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!

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!

Love Month: More

Still want more ways to love yourself?  How about these?

 

1.     Talk nicely to yourself.  You are amazing!

2.     Give yourself a break.  Sometimes we all need one.

3.     Be grateful.  We all have some blessings lying around in our lives.

4.     Hug somebody.  It’s good for both of you!

5.     Do a favor.  We can all use a bit of good karma, plus an instant mood boost.

Love Month: Love your tummy

All of this love for our bodies requires appropriate food.  We can’t do our best cardio, strength, balance, and flexibility work on a diet of Cheetos and whiskey.  Here are some general ideas for how to eat for self-love:

Drink water.  It’s good for hydration, calorie free, and essential to so many body processes.  If it seems a little boring, throw a slice of lemon in there, or try fizzy water.

 

Eat those veggies.  They really are good for you.  They fill us up, give us essential nutrients, and don’t have too many calories.

 

Get enough protein.  Choose wisely here, though.  We want to eat low on the food chain for our own health and for the health of our ecosystems.

 

Change it up.  There is no perfect food.  We need to eat a variety of foods to meet all our needs.  Plus it’s fun and tasty.

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.

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!

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. 

Goal Month: Mix It Up

All right:  we are nearly at the end of the month.  Let’s put stuff together.

We know we need to figure out why we want to do what we do to keep ourselves showing up when stuff gets real.  We know we need both strategy and tactics to reach our goals.  We’ve considered SMART goals, dumb goals, rubrics, processes, and outcomes.  What should we do?

 

Good news!  We can use ALL the tools.  We can go through the process of making a SMART goal and use that as our outcome goal.  Then we can create process goals that move us in that direction, maybe even process goals that are dumb goals so we make it easy on ourselves to make progress.  We evaluate how we’re doing with rubrics.

 

Lather, rinse, repeat.

 

As we practice with the various kinds of goals, we’ll learn which kinds work best for us.  Hint:  the right kind of goal is the one that gets us closer to where we want to be.

 

Still need help?  I’m a wellness coach, personal trainer, and Pilates instructor.  In other words, I’m an expert.  Poke me!

Goal Month: Motivational Fuel

At this point, everyone should have a fair idea about different kinds of goals.  What more do we need?  Fuel!

Motivation is the fuel for goals.  All motivations are not created equal, however.

 

The first rule of motivation is that it has to be ours.  Change is hard and we really need to plug into what motivates us to do the work.  We may have other people in our lives who want us to change—their motivation is not going to work on us.  We may be a little embarrassed about what really motivates us, but if blowing your ex’s mind at child pickup is what you want most, you do you.  When we lie to ourselves and others about what motivates us, we just set ourselves back.  We may, on some level, want to be healthy—who doesn’t?—but if we really want to be in shape because the Zombie Apocalypse is coming and we want to outrun those brain-eaters, we need to tap into THAT motivation when it’s a question of going to the gym or rolling over and pulling up the covers in the morning.

 

All that said, science says that there is a hierarchy of motivations in terms of effectiveness.  The most effective motivation is intrinsic enjoyment.  In other words, if it’s fun, we’ll do it.  This is why I spend so much time encouraging folks to find fitness activities they like.

 

The next level down, but still really useful, is doing something because it’s the right thing to do.  Working out because it is good for us gets a lot of us to the gym.

 

Below that, we get into the territory of “I have to” and “So-and-so told me to.”  These are the folks who show up at the gym because their doctor or their spouse threatened them.  As soon as the external pressure lets up, they vanish, unless they discover that they like working out in the interim.

 

Sussing out our motivation can be tricky, but it is entirely worth spending a few minutes thinking or writing or talking through what gets us ready to work out.

Goal Month: Process & Outcome

Another way to think about goals is to consider process goals and outcome goals.

Process goals are the kind where we commit to an activity.  For example, when I say I am going to do two weight workouts a week, that is a process goal.  Outcome goals are about what results we want, like wanting to bench press fifty zilliabillion pounds (imaginary units again, because some of us get too attached to the numbers and ignore the words).

 

Obviously, the two are connected.  If I do two weight workouts consistently every week, I’m going to get closer to bench pressing fifty zilliabillion pounds.  And if I want to hit that bench press goal, I’m going to have to do weight workouts.  The difference is in the focus.

 

Much like Deion Sanders in that old ad, we want both.  The outcome goal gives us the distance perspective and the process goal gives us the to-do list for today.

Goal Month: Rubrics

Yet another way to approach goals is by using rubrics.  When we use rubrics, we decide in advance what an acceptable level of performance is and then we check our behavior against that.  This is a useful way to keep ourselves honest when we have maintenance-type goals.

So, for example, if we are feeling pretty satisfied with our general fitness, we might use a rubric to keep ourselves that way.  We might target something like five cardio sessions of at least 30 minutes per week, two weight-training sessions, and some balance/flexibility work.  At the end of the week, we can compare what we actually did with what we thought would be good.  If we hit most of our rubric most of the time, we’re doing just fine.

