Monday Workout: Heavy, In This Context...

This week we are doing some heavy bench presses.  For the last while, we’ve been doing sets of 20, which means we use lighter weights than we do when we’re only doing 10 at a time.  Heavy, in this context, means that we choose a weight that is heavy enough that the final rep is really difficult to complete.  (Please note:  it is not mandatory that we complete all 10 reps; if we choose a weight and it turns out that we can only do 8 perfect reps, that is awesome and we should stop before we get sloppy.)  If you have knee issues, just do curls instead of lunges to curls or be very careful to work only in your comfortable range of motion.

Four rounds.

1 min cardio
heavy bench press	10
single arm clean and press	20
squats	20
(lunge to) curl	20
reverse fly	10
barbell twist	10

Friday Non-Book-Report: Not Pushin

(This photo is a detail from my vision board from the quadrant about my fitness goals.  I chose the images because they are about yoga, and include tree pose, which is really really hard for me.  I think the photo works better than I could have known at the time I put it together for what I have to say today.)

I have a whole big pile of books that will feature in future Friday Book Reports.  If I didn’t care about finishing my notes before writing, I could write about one of them today, but I’m going to apply one of the ideas in that very same book:  not pushing.

Not pushing is hard for me.  If doing something is good, clearly doing it harder and faster and more must be better.  Maybe not.  Sometimes we need to be patient, like with a shy puppy.  We need to be present and let the puppy come to us when she is ready.  We can let the situation unfold gradually.

Or, to use a different analogy, some steps in construction take curing time.  Concrete isn’t ready right away and hurrying it causes problems.  (Does anyone remember the sign on 880?  “Stop Casting Porosity?”)  When what we are doing is worth doing well, sometimes it is worth doing slowly and with patience, respecting the materials we are working with (even, or especially, when those materials are our bodies!).

What are we doing today that could benefit from a little not-pushing?

A little negativity can go a long way...

Most of the time, I like to focus on what we are doing right.  We all need encouragement and really, enough negative voices already exist.  But.  Sometimes it is useful to have a list of the common mistakes.  Here are a few things to avoid in our workouts:

• Choosing the wrong weight.  Sometimes we really want to use that bigger dumbbell.  The thing is, when we pick one that is too heavy, we have to use bad form to lift it, which can cause us to recruit other muscle groups, reducing the effect on the targeted muscle groups, or, worse, get injured.  When we use weights that are too light through an unfounded fear of bulking up or because we’re being lazy, we just waste our time.

• Always doing the same thing.  Our bodies get bored.  Yes, it is nice to go to the gym and zone out and get it over with, but the point is to improve.  Autopilot is not the road to excellence.  If we’ve been doing the same workout for more than six weeks, we need a change.  Switch from machines to free weights.  Swap the treadmill for the bike.  Go hiking.  Change is good.

• Using bad form.  I know it isn’t fun to be picky.  It’s even less fun to mess up knees or tear a rotator cuff.  Paying attention to the joints and keeping them properly aligned saves a world of pain and suffering.  Yes, it may mean that we have to use a smaller weight (see that first item, above) when we do the exercise correctly, but we will get real gains, not fake ones.

• Skipping the stretch.  We have lots of reasons not to stretch.  It’s not like it takes a lot of time, so we can always do it later.  We’re in a rush.  It can’t possibly be that useful because it feels good, and isn’t gym stuff all supposed to be horrible?  Here’s the thing:  strength is pointless without range of motion.  We all get less flexible as we get older, and we are all getting older.  Let’s not doom ourselves to having someone else tie our shoes for us.