Why do cardio? I have Reasons:
1. It improves mood. Seriously. My spin bike is actually called The Magic Mood-Fixing Machine. Science says that you will feel better after.
2. It makes your brain work better.
3. It burns calories.
4. It reduces stress. Remember this when your house is full of contentious relatives. Going for a walk is way better than ending up in jail for assault.
Things I am grateful for, for real.
1. Awesome family and friends.
2. Eggs.
3. Murder mysteries.
4. Cardio exercise, especially spin and swimming.
5. Sweaters.
Obviously not an exhaustive list. What’s on yours?
Experiments to try:
1. Eat a new food. This can be as simple as trying a veggie you’ve never had or as complicated as taking a trip to the library to check out a cookbook for some kind of cuisine that is new to you.
2. Have a movement snack. You know that time in the afternoon when you think about having a cookie or another cup of coffee just to get through whatever the afternoon holds? Try taking a five minute walk, or doing a minute of squats, or a few stretches instead.
3. Turn off the extras. This one can be hard. Instead of jumping on the treadmill or bike or elliptical or whatever and plugging in to the music or TV, just go. Even better, take the workout outside and do it without the distractions. You might learn stuff about the content of your head or about how your body works or other things I haven’t thought of yet.
Need to troubleshoot? Here are some good questions to ask. (Alternatively, I am a wellness coach and you can hire me to help figure stuff out!)
1. How is my sleep? If we’re not sleeping, we can’t really expect anything else to go super well. Both our bodies and our brains need sleep for proper function.
2. What am I eating and drinking? Despite my high school experience, it is not sustainable to run on Coke and donuts. If our most frequent vegetable is French fries and we drink coffee by the pot, we might have an obvious culprit. Even if we do generally eat pretty well, we may find that we’re not getting enough protein or we’re hitting the afternoon cookies a little too hard.
3. What am I doing about my stress? Yep: I am assuming we have stress. But if we have nurturing relationships, good practices like meditation, and time to relax, stress can be mitigated. (Bonus points for activities that will help to dismantle the systemic sources of much of our stress. Smashing the white supremacist cis-hetero imperialist capitalist patriarchy is good exercise, too.)
4. Am I giving my body a break? In addition to sleep, our bodies need recovery time. We need rest days between workouts. We need restorative practices like massage. Yoga helps.
5. When did I last have some fun? Sometimes we just need to do something frivolous to restore our energy.
Here are more ways to build in intervals in our workouts:
1. Add hills. These can be real hills if we are walking/running/hiking/biking outside or pretend ones on the treadmill.
2. Mix in a minute of cardio when weight training every so often. This can be something as simple as jumping jacks or we can hop on the treadmill and run for a minute.
3. Make it complicated. We can amp up our usual lunges, say, by adding a bicep curl to overhead press. Squats can acquire an extra leg lift to the side each time.
4. Change the tempo. Do most of the workout at an even tempo, but every few exercises make it faster before returning to normal.
If we find that we want to change our goal, what do we do? Here’s a list:
1. Change it. It’s ours. We can do whatever we want with it.
There are lots of ways that thinking about the future helps us in fitness. Here are some ways we can be kind to our future selves.
1. Pack the gym bag the day before.
2. Make a grocery list that includes good-for-us snacks and meal ingredients.
3. Do the laundry so there are clean workout clothes.
4. Buy the Epsom salts or Advil or whatever helps recovery.
5. Schedule the massage or training session or class.
One of the keys to a good routine is a good checklist. We use it until we internalize it and it all happens on autopilot. Here’s an example of a morning checklist:
1. Brush and floss. (People who floss their teeth are generally healthier. It’s unclear if it’s the flossing or just that people who floss their teeth are more tuned into taking care of their health. It doesn’t take long.)
2. Eat a healthy breakfast that includes some protein.
3. Do a workout.
4. Take a few minutes for mindfulness.
5. Get on with the day.
Since I’ve been talking about range of motion this week, here are some of my favorite stretches:
1. Calf stretch: Stand on a stair (or curb or sturdy box). Hold on to something if necessary for balance. Place your feet so that the balls of your feet are on the edge and the heels hang over. Lower one heel down below the level of the stair until you feel a stretch in your calf. Gently raise and lower at a slowish tempo or just hold for about thirty seconds. You can also do both heels at once if that feels better to you.
2. Hip flexor stretch: Lie on the floor on your side, legs out long. Bend the top knee back as if you were going to kick yourself in the behind. Reach your arm back and grab your foot or ankle (or use a strap if you can’t reach). If you feel a stretch, great! Hang out there. If you need a little more, you can push your hips forward a bit until you do.