 

Note:  nobody is perfect.  When we acknowledge this going in to our goals, we are automatically extending ourselves grace as members of the human community.  This doesn’t mean we always let ourselves off the hook, but we don’t beat ourselves up for occasional lapses.  Love works better than guilt.  I promise.

Goal Month: Dumb Goals

I did my due diligence yesterday and discussed SMART goals.  They work great for some people, but here’s the truth:  I don’t love them.

For one thing, when it comes to fitness goals, those of us who are not personal trainers don’t have any idea what a reasonable or achievable goal might look like.  How long does it take to show cardio improvement?  Strength improvement?  How fast can I change my body fat percentage?  My weight?

 

For another thing, SMART goals are often about ultimate outcome.  Unless we construct them carefully, we think we have “failed” if we don’t hit the exact target we aimed for.  If, say, the goal was to lift one agabaga (a unit I just made up) and we only manage to life half an agabaga, we might think we failed rather than notice that before we started we couldn’t even say agabaga much less lift a tenth of one.  We made progress.  We have stuff to celebrate.

 

Even if we hit our SMART target, then what?  SMART goals are by nature finite.  Life is long and maybe we need healthy habits for the whole length of it rather than ticking a box for a month.

 

All that said, SMART goals work really well for some people.  If you like them, use them!

 

But let me suggest that there is another tool we can use.  Let me introduce you to the dumb goal.

 

A dumb goal is something that is more than we are doing now, but still really easy to achieve.  So someone just breaking up with the couch might choose a five minute walk every day for a week.  Five minutes!  We spend more time getting dressed than that.  We can do that.  And that’s the point.  After a week or so, we have the beginnings of a habit and we can build on that.  After a month, we’re maybe walking a half hour a day and thinking that maybe we could add a pushup or two to the routine.

 

The upside of dumb goals is that we’re never overtaxing ourselves.  The downside is that we have to keep paying attention and adding a little bit more.  Dumb goals are about building habits and about sustainability.  They’re for life, not just to look good at that reunion that’s coming up.

 

Try it.

Goal Month: SMART goals

The classic anatomy of a good goal is the SMART goal.  That is, a goal that is specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely.  Let’s get into the details, with a hypothetical scenario.

Let’s say I wake up one morning and feel sluggish, flabby, and weak.  I am nearly out of breath just rolling out of bed.  My donut and coffee breakfast doesn’t make me feel better and the day does not improve as it goes along.  I decide I don’t want to feel like this anymore, so I conclude that I want to get in shape.  Ta-da!  A goal!

 

Or maybe not.

 

What does it mean to be in shape?  To some of us, it might mean being able to move our own furniture or open our own jars.  Others might have a clothing size in mind.  Still others might want to time-travel back to our glory days when we ran a marathon or triumphed on the football field or skied for a week with no aches and pains.  My hypothetical self up above needs to get specific about what I want.

 

Pitfall alert:  my hypothetical self could come up with about 27 different specific things.  I am going to focus on one for the purpose of illustration and I will strongly suggest that in real life we don’t choose more than three goals at a time.

 

Pretend Janet decides that what I want is improved cardio fitness, so that not only can I get out of bed, I can ride my bike and play pickleball and garden without feeling like I’m going to die.  That’s a specific kind of in shape, so I’m making progress toward having a goal.

 

But how will Pretend Janet know if I have achieved this?  I will need to measure.  For cardio fitness, I have multiple options for what to measure.  I could track my HRV using my Wristy Overlord (aka Apple Watch) and see if the number trends up over time.  I could track my time, distance, and difficulty settings on the cardio machines at the gym to see how they change.  I could track my perceived exertion in my daily workouts.  I could do a step test as a baseline and then repeat it every month or so to see if things have changed.  The best measurement to use will vary by human, but Pretend Janet wisely wants to keep things simple.  I wear my Wristy Overlord anyway; I will track my HRV.

 

But is this goal achievable?  This is where Pretend Janet has to think about strategy and tactics.  In order to improve my cardio fitness, I have to do cardio workouts.  That means I need to find a time and place to do them.  I need to plan.  I need to show up for my workouts.  And I need to persist.  After thinking things over, Pretend Janet concludes that there is time for a half hour cardio workout five days a week before work.  I plan to roll out of bed, get on my workout clothes, and get it done.  I even plan for a little wiggle room:  if I miss a day, I can do a Saturday workout instead.

 

Is my goal realistic?  Well, if Pretend Janet routinely has trouble getting up in time to throw on clothes and get to work on time, maybe not.  That version of me might do better scheduling an after-work workout.  If Pretend Janet feels excited about throwing on cute workout clothes and getting to the gym and getting done before anybody else at home is even up, this could be perfect.  Optimism is essential to change, but Pretend Janet needs to be honest about who she really is to make this work.

 

The timely part of my goal is where I put a little healthy pressure on.  I want to show improvement in a month.  That’s long enough for some new habits to be fairly formed and short enough that I have to get moving right away.

 

So at the end, my SMART goal looks like this:  I want to improve my cardio fitness as measured by improvements in my HRV over the next month.  I will do this by completing a 30-minute cardio workout five days a week before work.

 

That’s a lot more workable than “get in shape.”