A Series of Unpleasant Exercises?

Yes, lunges are evil.  I once invented an entire song about how much I hate them while I was doing what felt like an infinite number of walking lunges.  The thing is, they are really useful.

Lunges work both your quads and glutes.  They challenge your balance.  They even give you a stretch!  You can do them almost anywhere, with or without weights.  If you want cardio, too, you can do them as jumps.

Here’s how to do them.  Start standing.  (Digression:  standing in this context, as Lemony Snicket would say, means your feet are hip distance apart and parallel to each other.  Your abdominals are engaged.  You could connect your ears, shoulders, hip bones, knees, and ankle bones with a straight line—if you weren’t standing still and all—this is what friends are for, among other things.)  Take a giant step forward.  It is important that the step really is pretty giant to protect your knees.  Bend both knees until the front shin is perpendicular to the floor (not any further forward over your foot!) and the back thigh is perpendicular to the floor.  Your torso may try to sneak forward; do not let it.  You will know you are doing something right if you feel a good pulling sensation in your back thigh.  Straighten both knees and return to your initial standing position.

You can continue doing one side until the end of your set, or you can alternate sides.  If you need more challenge, you can walk your lunges, add weight, or step back into the lunge position rather than forward.

As always, pay attention to your body.  If lunges hurt your knees, don’t do them.

Well, then...

Sometimes life presents more challenges than we would like to deal with.  We (or some of we, speaking for myself…) get tired, crabby, hungry, lazy, and even depressed.  It happens.  Now, during the short days, the long nights, and the zillion holiday pressures, is often one of those times.  In this season of lists, I would like to offer one more:  the wellness list.

We make sure to do all the responsibility things, like feed the dogs and children, clean the bathrooms when we really have to, do the laundry, go to work.  It’s the good-for-us things that tend to fall through the cracks.  We all know there are things we can do that will make us happier, healthier, and better.  The wellness list is for those things.

Be careful not to make the wellness list a long document of guilt.  Guilt does not promote wellness.  Keep the list short and include at least one thing that is super easy to cross off, like brushing your teeth.

I like crossing things off, so I write my own wellness list on paper.  I make it on Sunday night, but any time that works is good.  I stick it on the wall over my laptop so I have to look at it when I check my email, write my blog, read Facebook, plan workouts, play too many games of Freecell… It helps get me back on track.  I also share my list with a friend, who keeps me honest about the list.

My list this week has 6 things on it that I strive to do every day, Monday through Friday:

1.     Cardio

2.     Pilates

3.     Healthy food

4.     In bed by 10

5.     Meditate/write

6.     Something fun

That last item is key.  One day this week it was having (healthy!) lunch with a friend.  Another day it was listening to silly music in the car.

Sunday night, I will look at what wellness things I managed to do this week.  I will pat myself on the back.  Unchecked items are not failures.  They show me that I can take better care of myself next week.

What would make you feel good?

The Pers and Cons of Istency

Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote, “A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds…”  Among other things, I believe he meant that continuing to do something stupid just to be consistent may not be the best choice.  However, he was talking about minds.  When it comes to bodies, a fair amount of consistency is good for us.

Our bodies don’t like to be ambushed.  If we hang out on the couch for three months and then decide we are going to exercise for three hours in one day, we are not going to be happy.  If we want to exercise for three hours on a particular day, our bodies will like us better if we exercise for half an hour or an hour almost every day before that day.  Then the three hours feel like a welcome surprise, something our bodies can step up and grow from.

A wise person I met at the gym said that a wise person told her that on days when she didn’t feel like working out she should just go look at the weights.  She didn’t have to lift them, but often, by the time she got to looking at them, she did.  Consistency gives us that little nudge.  Showing up is more than half the work.

So, no need to persist in silly thinking lest we end up with little minds, but some consistency in exercise will give us powerful bodies.

The bucket goes under the pump...

While breathing is not optional, we do have choices about how we choose to breathe.  Admittedly, most of the time, choosing to breathe in and then out with as little thought as possible is the most practical choice.  Our wonderful bodies will do this automatically.

There are times, however, when different kinds of breathing can assist different kinds of motion.  I promise to limit my discussion to two kinds, known to biomechanics as pump handle and bucket handle breathing.  Feel free to make up a better name if you so desire.

Pump handle breathing describes the movement of the upper ribs and sternum.  When we inhale high in our chests, our sternums lift like a pump handle, increasing the space in our chests from front to back.  This kind of breathing can be useful when we want to curve our upper backs backwards (technical term:  thoracic extension) while swimming, for example, without losing control of our abdominals.

Bucket handle breathing applies more to the lower ribs.  The ribs are curved and at rest have the shape of a bucket handle resting on the side of a bucket, thus the clever name.  When we inhale, we can lift the handle up toward the lip of the bucket, which increases the space in our thoraxes from side to side.  A variation of this breathing pattern is extremely useful in finding our connection to our lower abdominals.  If we breathe our side ribs out wide and then leave them wide while we exhale, we can feel our lower abdominals engage, giving us a handy focusing spot for flattening out our abdominals during exercise.

We like flat abs.

Book Report Monday: What to Eat

Marion Nestle’s book What to Eat is a fascinating book.  She explores the supermarket through multiple lenses, providing clarity to the unbelievably perplexing issues that face us multiple times a day as we decide what to put in our mouths.

She covers the nutritional issues.  She unravels the links between healthy food and the environment.  She exposes the marketing pushes that encourage us to make choices against our best interests.  Best of all, she does all this while writing intelligent, clear, non-condescending, and entertaining prose.

I read the whole book, but I think it would also serve as a useful reference if you felt the sudden need to evaluate your choices around fish, for example.  I can always use more motivation to eat better and facts are useful, so I will keep it on my shelf.

Friends in shiny places

Meet our new friend:  the mirror.  The mirror is a particularly good friend when we take off the fun-house eyes we often use when we look at it.  I think women are particularly prone to this problem, but plenty of men have body image issues as well.  We see our reflections and our fun-house eyes see the most enormous thighs ever, the rest of our beauty eclipsed by our faulty perception.  Or maybe we see that we are not as tall as we would like to be, or as strong, or as lithe.

Toss out the funny eyeballs with me.  We all have amazing bodies.  Our bodies breathe, circulate our blood, hold us up, nourish our amazing brains, protect us from disease, and more, without even needing us to pay attention.  When we treat them well, they give us a sense of wellbeing.  They expand their capabilities so we can play harder and longer, love our family and friends for more years, create our own particular life’s work.

From a fitness perspective, the mirror is an ally.  While we are moving, the mirror gives us another way to check in with our body position to make sure that everything is in alignment.  Over time, the mirror gives us feedback on our progress.  It also gives us practice at loving ourselves, right now, just the way we are.

So next time you look in the mirror, you can certainly fix your hair or check your knee alignment, but don’t forget to smile at the mirror.  It has your back.

No, it doesn't count when you're dead

What do you do when you have overdone it?

Rest.

This answer works equally well for having overdone cardio, strength training, or cookie jar visits.  Sometimes we need to rest from our exertions.  Sometimes we need to rest from our vices.

If your hamstrings hurt, resting might mean taking a couple of Advil, doing a few gentle stretches, and taking a hot bath.

If your stomach hurts, it might mean taking a break from cheeseburgers or fries or milkshakes.  Also watch out for the cookie-pushers disguised as elves or Girl Scouts.

Whatever you are overdoing, you now officially have permission to rest from it.