3. Chest stretch, two ways: My favorite way requires a long-ish foam roller, one that allows you to lie on it long ways with both your behind and your head supported. Then you just open your arms out to the side at shoulder level. If possible, lower your hands to the floor. To increase the stretch on one side or the other, leave your hands on the floor and roll slightly to one side. The side you are rolling away from will stretch a bit more. If you don’t have a roller, you can do the same thing standing in a doorway. Put your arms on either side of the door frame and lean through it until you feel a stretch.
4. Static thoracic extension: This one also uses a roller, but a firm bolster will also work. This time, put the roller across the back just above where a bra strap would go (use your imagination, people who don’t wear bras!). Then lean back over the roller, arms overhead. I like to do this with my legs out long, but if you feel like your lower back is compressing, you can bend your knees and put your feet flat on the floor. If you don’t like the feeling on your neck, you can support your head with your hands or with a yoga block.
We all have times when things… do not go well. While falling into the ice cream is a coping technique, it might not be the healthiest one. Here are some other choices:
1. Meditating
2. Connecting with others
3. Reaching out for support
4. Journaling
5. Reading
6. Resting/napping
7. Music
8. Exercise
9. Time outside in nature
I have my own personal list. What’s on yours?
Need a few more tips for sleeping? I got you:
1. Move every day.
2. Don’t over-nap.
3. Meditate or reduce worry some other way.
4. Stick to a schedule.
5. Avoid late night meals and snacks.
One way to eat healthy food is to choose what’s in season. Here are five September veggies to try:
1. artichokes
2. eggplant
3. ginger
4. sunchokes
5. sweet potatoes
Other ways to bring joy to workouts:
1. Do something silly. Never tried Zumba? How about tai chi? Laser tag?
2. Do something new. A new hike, a new bike, a new adventure!
3. Do it with friends. But make sure it’s not all chat and no moving!
4. Do it loud. Music helps. Really.
5. Do it. Yep, sex counts.
More ways to get efficient!
1. Do balance work. This can be as simple as swapping single leg squats for regular ones, or doing regular squats on a bosu. Same time, more benefits!
2. Use the free weights. Machines are great for some purposes, but when we choose free weights, we automatically add stability and coordination to the benefits we are getting from our lifting. (Be safe, though. Spotters are useful!)
3. Use microwave time. Sure, we could just stand there while we wait for our ramen or our coffee, but a minute is a great amount of time to use for pushups or squats or even just standing on one foot for balance practice.
I asked y’all for your favorite proactive practices (a.k.a. things that We Now can do for We in the Future) yesterday. Here are mine:
1. Make a workout plan for the week. This can be as simple as knowing that weight days are Tuesdays and Thursdays and Monday, Wednesday, and Friday are for cardio, with yoga on Saturday and Sunday for rest. Or you can get fancy and make a spreadsheet that lists exactly what you’re planning to do each day down to exercises, weights, and reps.
2. Pack the bag. Or repack it. What we need in that bag varies by activity, but stocking the stuff we need before we need it is just smart. That way we don’t get caught without our emergency snack or our goggles or that extra shirt we like.
3. Put out the clothes. This is a variation on packing the bag for those of us who roll straight from bed to workout. If the clothes are right there, we can get dressed and going before we’re awake enough to think of excuses.
4. Put out the water bottle. Heck, if you’ve got an insulated one or you like your water at room temperature, you can fill it ahead of time. Cold-water lovers can prep the water and leave it in the fridge, but personally, I forget stuff I can’t see, so I do better filling at the last minute with cold water and ice.
5. Choose the music. That might sound silly, but I can spend forever scrolling through playlists to find the right one. If I choose ahead of time, I don’t stand there wasting time; I just get to work.
A few suggestions about how to get more water in our systems:
1. Add a little something, like a slice of lemon or lime, or some mint leaves.
2. Figure out the right temperature. Some of us want lots of ice and some of us prefer room temperature water. It all works.
3. Find the right cup/bottle/whatever. Personally, my insulated cup was a game-changer. Plus it’s red.
4. Consider the plastics. Not technically about drinking more water, but the world would be better if we drank less bottled water from plastic bottles. (I like my water with fizz in it and invested in a Soda Stream so I could stop buying so many bottles. Economical and good for the environment!)
5. Set reminders. Until drinking a lot of water becomes a habit, we can use little nudges.
