Oilcan

I’ve talked before about what I call my oilcan exercises—the things I do every day to keep me from feeling like the Tin Man, all squeaky, rusty, and immobile.  I put together sets of oilcan exercises for my clients, too, because we need to move our bodies more than once or twice a week.

Oilcan exercises don’t have to take very long.  They make a great warm up or cool down for our other workouts, or they can be a stand-alone thing to do on rest days.  We want to make it easy to get these things done, so we don’t want hours and hours of stuff that we won’t do.  At most, they should take ten or fifteen minutes, but five is more likely.

 

What the oilcan exercises are varies by person.  Each of us has different problem areas.  A person with knee issues will focus on stuff to strengthen and protect the knees.  People with back pain have a different set of things to do.  Over time, we need to evaluate what we’re doing and see if we can give up some things or need to add a few new ones.

 

Want your own set?  Poke me and we’ll talk.

After Injury or Surgery

Recovery from injury or surgery can be really frustrating.  Those of us who rely on movement for mood and stress management can get a little squirrelly while we (impatiently) wait for the body to heal.  But, trust me, it is worth it.

 

Any injury that requires medical attention is something that your trainer needs to know about.  I want to know what the doctor has to say about when my clients can return to workouts, what movements they should avoid, and how to help them get back to normal safely.  Often this means that I don’t get to see them until they are released from physical therapy.

 

Physical therapists are awesome humans who know how to safely rehab people’s injuries or post-surgical selves.  They are kind people who hurt us for our own good as we regain strength and confidence.  When they say we’re good to go, we can get back to our normal workouts.  The things they have us do may not be as fun as our usual workouts, but diligently doing the exercises they give us makes the difference between coming back strong and maybe not getting to come back at all.

 

When we do return to normal workouts, we need to expect that it will take a bit of time to get back to where we were when we left off.  This is normal, if frustrating.  Remember:  we can only work out with today’s body.

 

Worst case, we focus on exercising our patience. 

More About Couches and Cake

Yesterday, joking around, I said that my best advice was to lie on the couch and eat cake.  There are, however, times when that might actually be the best advice.

As a fitness professional, it is my job to get people to move and to make general suggestions about healthy diet (specific suggestions and menu planning are the province of dieticians and nutritionists, who have a whole bunch more education than I do on the topic and a different scope of practice).  While I admit that I have The Very Best Clients Ever, who may not be a representative sample of folks in general, I have to say that sometimes they could use a bit of a break.  I love exercise, but, like everything else, too much is too much.

 

This is a bit of a digression, but only a bit:  if I had been consulted about the fitness app for the Apple Watch, I would have explained about rest days.  We do not need to work out seven days a week.  That seventh day is for resting.  As we get more fit, resting might mean a gentle walk or a couple of stretches rather than straight-on couch time, but the point remains:  we all need to rest.

 

Similarly, I don’t see the point of life without cake.  OK:  slight exaggeration.  Life is better with cake and other festive foods.  We need celebration as well as rigor in our lives.  I’m not advocating for diving face first into the chocolate cake on a daily basis, but maybe we can step away from the danger of orthorexia (yes that’s a real thing, an eating disorder in which people get obsessed with eating only healthy foods).

 

Work hard.  Eat right.  And sometimes take a break.

Best Advice

Today I’m going to share some of my very best advice on exercise and diet.  Here we go:  lie on the couch all day and eat cake.

 

April Fools!

 

(Seriously:  move a little and eat a vegetable.) 

Setting Goals: 2 of 2

Yesterday I wrote about SMART goals.  They work great for some people.  Other people, not so much.  Here are some other ways to set goals.

I love process goals.  If SMART goals focus on the destination, process goals focus on the journey.  So rather than setting a goal of losing x pounds, I set a goal of doing three weight workouts a week and five cardio workouts.  Or maybe I set a goal to eat only one dessert a week, or to drink only water, or some other more healthful food choice.

