Monday Workout: All at once!

As usual, I’m working on a lot of different things at once in this workout.  We have our friends the multi-joint exercises to burn calories and boost metabolism, we have balance work, we have multi-plane work, and we have core stability stuff.  No wonder we get tired!  Three rounds (do regular plank on the first round for 30 seconds or longer, one side plank the second round as long as possible, and the other side the third round!).

kb swings	30
kb twists or 1 leg pass	20
kb 8s	10
mountain climbers/stand	30
rows	20
kickbacks	10
overhead curtsy	30
bench press	20
plank/side plank

Three questions to help with judgment

We all have days when working out seems like more trouble than it is worth.  Here are three questions to ask to figure out what to do on those days:

1.     What is the smallest amount of workout that I can do without feeling wiped out?  Maybe we don’t feel up to a whole cardio class, but a walk around the block with the dog is just enough to keep our bodies from getting stiff and bored.

2.     What part am I dreading the most?  Sometimes there is one particular exercise that we just hate.  Knowing this, we can either look for a substitute or get it over with first thing or skip it entirely if necessary.

3.     Will I feel better or worse after I work out?  If we are going to feel better, it’s probably worth it to get our behinds in gear.  If we’re going to feel worse, it might be time to declare a rest day, but we don’t get to do that too often.

Yes, we need to work out.  Yes, sometimes it is hard.  Yes, sometimes we need a break.   We need to use our good judgment to figure out if we are needing rest or a push.

Some words to go with the numbers

People in the fitness profession are obsessed with numbers.  We track body weight, body fat percentage, BMI (even though we all know it’s not a good indicator), waist size, reps completed, single rep max for a variety of exercises, and the like.  This is not a bad thing because numbers make some kinds of progress easy to track.

Numbers rarely tell the whole story, though.  There is no numerical representation for how tired we feel, or how sore, or, conversely, how much more energy we have or how empowered we feel.

I am not even slightly suggesting that we throw out the numbers.  I just want to add some words as well:  perceived exertion.

Perceived exertion is on my mind because I was sick last week.  I knew I was the kind of sick that needed to go back to bed while I was doing my usual morning stint on the spin bike and it was perceptibly harder than usual.  It wasn’t that my heart rate was unusually high or that I had more pain than any other day—it was a feeling that I was pushing against something more than the resistance of the bike.  I stopped the workout, canceled my clients, and slept so I could get better faster.

Even when we aren’t sick, we need to keep perceived exertion in mind.  It helps us calibrate.  If we are mindful of how hard we are working, we know when to make things a little more challenging and when to back off a bit, even if the shift is not big enough to show in the numbers.

We are not letting ourselves off the hook when we recognize that any particular day might be a good one to take the shorter run/bike/swim or choose the smaller weights.  We are not being overconfident when we realize that we really have enough in us to tackle the hill route or increase the starting weight.  We know because we are paying attention, and there isn’t a number for that.