Fight the power...

I may be the only one in the world who calls my Apple Watch my wristy overlord.  It reminds me to stand up every hour.  It lets me know if my activity level is lower than usual for a particular time of day.  It counts my exercise minutes for me, based on my actual heart rate rather than my perceived exertion.  A couple of times a day, it even tells me to breathe mindfully.

It is not that I don’t appreciate its benign despotism.  Most of the time, I find the reminders useful (and slightly less passive aggressive than the ones I used to get from my Fitbit).

However, last week I was sick for much of the week.  I finally had to put the watch in timeout because it was not helping me to have it remind me that I wasn’t really doing much of anything in terms of activity or exercise or even standing up.  It is not useful to feel guilty as well as sick.  We both spent the rest of the week recharging our batteries.

I am probably not the only one in the world who needs to be reminded that we are the boss of ourselves.  We have tools.  When the tools start using us, we need to take a step back (whether it counts or not) and evaluate.

I do not think there is anyone who wants to be fit just to be praised by an inanimate device.  We want fitness so we can stroll the beach at sunset or chase the kids around the yard or have better sex or feel fabulous in our clothes.  Our wristy overlords don’t measure that.

Monday Workout: Rope!

There are a lot of things I like about battle ropes and I’m not alone in this—clients like rope weeks.  They get us good and tired, they work our core, and we get to slam stuff into the ground, so what could be better?  Oh, yeah, they work multiple joints and people with problematic knees can work with them.  Three rounds.

rope double slams	30
rows	20
pushups	10
rope alternating slams	30
squats	20
dips	10
rope circles	30
deadlifts	20
chest lifts	10

Four little things

Given that I’m thinking about the small stuff that adds up to big stuff this week, I’ll offer a list of the little shifts that Pilates creates:

1.     Posture.  Most of us slouch.  Pilates helps us get our hips back under us, our shoulders back and down, and our heads in line with the rest of our spine.

2.     Height.  When we work to articulate our spines in Pilates, we create more space there.  We look and feel taller and longer.

3.     Grace.  As we improve our sense of where our bodies are in space by moving mindfully, we are less likely to crash into unexpected furniture, door frames, or humans.

4.     Calm.  That same mindful movement, coupled with focus on breathing, helps us chill out a bit.

Let me know if you want to try it out!