 

I’m also a big fan of minimum goals.  They take a bit of experimentation to get right, but then they’re awesome.  We figure out the very least we can do to feel good and we set that as the minimum.  That might be as simple as 30 minutes of moving every day.  We might set a minimum goal for sleep, or for weight workouts, or for workouts outside.  Once we have done the minimum, we know we’ve taken care of business.  We may find that we want to do more, but we also know we don’t have to.  It’s a great way to unplug from the zeitgeist that we always have to be doing more faster better longer.

 

Finally, I am in favor of setting goals for good things.  We don’t just have to set goals for things that we know we should do but don’t really want to get done.  How about a goal for more massages?  More tasty ways to eat fruit?  More laughter?

 

Go get happy, y’all.

Setting Goals: 1 of 2

Now that we are motivated to strength train (I hope) and we have some idea about what kind of strength training we’re interested in, it’s time to set some goals.  I’m going to talk about the classic goal model today and some other goal ideas tomorrow.

In general, a lot of experts advocate for SMART goals:  that is, goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.  Let’s unpack that a bit.

 

Specific goals are not “I want to get in shape.”  They are more like “I want to fit into my old jeans” or “I want to lose x pounds.”  Getting in shape is amorphous.  We can’t tell if we have achieved it if we don’t get specific about what getting in shape means to us.  One person may define it as playing with their kid all day without feeling dead at the end.  Another might define it as being able to run a marathon.  Yet another will have a specific clothing size in mind.

 

Which brings us to measurable.  When we formulate our goal with a measurable target, seeing our progress is easier.  If my goal is to lose x pounds and I only lose x-5, I know I need to work a little harder.  This is why so many goals involve things like amounts of weight (lost or lifted) or distance (5K?  Century ride?) or size (inches lost, clothing size) or other markers (body fat percentage anyone?).

 

Achievable is exactly what it sounds like, but it’s sometimes complicated to make an achievable goal.  We may not know what is achievable, particularly in regards to the other two criteria.

 

Realistic is a lot like achievable.  This is where we face some facts.  I know that I, for example, would be extremely unrealistic if I were to make a goal of running a marathon this year (or, you know, ever) because I hate running, my body hates running, and it’s just not going to happen.  Similarly, if a person has a goal of losing 50 pounds by their wedding next month, the truth is that that is not going to happen short of amputating a limb or something equally unpleasant and unlikely.

 

Timely means, in this context, that we set ourselves a deadline.  We may not know what an appropriate amount of time is to achieve our goals.  This is why professional help is useful.  That said, for weight loss goals, a good rubric for achieving goals in a healthy way is to assume that a person can lose 1 to 2 pounds per week.

 

Go be smart!

Strength Training: Power

Yet another goal folks might have for their strength training is power.  Power, in this context, is the ability to generate a lot of force fast.

 

To train for power, we want to use fairly heavy weights and work with a quick tempo.  We also want to work on explosive movements (think plyometrics!). 

 

Power training is not something we do every single workout.  Most of the time, we want to work on max strength or hypertrophy or even cycle back through some endurance/stability work.  Then we can spend a month or so doing power workouts.

 

Proper form is absolutely essential for power workouts.  When we’re moving fast with heavy objects, we need to be sure that we are using our bodies well.

 

Go play. 

Strength Training: Max Strength

Another possible goal that people might have for their strength training is… maximum strength.  What maximum strength means is that we work to lift the most we possibly can one time, our one rep max.

To do this, not surprisingly, we lift heavy weights in short sets.  For each exercise, we do a warm-up set of about ten reps at an easy weight.  Then we increase the weight in increments of five to ten pounds, decreasing the reps.  Eventually, we’ll be able to complete two or three reps.  And then we’ll find the weight where we can only complete a single rep while maintaining good form.  This kind of lifting requires longer rests between sets for best results, so it is another place where supersetting different muscle groups is a good plan (e.g., squats and bench press).  It also takes a good amount of time to go from warm up to one rep max, so a workout might be two exercises, and that’s all right.  We can do different exercises the next time.

