Even though it is pi(e) day...

Rewards work.  Sometimes.

When we want to build a habit or achieve a fitness goal, it can help to promise ourselves a treat for our accomplishment.  However, there are a couple of risks to the technique.

For instance, if we choose a reward that isn’t that compelling, we can decide, moment to moment, that it isn’t worth it.  Maybe, in a general way, we want a new gizmo or outfit or thingie, but not enough to motivate ourselves not to eat the cake or to do more pushups or to spend the extra ten minutes of cardio.  That can be useful information, of course, but it doesn’t get us closer to our goal.

Alternatively, we can choose something small that we do want, like maybe a car wash or a pedicure (two of my favorite fairly inexpensive, inedible indulgences).  Then, when we screw up, we think we don’t deserve any of those things ever.  That, in some cases, can throw us into the whirlwind of self-doubt, self-hatred, and even self-punishment.  Not helpful.

In order to make rewards work for us, we need to choose carefully.  With a big goal, giving ourselves incremental rewards can help us feel special and empowered along the way.  If, say, we get some new workout clothes halfway to our goal, we might make better, faster progress toward the ultimate goal and the big reward, which might be something like a weekend away, or a better bike, or a fancy makeover.

Just watch out for the ice cream rewards.

Friday Exercise: Reverse Flies

Last week, Stickie had so much fun doing flies that she decided to do reverse flies this week.  This balances the work she did on the front side of her body by giving the back muscles a turn.

The starting position is lying face down on a bench.  Most people prefer to have their heads sticking out over the end of the bench, and many women may find that putting the end of the bench just at the bra line is more comfortable.  Stickie has a dumbbell in each hand.  This exercise is challenging enough that she uses much smaller weights than she does for flies; do not feel bad if you need to use what seems like a silly light weight.

Keeping her arms in a slightly curved shape, Stickie lifts the weights out to her sides.  It looks like she is flapping her wings.  She thinks about drawing her shoulder blades toward the center of her back.  While it is tempting to bend her elbows more as she lifts the weights as if she were doing a row, she resists because she knows this is cheating.  Three sets of 10-12 reps is sufficient.

Thursday Book Report: We Have the Technology

So We Have the Technology by Kara Platoni is not really about fitness.  Don’t tell anyone, but it is perhaps more of a philosophy book than a technology book.  Why am I writing about it?  (Besides that I finished it and needed to write a post, of course…)  Well, because the book is about human perception and how technology is changing it.

The chapters on each of our senses trace out the biologic mechanisms as far as we know them.  They explore prosthetics and investigate our innate filtering and sorting systems.  Underlying that whole discussion is our whole definition of “normal” functioning.

Other issues that arise include who is creating the technology, who controls it, and how much is too much.  A fitness example cites my beloved Fitbit.  I choose to wear it and track various things.  But what if my company (not MY company, but my company if I worked for someone else) asked me to wear one and track my data for health premium calculations?  What if my Fitbit evolved to track other things, like my medications or my cholesterol level?

Then there are the people who are trying to add superpowers.  Who doesn’t want superpowers?  But maybe not magnets implanted in our hands, or a camera installed in our eye sockets.  Issues abound.

When I was done reading, I was not particularly freaked out.  Technology has always changed the world and culture has evolved to deal with it.  What I did think was that each of us might want to think about what and how we perceive things, about why we want various perceptions, and about how that might influence all of our decisions, including our fitness choices.

Spinal Tap approves this message

I like the number 10.  It is nice and round in the zero part and pleasantly upright in the 1 part.  Also, it does not exceed my number of fingers for counting.

However, ten can be so comfortable that I get stuck there.  Ten squats, ten pushups, no problem. 

Sometimes we need to go to 11 or 19.  Sometimes we need to choose a weight that makes 7 the most we can complete.

Let’s pick a new lucky number today.

I was just thinking...

What do we think about when we exercise?

“Ow, ow, ow!”

“I wonder if I remembered to send that email…”

“How will Perry Mason get his client out of it this time?”

“Only 29 minutes and 50 seconds to go…”

None of those are bad thoughts.  It is not that there is some magic batch of thoughts that are supposed to fill our heads while we are working out.  I would simply like to suggest a couple more kinds to add to the mix.

“What are my abs doing right now?”

“What happens if I do the movement more slowly?  More quickly?”

“Are my shoulders level?”

“Am I staring at my feet?”

Checking in with our bodies to see what and how they are doing every once in a while can help us maintain good form.  That good form will eventually translate into less  “Ow!” and more “I did it!”

Shiny happy people holding weights...

Sometimes reading about fitness can make us crazy.  Well, me, anyway.  Exercise articles tend toward a couple of themes:  back to the basics or new revolutionary technique, all of them equipped with enough exclamation points to weigh down all but the strongest stick figures.  What is a body to do?

Shockingly, the answer is:  both.  Some basic exercises are crucial.  Squats, lunges, pushups or bench presses, and rows make my list.  We need to do some kind of cardio and everyone has a favorite basic, whether it is walking, running, biking, swimming, or the like.

However, doing the same routines over and over again forever does not serve us.  Personally, my brain gets bored before my body does, but the boredom is a real problem, whichever kind comes first.  Our bodies learn what we do; we grow from new movement patterns.

Yes:  do the squats and run the miles.  But also, every once in a while, do a heavy weight workout, a Tabata routine, or a jump rope session.  Happy bodies are engaged bodies.

Friday Exercise: Flies

Stickie really likes flies because they not only make her strong but also give her a great stretch at the same time.  Also, she gets to do them lying down.

To begin, she lies on her back on a bench.  She holds a dumbbell in each hand with her arms extended over her chest (not her face!).  She keeps a slight curve in her elbows, as you can see from the picture on the right, in which you are looking at her from the head end of the bench and her arms look like parentheses.  Stickie prefers to leave her feet on the bench because it feels better for her lower back, but it would be just as correct for her to place her feet on the floor.

On an inhale, she lowers the weights out to her sides, maintaining the curve of her arms (as in the lower right side picture).  As she exhales, she lifts the weights back to the starting position.  Depending on the weight she chooses, she will do a set of 10 to 12 reps. She usually does three sets.

At the end of the set, Stickie will lower the weights to her chest close to the sides of her body by bending her elbows.  Keeping the weights at her sides, she will lower them toward the floor and drop them.  Under normal circumstances, she does not need to drop them, but she is practicing for the time when the weights might be too heavy.  It is unsafe to open her arms wide and then drop the weights; she could easily tear a rotator cuff muscle in her shoulder that way.

On days when Stickie wants an extra challenge, she can perform this exercise using a stability ball.  In that case, she rolls out on the ball until her head and neck are supported by the ball and she needs to use her abdominals and gluteals to keep her body in a bench-like position.  Then she proceeds to do the flies from there.