Celebrate!

Today is my mom’s 75^th birthday.  I have a milestone birthday, myself, coming up this year.  Age may be just a number, but it isn’t bad to stop and check in when that number ticks over.

Are we where we want to be?  Can we do the things we want to do?  What is easier than we expect?  What is harder?

And then:  what are we going to do about it all?  Let’s make it a positive challenge to make our milestones into celebrations.

Pay attention with kindness

When we get back to exercising after a hiatus, we can be tempted to try to do everything at once, just as hard and heavy as we did before we stopped for vacation, celebration, injury, or other life events.  This is not a good idea.  In fact, it is a good way to end up discouraged and/or hurt.

It is just as problematic to go too easy on ourselves.  If the goal we set is too easy, it is too easy to blow off.

The answer, of course, lies in paying attention, with kindness.  Yes, we have to work out.  Yes, that means cardio and weights.  See how it goes.  Maybe we are ready to do two thirds of our cardio and we drop the weights a bit for the first week or so.  We have to work out with today’s body and we might as well love today’s body because we’re stuck in it.  Treat it nicely and appreciate all the things it does.

Up from here.

Monday Workout: Planes, planks, and sides

This week we have both suitcase swings and woodchoppers, a similar motion in two different planes to work on stability with different muscle groups while getting the heart rate up.  In the same kind of way, flies and rows work the front and back of the body.  The deadlifts or squats get the lower body more involved; choose the squats if your knees allow it and the deadlifts if they don’t.  For the plank and side planks, alternate rounds, odd rounds plank, even rounds side plank.  Four rounds total.

1 min cardio
ball flies	20
suitcase swings	20
deadlift or squat	20
bent over row	20
woodchoppers	20
plank/side plank

See the Love? Right there, in the plant!

Sometimes we get too enthusiastic and we end up, well, sore.  I’m not talking about when we are actually injured—in that case, go to the doctor and do what she or he tells you to do.  But when we’ve overdone ourselves a bit, here are a few things that can help:

• Ibuprofen.  It is all right not to want to be in pain.  You can build character by being nice to people who cut you off in traffic instead.

• Ice.  If you have swelling, ice will help reduce it.

• Heat.  It helps dissolve tension.  Bonus points for a bath with Epsom salts.

• Rest.  You’ll come back stronger.

• Love.  You are valuable.  Treat yourself like it!