 

One important safety note:  heavy lifting is not something to do alone.  Work with a buddy or a trainer or at the very least in a gym with other people there.  Spotters are super useful.

Strength Training: Hypertrophy

Once folks have built up some basic endurance and stability, the next step depends on what their goals are.  One possible goal is hypertrophy.  That’s a five-dollar word for building big muscles.

 

People working toward hypertrophy still need to work all their muscle groups, but the way we want to do it changes.  We choose weights that are heavier and we do fewer reps.  We want weights that allow us to complete only 6 to 12 reps at a time.  Our tempo also changes a little, in that we lift the weight fairly quickly and lower it more slowly.  We want to do two to three sets of each exercise with at least a 30 second rest between sets.

 

(This is why circuit training is so useful!  We do one set of all our exercises and by the time we get back to the beginning, the first muscle group has had plenty of time to recover.  We get out of the gym sooner!)

 

Next week, we’ll talk about two other possible goals. 

Strength Training: Muscle Groups

Another important thing to consider when we begin strength training is that we need to work our whole bodies.  We do this by targeting different muscle groups with different exercises.  One way to think about this is to recognize that some muscles bend our joints and other muscles straighten them back out.

For example, our biceps and its helpers on one side of our arms bend our elbows.  Our triceps and its helpers straighten our elbows.  If we only do bicep curls, we are not building strength for extending our elbows and we end up, at the extreme, looking funny and not working too well.

 

So:  we need to work on bending and extending, front and back, lateral movements, twisting movements, pushing and pulling.  We will find that we like some of those more than others.  It is tempting to skip the ones we don’t like, but it’s pretty important that we don’t.  Having strong muscles on every side of our joints (looking at you, knees) helps keep them functional in all our activities.

Strength Training - Stability

Yesterday we talked about endurance as a basis for our strength training program.  The other base we need is stability.  In other words, we need to work on balance.

 

There are, of course, lots of ways to work on balance.  Perhaps the simplest way is to do something we normally do standing on both feet standing on one.  Things like single leg squats, single leg deadlifts, and the like fall into this category.

 

Another way to work balance is to add an element of instability to our workout.  This is where we get to use toys.  A stability ball that we roll out on to do our bench press instead of lying on a bench is a good example.  Anything we do with a BOSU is another good example.  Many TRX exercises put us in positions where we have to stabilize while we work and thus improve our balance.

 

Yet another way is to do a bit of cross training with Pilates or yoga.

 

A word of caution:  start small.  Balance, like any other skill, is best built gradually and safely. 

Strength Training - Endurance

I’ve spent the last two months talking about why strength training is good for us.  Now it’s time to talk about how.  Not surprisingly, there are plenty of ways to go about strength training.  It all depends on the goal.

When we first start out, we need to start by building some endurance and some stability.  That means that, generally, we are going to be lifting relatively light weights in relatively long sets and we’re going to do some balance work.  (I’ll talk about balance work tomorrow.)

 

Let’s define “relatively light weights.”  Sort of.  My relatively light weights are not anybody else’s.  A relatively light weight is one that I can use to complete a set of twenty reps.  This might take a bit of experimentation.  I may optimistically select a five hundred pound weight (I am being ridiculous on purpose because people get weird about numbers sometimes) for my curls and discover that I can only do 10 reps.  That is a perfectly respectable set, but I will want to choose a lighter weight for my next set.

 

A relatively long set is a little easier to define.  It’s somewhere between 12 and 20 reps.

 

We combine the two things like this.  I find a weight for which I can complete 12 reps.  I keep using the same weight until I can complete more and more reps.  When I can complete a set of 20, I increase the weight and drop back down to 12 reps.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  We do the same process for each exercise.

Effects of Strength Training - 17 and Final!

All right!  We have made it to our final motivational reason to do strength training:  It helps us prevent or control a bunch of chronic diseases.  (Disclaimer:  working out is no substitute for actual medical care!  It is a useful adjunct to drugs and other treatments that your doctor can provide!)

