Monday Workout: Choice!

This week, we have choices.  Fine.  We have choices every week.  But this week, I will not be telling anybody what to do, but rather providing options for everyone to make their own workout taking into account their own bodies and the tools on hand.  The format is the usual 30-20-10 in which there are three sets of three exercises making up one round; we do three rounds.  To make up a set of exercises, choose one from the 30 column, one from the 20 column, and one from the 10 column.  I suggest choosing the 10 from the ab exercises after the space in the 10 column in the third set, but I certainly will not be looking over anyone’s shoulder to see what got picked!  Have fun!

 

Choice Workout: Choose three from each column
30	20	10
woodchoppers	squats	med ball rescues
mountain climbers	lunges	round lunges
jacks	deadlifts	lateral raise
plank jacks	bench press	skullcrushers
jump squats	fly	YTA
jump lunges	row	pushups
ball slams	kickback	burpees
overhead high knees	curls
opposite knees	reverse fly
clean and press
1 arm clean and press		Russian twist
		pretty princesses
		brains
		femur arcs
		quadruped
		roll out abs

Change it up!

If we do the same workout or the same kind of workout all the time, not only do we get bored, our bodies stop adapting.  Here are six ways to change things up:

 

1.     Do it faster.  We can make the whole workout at a faster pace, or we can add bursts of speed to our cardio or weight workout.  The body gets surprised, the brain has to work a bit more, and everyone is tired and happy at the end!

2.     Make it unstable.  We can do whatever it is we’re doing on a BOSU, stability ball, turntable, squishy mat.  We can work one side of the body at a time.  We can try standing on one leg and then the other.  Sometimes it’s as simple as running on the beach where the sand is not nearly as regular as the surface of the treadmill.  Instability recruits our core more.  We have to concentrate.  We learn stuff!

3.     Put it in water.  This can be a literal adaptation, as in we can do water walking or water running or water aerobics instead of land walking, running, or aerobics, or we can just try swimming as a switch from our usual cardio.  One of the great things about swimming is that it compels us to consider the breath, which is essential to our wellbeing.

4.     Switch teachers.  Sure, we are comfortable in that yoga/spin/bootcamp/Zumba/Tabata class.  We’ve been taking it every Thursday for a year now.  Comfortable, for the body, is an invitation to avoid change, growth, and development.  See what a different play list or series of exercises does to wake up body and mind.

5.     Try our friends’ workouts.  Maybe our buddy has been going on and on about that amazing bike ride.  Maybe she’ll shut up if we just try it.  And maybe it will, in fact, be just as amazing for us.  Or maybe another friend loves yoga.  Get him to take you along.  Worst case, you get to hang out with a friend.

6.     Take it outside.  Or inside.  If we always work out indoors, we could use a little fresh air.  If we’ve been outside so much that we’re functionally feral, maybe we could enjoy the air conditioning for a bit.

 

As always, be safe and have fun.

Experiment!

I end up in a lot of conversations about fitness.  It’s an occupational hazard, or it would be if I didn’t actually enjoy it.  As it is, I learn things about how people view the whole fitness process.

 

Recently, I have been having a lot of chats with people who think they should be doing more exercise.  They say it like a lot of people talk about how they probably should get a colonoscopy.  I am sure that there are people somewhere for whom there is not one single form of exercise that is the least bit fun, but nearly everyone can find something to do that is both enjoyable and beneficial to the body.

 

It might take more than one try to figure out what that activity might be.  People who like to be outside are probably not going to bond with hot yoga, but skiing might be exactly the right sport for them.  Carpal tunnel syndrome and rock climbing are not a match made in heaven, but a more leg-intensive activity like roller-blading might be just the thing.  Someone might imagine that getting sweaty is the very worst thing about exercise until they hit that club with the awesome music and dance all night long.

 

We do not have to commit to that one true exercise for life.  In fact, that’s almost always a bad idea because it causes us to overuse some parts of our bodies and underuse other parts.  We might want to consider commitment to experimentation instead—it can be a lot of fun.

