Fresh: Pilates 2

Another way to refresh the Pilates experience is to take it out of the studio and into the world.  This is in line with Uncle Joe’s general philosophy.

What does that mean?  It can mean anything from thinking about how we are moving while we are weight lifting in the same way we do while we are doing Pilates—focusing on what our bones are doing, on how and when we exert effort, on the quality of the movement itself—to watching the flow of our breath in line at the grocery store or while we wait for the microwave to beep.

 

Pilates, like all fitness, is not intended as an end in itself, but rather as a means to a happier, healthier, more zestful life.  (Zest is a word that Uncle Joe liked a lot!)

 

Go get zesty!

Fresh: Pilates 1

Pilates, like all practices, can fall into ruts.  We show up, we plop down on the reformer and we go through the motions.  Uncle Joe would applaud that we showed up and yet be disappointed in our behavior, maybe.

One of the easiest ways I’ve found to wake up in Pilates is to switch equipment.  For a lot of the repertoire, there are versions of the exercises for use on the reformer, or trap table, or ladder barrel, or chair, or spine corrector, or mat, or all of the above.  When we move from one piece of equipment to another, we may find ourselves in a different relationship to gravity.  We may experience resistance in different ways.  We may learn different qualities of motion.

 

If we are habitual users of the equipment, doing a mat workout can be instructive.  Similarly, mat class habitués may find enlightenment in using the equipment.

 

Change is good in this context, friends.

Monday Workout: Balance Lots of Ways

We’re working balance in a variety of ways this week.  Obviously, the single leg work works on it, but the skier jumps and the dumbbell pullovers with bridge also recruit what we need when we have to balance.  Three rounds.

 

tap backs	30
1 leg deadlift	20
1 leg squat	10
squat raise	30
gorilla row	20
curls	10
skier jump	30
db pullover with bridge	20
brains	10

Fresh: 4

More strength fresheners:

 

1.     Change the tempo.

2.     Try a circuit.

3.     Swap machines for free weights or vice versa.

4.     Change the usual order.

Fresh: Strength 2

Another approach to freshening our weight workouts is to adjust the variables.  These include the number of reps, the number of sets, and the intensity (or what weight we use as a percentage of our single rep maximum).

Captain Obvious would like a word here.  We don’t want to increase all the variables at once.  If we choose, for example, to do a lot more reps, we’re going to need to choose lighter weights.  We need to be fresh-minded (yes, I just made that word up), paying attention to our bodies as we work to know when we have had enough.

 

Again, we don’t have to switch all the variables for all our workouts.  Making one a week or one a month different can be plenty to keep our bodies entertained and growing.

Fresh: Strength 1

When it comes to strength training, freshness can be a challenging concept.  Strength training is one of those things that thrives on habit and routine.  The trick is to make change part of the routine.  In fact, without a certain amount of freshness, our strength training can’t get best results because our bodies develop in response to the stresses we put on them.  If we’re always doing the same things the same way, we stop growing.

One easy way to freshen things up in the weight room (ok:  not just by cleaning it, although I am 100% in favor of cleanliness and fresh air in the weight room) is to try a new exercise.  If finding a new exercise seems like a lot of work, make it even simpler and try a variation on an exercise already in your repertoire (e.g., swap the regular squats for jump squats, sumo squats, prisoner squats, goblet squats, or any of the other million different kinds).

 

Another approach is to combine exercises into compound movements.  This is where we do things like lunge-to-curl or push presses.  Not only does this give us a new take on the component parts, but it also works more of our bodies at once, which is just efficient!

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Deceptive!

Farmer carry is one of those deceptive exercises.  We’re just walking around with weights; how hard can it be?  When I deep clean the studio, I do a LOT of farmer carries and let me say:  it is not easy.  Use the heaviest weights you can manage.  Three rounds.

 

db circles	30
skullcrushers	20
shoulder tap pushups	10
squat to leg lift/ticktock	30
flies	20
lateral raises	10
farmer carry	30
bench press	20
pretty princesses	10

 

Fresh: 3

Three ways to make cardio fresher:

 

1.     Change the speed.

2.     Change the time.

3.     Change the intensity.

 

Up or down!  You pick!

Fresh: Cardio 2

Maybe we really love what we are already doing for cardio.  I mean, you can have my spin bike when I’m dead and not before, for example.  Even so, we can freshen up our routines with a couple of tweaks.

In my experience, we all have a preferred spot on the continuum between time and intensity.  That is to say, some of us would rather work really hard for not very long and others of us would rather spend a longer time working less hard.  This is all just fine, but we can mix it up just a little and get lots of benefits.  Maybe one workout a week is longer or faster or otherwise harder (think:  hills).  If we are doing something with a cadence like running or biking, we can shift it faster once in a while.

 

Even changing up something as basic as what we listen to while we go can make things new.  Heck, grab a buddy and listen to them for a workout instead of whatever is on your playlist!

