Hut, hut, hike...

We all get into fitness ruts.  Maybe everybody doesn’t have a spin bike in their living room like I do (it’s decorative, right???), but we all have an exercise of least resistance that is the easiest thing for us to do to hit our fitness goals of the day.  We should have that thing that is really easy to get done because we want good habits to be simple and automatic.  That said, we do need to shake things up a bit from time to time.

Last week, I went hiking for the first time in a long time.  I took my fancy camera and my kid and some water and my ridiculous sun hat.  (Next time I’m also taking snacks and bug spray.)  Five miles later, having climbed, according to my kid’s phone, 42 floors, we were both sweaty and tired and exhilarated.  I was sore in different places than usual.  My brain was refreshed both from the presence of trees and the kind of conversations that occur when walking on dirt under a canopy of leaves.

I am not abandoning my spin bike.  I don’t always have the time to drive somewhere to hike.  But an awful lot of stuff shifted when I did something out of the ordinary.

What needs shaking in your workout this week?

Monday Workout: Yes, It Is Burpee Week

I know I’m not going to be popular this week.  I am okay with that.  The only way to make peace with burpees (I’m not going to go as far as liking them) is to get better at them and we get better by practicing.  They, like the squats, renegade rows, and lunges are great exercises for building metabolism and burning lots of calories.  Also:  we end up stronger!  This workout has some options in it because folks with knee problems probably don’t want to be doing too many jump squats or lunges; regular squats in a comfortable range of motion or with support from a TRX or stability ball on the wall and high-knee marching with a weight overhead will also do the trick of getting heart rate up and joints moving.  As always, if it hurts, don’t do it.  We need to use our good judgment and adapt workouts to the body we are working with today.  Three rounds.

Xiser	30
flies	20
burpees	10
(jump) squats	30
kickbacks	20
renegade rows	10
overhead lunges/high knees	30
bench press	20
pretty princesses	10

Pursuit of Happiness

Today, being Independence Day, I offer this list of things we can declare our independence from:

• Cultural pressure about looks.  Happy, healthy people are attractive, no matter what size or shape they happen to have.  Tell the fitness/beauty industrial complex that we don’t need their negativity.

• Processed food.  This may require something akin to a war because that processed food stuff is sneaky.  It infiltrates our guts and addicts us.  But fresh, whole foods make us feel so much better once we get through the process of weaning ourselves off the sugar/fat/chemical stuff.

• Stress.  All right, maybe that’s not entirely possible.  But we need to at least send a beautifully written manifesto to the stress king to let him know we are not going to keep serving him with no good return on our investment.  We’re allowed to take time to run and play and swim and read and sleep and breathe and love.

• Excess.  We can let go of some of the stuff holding us down.  Maybe that’s those guilt-filled boxes in the basement or that extra five pounds of cheat-day weight.  Let’s lighten up a bit!

Go play!  It’s a holiday!