I Appreciate You

In fitness, unfortunately, we spend way too much time thinking about what we aren’t good at yet.  We’re always pushing up against the limits of what we can lift, or how fast we can run, or how far away our toes (still) are in that forward bend.  Yes, we grow by recognizing that we’re not there yet and by continuing to work, but it is all right, from time to time, to stop and appreciate.

A long time ago, I used to work in the nonprofit sector.  Nonprofit organizations exist to solve problems.  Most of them need to do too much with too few resources, so everyone is always looking for a better way of working.  It was in that context that I learned about something called appreciative inquiry.

When we approach things with appreciative inquiry, we ask what we’re good at, what we’re doing right.  Then we do more of those things.  This takes the focus off all the other stuff that we are struggling with and allows us to leverage our success.

If we are strong, that means that we focus on our strength.  We do just enough cardio and flexibility work to keep ourselves healthy, and then maximize what we’re good at.  If we are flexible, we do enough weight work that we can control our bendy joints safely and we move enough to keep our hearts healthy, and then we pretzel ourselves to our hearts’ content.

We need to take a good look at what we CAN do and marvel at our own wonderfulness.

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?