 

It seems worthwhile to note here that not all things we do to entertain ourselves while working out are equally useful.  For example, I love to read, but I can’t work out hard enough while also tracking words across a page.  If I want to read and workout, it’s going to have to be audiobooks.  (Other folks’ mileage may vary and it depends on many factors including the stability of the modality, the fitness level of the person working out, and even the size of the print.)

 

Essentially what I am saying here is:  get playful.  Experiment.  Do something novel and see if it is fun.

Fresh: Cardio 1

This week, I’m going to talk about refreshing our cardio exercise.

When most of us think about the gym, what we think of are those long rows of treadmills and other cardio machines.  We think:  boring.  We think:  I can think of so many other ways to spend half an hour or more.

 

Good news:  cardio doesn’t have to involve any of those machines unless we want it to.

 

Literally anything that gets our heart rates up for a reasonable amount of time counts as cardio.  So, yes, helping your cousin move definitely counts.  The kind of yard work many of us need to do at this time of year in which we have to haul a bunch of new dirt and compost for the garden and we make 500 or so trips to the green bin to dump in weeds and other stuff we’re clearing out counts.  Pretty much anything that involves heavy lifting counts.

 

If our lives don’t happen to involve any of those above activities, we still have lots of non-machine things to choose from, including a bunch of sports and other outdoor activities.

 

A couple of rubrics:  keep it fun, get breathless, and do it often!

Monday Workout: They Get Easier

Yes, we are doing burpees this week.  They never get easier if we never do them.  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
good mornings/deadlifts	20
burpees	10
db kicks	30
Bulgarian split squat	20
hip rotations	10
1 arm clean & press	30
rows	20
plank to pike	10

 

Fresh: 4

Fresh mindsets come in many flavors.  Here are a couple to taste!

 

1.     The power of “yet.”  As in “I can’t do that YET.”  This opens up possibilities!

2.     What did I learn?  I just tried something new and it was hard and it didn’t go the way I wanted it to.  What do I take away from this?  Maybe I want to keep trying; maybe once was enough.

3.     Where’s the fun?  Not that many experiences are 100% awful.  I mean, even going into labor gets to the part where you have a baby at the end.  Burpees may not be fun to do, but they are fun to brag about later.

4.     Make your own.  Yep:  you are powerful and can use your big brain to transform yourself in any direction that occurs to you!

Fresh: Take Out the Trash

An inherent part of freshening our mindsets is taking out the trash.  I mean, how many times have we come home from the store with a bunch of new produce and found that we have to get the sad wilted lettuce and the other expired stuff out of the way before we can even put what we bought in the fridge?

When we spring clean our homes, or clear out our closets, we go through and figure out what needs to go.  What is worn out?  What doesn’t fit?  What hobbies have we grown out of?  What’s broken?

 

Sometimes we learn, as we make space, that what we really needed wasn’t a bunch of new stuff, but rather the space itself.

 

In a fitness context, this can mean anything from letting go of ideas about ourselves (“I’m too ___ to do that thing I want to do.”  “It takes too long.”  “People will look at me funny if I…”) to rethinking what dinner looks like (hint:  if it is mostly nutritious and tastes good, it can be whatever you want).  Maybe we’ve gotten tangled in a complex system of workouts and we just need to make it simple for a while.  Maybe, dare I say, we can put away our gizmos and trackers and just move for a bit to see how that feels.

 

My trash might be your treasure.  There are so many useful paths to take.  The key is that we use our big brains to evaluate what is actually serving us as we live our healthy, happy lives.

 

Go play.

Fresh: Mindset

In March, we’re ready for spring.  I’m going to focus on fresh (freshness, refreshment, all the variations) because that’s the essence of spring to me.

This week, it’s all about the mindset.  We all have mind-habits the same way we have other habits.  Our thoughts as well as our actions fall into ruts.  What I am suggesting here is that we try a new thought-road or two this month and see where we end up.

 

For example, I had a conversation recently with someone about things we wished we had learned about earlier in our lives.  For me, it was growth mindset, or the idea that how we work at things is more important than how innately talented we are.  Growth mindset is still a pretty fresh path for my little brain.  It is in the process of transforming the way I think about failures and about experiments.  I feel like there are a lot more options in the world than there used to be.  Obviously, this applies to fitness, but it’s one of those places where fitness is only one of many useful contexts for an idea.

 

Finding new mindsets means having new experiences.  We learn new stuff because we’ve talked to someone or read something or gone somewhere or seen something.

 

Where might we like to explore?  I’d love to hear ideas!

Monday Workout: Customize!

This is one of those workouts that we can customize based on how much we want to push ourselves.  If we want to go easier, we can (obviously) use lighter weights and we can do regular/modified jacks in place of the plank jacks.  If we want to go hard, we choose the heavier kettle bell, heavier weights generally, and maybe we add weights and/or reverse lunges to our step ups.  Three rounds.

 

kb alt arm swings	30
kb hammer curls	20
kb halo	10
plank jacks	30
bench press	20
Arnold press	10
step up	30
flies	20
side banana