral bound	30
kickbacks	20
plank up down	10