Walk this way...

Walking and hiking are good exercise choices for most people.  There is no equipment required, except comfortable shoes, and let’s face it:  we all should wear comfortable shoes.  Here’s how to make it more fun:

Go with a friend.  Skip the coffee date or the lunch date and walk instead.  Be the good influence for once!  Social connection is good for our health, too.  Being able to carry on a conversation is a great way to gauge how hard we are working; if we can’t keep talking, it’s time to slow down a bit.

Go with a furry friend.  Dogs are excellent for interval training.  They will go at top speed until something fascinating grabs them by the nostrils.  We can use this to our advantage, getting breathless when they are moving and maybe doing a few body weight exercises while they fully experience the aura of French fries on that discarded wrapper.

Go with music.  Bonus points for dancing on the sidewalk because laughter is good for the soul and the body, too.  Music can give us a good pace.  It also has a built-in measure for how hard we are working; if we can sing along, it’s time to step it up!

Go somewhere green and beautiful.  Nature is our friend and reduces our stress levels.  Make your heart both healthy and happy!

Let’s do it!

Push or Not Push

Last week, I didn’t get to work out like I wanted.  I got crabby.  I didn’t like it.  And yet, it was the right thing to do.  How do I know?  Here are some ways to decide whether it is time to push or rest.

If you are injured:  It’s time to rest.  When your doctor or physical therapist says go, then you can go for it.  However, you are allowed to get specific with your health professionals.  Often there are things you can do while you are waiting to get back to what you really want to do, say, swimming instead of running or yoga instead of zumba.

If you are stressed out:  It depends.  Exercise is a great stress reliever.  If the issue is really about time, maybe compromise with yourself and do a short workout or at least take a walk.  (And it’s not really about time if you deal with the stress by binge-watching cooking shows.)  Ask yourself what you would tell a friend feeling the way you do.  If you’d tell her to get her shoes laced up, you should, too.

If you are sore:  Light exercise will probably help.  You don’t want to work the same muscle groups with weights two days in a row.  If walking up stairs makes you swear because of the squats you did yesterday, today is a good day to do upper body work.  Also, stretching and rolling are your friends.

If you are tired:  Try.  Showing up counts and a five minute workout is better than no workout.  Once you get moving, you may find you have more energy than you thought.

Monday Workout: Breathless and Strong!

This week’s workout pairs an exercise to raise heart rate with a strength exercise to create challenge.  We will be using weights that are a little heavier since there are only ten reps. Do four or five rounds.

1 min cardio
plyojacks or crouch jacks	30
clean and press	10
mountain climber	30
pushups	10
woodchoppers	30
squats	10
kb swings	30
bench press	10
opposite knees	30
lunges	10

Friday Book Report: Emergence

John H. Holland’s book Emergence:  From Chaos to Order is not particularly light reading.  People who are mathier-than-I (sure, that’s a word, right?) might have an easier time following some of his arguments.  There is a chapter on metaphor, for those of us who feel happier among the poets.  That’s the disclaimer.

The central idea of the book is that a few simple rules, as in a game, can produce surprising complexity that is difficult or impossible to predict from an examination of the rules.  This “emergence” implies some interesting things for areas as diverse as genetics and cognition.  It also impacts the art of model building, which, in turn, allows us to understand complex phenomena.

It is always worth reading books that stretch the brain.  I think that I put it on my blog reading list because the book was referred to in one of the books that traced our evolution; we do emerge, complex, from a fairly limited number of building blocks, after all.

I would recommend it, and maybe a math tutor.  At least for me.

A plateful and some cones

I used to work in a context where there were community dinners and every semester the new community members would get a chance to make a plate to use, partly because it was fun and partly because reusable plates are better for the universe.  When I made my plate, I put words on it that I needed to remember. They come from Angeles Arrien and they are:

Show up.

Pay attention.

Tell the truth.

Remain unattached to the outcome.

The words are pretty universally applicable, but in a fitness context, what they mean is that we do the work and let the results handle themselves.  When we come work out, we have to be there, we have to focus on form, we have to see/say what is really there, and then we need to let the work take effect.

What’s on your plate?

Five things and a picture of a flower

Stressful times call for coping techniques.  Here are five that are better for us than an entire bottle of Scotch or buying out the ice cream section at the grocery store or massive doses of retail therapy.

1.     Connect.  This one works best in person because then there can be hugging involved, but phone, text, email, whatever can also help.  When we feel alone, we suffer more.  Bonus points if we do something that helps someone else out while we are connecting, whether that means going along on a dog walk or bringing dinner or just listening.

2.     Move.  Stress hormones leave the body faster if we chase them out with movement.  This doesn’t have to be complicated or formal.  Just get off the couch.  It will feel better.

3.    Cook.  Taking the time to make nourishing food restores our senses.  We also establish a tiny bit of control over the universe.  We rebuild our chemistry through healthy eating.  Also, home cooking can be a subversive act in these food-industrial-complex times.

4.     Sing.  Off key is fine.  Really this is just an excuse to get us all to breathe.  Singing requires us to take bigger breaths, which is all good news for the body.  One caveat:  karaoke may not be the best choice if it involves lots of alcohol.  Just sayin’.

5.     Spirit.  I know.  That’s not a verb.  But let’s pretend it is the verb for pray/meditate/tune in.  All of those mindful spiritual practices train us to deal with whatever comes along.

Mix and match and see what comes out!

Rocks in a tree?

Last week, one of the exercises I did and my clients did also was a back lunge with a foot on a bench.  It doesn’t look hard.  There are no weights beyond our body weight.  It was surprisingly difficult for many of us, so I learned that we need to work on our proprioception, balance, and core control.

Proprioception is a lovely, fancy word that makes me look smarter when I use it.  It is our sense of where our bodies are in space.  It’s what we use to avoid bumping into furniture.  And, of course, what we use to step back on a bench without looking behind ourselves.  We use it all the time.   The better our proprioception, the more gracefully we can move through the world and the more likely we are to be able to hit a tennis ball, hike a rough trail, and avoid ugly shin bruises.

Balance, not surprisingly, arises in part from our proprioception.  Maybe we don’t want to walk tightropes, but I know we all want to avoid nursing homes.  As we get older, we need to work on our balance to avoid falling. 

Core control contributes mightily to our ability to balance, but that is only one of its important functions.  It helps us avoid back pain.  It keeps us looking trimmer and thinner.  It provides the strong center from which we can base our other strength activities.

We’ll be continuing to work on all these things in the coming weeks!