Life is just better with less diabetes, coronary artery disease, arthritis, back pain, and depression.  Lifting weights seems like a much easier option than dealing with all those other things.

 

Go lift already.

Effects of Strength Training - 16

This one is a biggie.  Strength training is great for weight management.  When we lift weights, over time we shift our ratio of lean tissue to fat tissue.  That shift changes our metabolisms because our muscles burn more calories than our fatty tissue does.  This is good news whether we’re trying to maintain a healthy weight or reach one in the first place.

Note:  healthy bodies come in every size.  However, many people do want to lose weight for any of a number of reasons.  I’m here to support the goals of my clients and to help them be as healthy as possible.

 

A lot of people, when they want to lose weight, pile on the cardio.  Cardio is great.  It burns calories and makes us feel good and a bunch of other fab stuff.  But if we want to lose fat, we need to be lifting.

Effects of Strength Training - 15

I don’t know about you all, but I rarely think about how quickly my digestion processes what I eat.  But an efficient trip in and out is generally a good thing.  (I think we also have all, from time to time, wished that our guts would just get ON with it!)

Strength training tends to increase “gastrointestinal transit speed,” which means that we get better at getting what we need out of what we eat and ditching the remainder.  No one wants a bunch of waste piling up.

 

Work out:  go better.

Effects of Strength Training - 14

Strength training helps with our heart health by improving our blood lipid profiles.  Fewer lipids like cholesterol and triglycerides in our blood mean that we have a reduced risk of heart attack.

Pump some iron; dump some lipids.

Effects of Strength Training - 13

So we all know we want low blood pressure, or at the very least to avoid high blood pressure.  Strength training, while we are doing it, raises our blood pressure, but in a temporary way that has a longer term benefit:  it lowers our resting blood pressure.

In short, by temporarily adding stress to our bodies, we teach our bodies to deal with it.  That makes our blood pressure lower over time.

Effects of Strength Training - 12

Weight training increases our ability to use blood glucose.  I’m sure that we all thing about that all the time.  OK, not really.  But it is important.

Glucose is the main fuel we use in most of our cells and the exclusive source of energy for our brains.  We want enough for our uses, but not too much.  Excessive glucose in the blood is an indicator that we are heading for, or have arrived at, type 2 diabetes.  Weight training helps us stay in the Goldilocks (“just right”) range, where we fuel our cells but don’t overtax our ability to make and react to insulin, which is the chemical in our bodies that deals with excess.

 

Those of us who are already dealing with diabetes can feel better with weight training.  The rest of us can use weight training as part of our general preventive strategy.

 

Go lift.

Effects of Strength Training - 11

It’s such a stereotype, that thing about the older person becoming forgetful or wooly or generally absent-minded.  Like a lot of stereotypes, there is a little bit of reality in there.  However, there is evidence that suggests lifting weights can help reduce or prevent aging-related cognitive decline.

How might that work?  Well, strength training is an activity of the central nervous system.  When we have to lift something heavy, we need our big brains to coordinate all the moving parts to use the right amount of force in the right direction at the right time.  That’s good practice for our cognition.

 

Of course, as we do strength training, our general health tends to improve.  That means we have better circulation, improved lung function, and efficient oxygen use.  All those things are good for our brains.  Plus with the mood-enhancing effects of exercise, we don’t have to deal with the brain fog of depression so much.

 

Lift heavy: get smart.

Effects of Strength Training - 10

One of the less pleasant aspects of getting older is that our bones lose density.  Lifting weights helps slow this process and also reduces the risk of osteoporosis.

None of us want to have fractures.  When we put controlled stress on our bones by lifting heavy objects, we cause them to get stronger and to maintain their density longer because they adapt to the challenges we give them.

 

Personally, I am NOT going to be one of those frail little old ladies.  I am going to be as powerful as possible as long as possible.  Who’s with me?