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I have neighbors with small children.  I like small children in general; I used to have some myself.  One of the kids who lives nearby, however, deals with pretty much everything in life by screaming.  Life, for her, is one long insult/catastrophe/struggle.  On one hand, I have to admire her persistence.  She is not going to take the insult/catastrophe/struggle lying down.  She is going to protest.

On the other, maybe she could think about other ways to cope.  (Or, you know, maybe someone could help her find other ways that involve less volume…)

She, unbeknownst to her, is a metaphor for all of us.  When we are faced with Hard Things, we certainly can scream our heads off.  Sometimes that is even the appropriate response, particularly if it results in positive change in our circumstances.  So yes, when working out it is entirely fine to swear at the lunges/burpees/personal-least-favorite-exercise.  It may release our tension.  It may spur us to find another way to work the same muscle groups that is less horrible or to get enough better at the exercise in question that we come to peace with it.

We can also accept that sometimes life and workouts have Hard Things in them.  Hard Things come to us all, inevitably.  We can choose our coping mechanisms.

I spelled paraphernalia without using spell check, just so you know

Personally, I don’t love the paraphernalia of workouts.  I want to be able to show up and get going rather than spend a bunch of time setting stuff up and tracking down equipment or tools.  This is the appeal of body weight workouts and yoga and running, for example, because, hey, no stuff to lug around!  That said, equipment and tools can make a big difference in how we feel about working out.  Here are some things that make my workouts better:

• Music.  Cardio can get boring very fast.  Unless we are very new at working out, most of us can’t get enough of a workout while reading, so we have to find other ways to occupy our brains.  Some people like audio books.  A lot of people swear by watching television.  (Before I broke up with football, I used to justify some of my viewing habits by watching from the spin bike, doing high intensity intervals during the commercials and seated pedaling during the game itself…)

• Protective stuff.  For me, that means elbow and wrist straps for biking and lifting.  Those of us who have knee or ankle issues may have a bond with our braces.  We may prefer squishy mats for our knees or backs during floor exercises.  And yes, we all need to wear our helmets when we bike, skateboard, and scooter.

• The right clothes.  I used to work out in any old t-shirt.  That works fine.  But once I realized that I could get all sweaty and not have an extra 30 pounds of wet cotton on my back, I was finally sold on all the cool swanky fitness fabrics.  Also, the person who invented the small-of-the-back pocket on bike shirts is an absolute genius; those pockets should be standard on all clothing.

What’s on your list of stuff that makes a workout better?

Eyebrows don't help

We get a message from several places in our culture that we have to do it all, full-on, all the time.  Professional athletes, for example, and their coaches talk about giving 110%.  Bosses urge us to work harder, faster, and smarter.  Our families want us to bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan, and have something left for cuddling our loved ones and serving the community, and maybe even picking up our dirty socks once in a while.

All that grit and multi-tasking and determination has a place and a useful one.  But most of the time, it’s not our best choice in fitness.

Our fitness goal should be efficiency.  We want to calibrate our movements so that we use just enough effort to get the job done and no more.  This, in the long term, keeps us safe from injury and helps us maintain our fitness no matter how far the calendar moves forward.

Two tools that help us do that are cardio intervals and mind-body work.  Cardio intervals help us pack more workout into less time and they work better.  They’re also incredibly simple to use.  Instead of trudging along on the treadmill for an hour, we spend half an hour alternating speedy minutes with recovery minutes.  We burn more calories and get done sooner!  Our hearts and lungs actually adapt more quickly using intervals as well, so we make more progress in less time.  Wins all around.

Mind-body work like Pilates or yoga helps us tune into what is actually happening with us.  We can find the places in an exercise where we can relax.  There may not be many, but I’m pretty convinced that contracting our eyebrows has no effect on our ability to lift heavy weights.  As we learn to recruit the appropriate muscles at the right time, our movements get smoother and more efficient.  They also get more graceful, but that’s just bonus points.

So, yes, let’s work hard when we’re working out, just not any harder than we need to.