Cardio is our friend

Perhaps I am repetitive.  I am okay with that because we often need to hear something a whole bunch of times before it sinks in and makes sense.

 

If we have only a limited attention span or time allotment for exercise, the very first thing we should choose is to do cardio.  This is especially true when things are stressful and it seems like we should not be wasting our time with something as frivolous as exercise.

 

Cardio is pretty much the best stress-buster I know.  It gives us a positive outlet for nervous energy.  It boosts our mood.  It burns calories, improves our lipid profile, helps us sleep better, and helps us concentrate when we’re done.  Also, there are a lot of ways to get cardio in and a whole bunch of them are free.

 

Consider yourself invited to walk, run, dance, swim, bike, rollerblade, skip, or climb stairs.  Chase the dog or the kid.  Anything that gets the heart rate up and makes us breathe heavy counts (if you choose an NC-17 activity, please make sure you get consent and you take appropriate precautions).

 

Go play.  It’s a good thing.

Monday Workout: More body weight

Since we are still not at the part where gyms get to reopen, we get a body weight circuit again this week.  Do three or four rounds…

 

mountain climbers	30
lunges	30
plank jacks	10
windmills	30
1 leg deadlifts	10
side lunges	20
quadruped	10
V sit	hold 30 sec

Why yes, I do know lots of ways to do it wrong...

So yesterday I wrote about reasonable goals in a somewhat quantitative way.  Today’s list is qualitative stuff that can sabotage us and what to do about it.

1.     We missed a day, so this was clearly a bad idea and we suck.  Nope.  We missed one day.  That means we have thirty other days we can show up and do stuff.  We aren’t striving for perfection, just improvement.

2.     But really, we suck.  Nope.  Still not true.  If being mean to ourselves was a good way to succeed, we’d all be done with all of our goals by now.  Trying counts.  Showing up counts.  Being nice really counts.

3.     We set this goal because everyone else thinks we should.  Really?  No.  We need to tell the truth about what we actually want.  If other people think it’s weird, that’s their problem.

4.     We set this goal because we really think our spouse/kid/friend should do it, too.  Nope.  We only get to do our own work. 

Now go do stuff.

A new leaf for July!

Welcome to July!  It’s a new month and who knows what it will hold?  There are certainly plenty of things we can’t control, but we can set some reasonable fitness goals.  Please note that I said “reasonable.”  We are not going to lose 100 pounds this month or go from couch to marathon.  Here are some examples of how to determine reasonable fitness goals for various aspirations.

“I want to lose weight.”  A reasonable goal for a month is five to ten pounds.  Losing more than that in a month requires some unhealthy behaviors that at best are not sustainable and at worst put the rest of our wellbeing at risk.

“I want to exercise more.”  If we have been lying around for the last long time, we start small so we can crush the goal and use the success to spur us on.  It is almost always best to begin with cardio because cardio gives us the tools to adapt to weight training.  I like to encourage people to do just a little cardio every day because then it is a habit.  We start with a half hour of walking and even that can be broken in half or in thirds.  By the end of the month, we should be able to do that half hour a day.  If we are already doing cardio, we can add time or intensity (go longer or faster), or we can branch out into weight training once or twice a week, which should be habitual by August.

“I want to eat healthy.”  There are several ways to approach this one.  One I like is to remove the crap.  We all have a kryptonite food that tends to sabotage our best efforts.  It is time to end that relationship for good, dear ones.  That is one abusive partner, baby.  Dump sugar’s butt (or toss the chips to the curb, or kiss the margaritas good bye, or whatever else we need to do).  The other approach I like is to make sure we add the good stuff.  There are approximately ten gazillion different diets out there, but I can tell you for sure that science supports at least these two things:  eat veggies and drink lots of water.  By the end of the month, we should have established new and better patterns, either by adding or subtracting.

If you would like more specific goals tailored to your very own unique self, give me a poke and we’ll talk.