Weighty Issues

While I firmly believe that pretty much everybody can benefit from weight training, I also think that there are different kinds of training for different people.  Some people scoff at small weights; some fear bulking up.  Other people feel intimidated by the Olympic bar and free weights.  Still other people put their faith in weight lifting machines.

 

Here’s the deal on the machine/free weight thing:  for most exercises, using free weights is more challenging because we don’t have a machine restricting our movements.  We have to recruit more stabilizers.  Under some circumstances, though, machines are the way to go, such as when we are recovering from an injury and we need to be extra careful about our range of motion.  I personally wish I had a lat pulldown machine and I like a lot of the things that can be done with the cables, but I find that my dumbbells and barbells and kettlebells meet all my weight needs.

 

Now, on to the kinds of weight lifting for different people.  Weight lifting comes in three rough categories:  endurance, hypertrophy, and maximum strength.

 

Endurance is the place where everybody starts and it is a perfectly fine place to stay for our whole weight lifting career if it fits our goals.  People who are concerned about getting “too muscular” or who want to “look more toned” like the results of this kind of lifting.  For endurance lifting, we use smaller weights and we do sets of 15 to 20 reps.  As with all kinds of weight lifting, we want to choose weights that just barely let us finish the set.  When 20 reps at a particular weight get too easy, it’s time to increase the weight and do 15, building up gradually to the next level.

 

Hypertrophy is what my French teacher used to call a “five dollar word” with deep scorn.  The ten-cent version:  body building.  Once we’ve got used to lifting at an endurance level, we can do this.  In this kind of weight lifting, the goal is to go all Charles Atlas.  To do that, we lift heavier weights for fewer repetitions per set, aiming for 8 to 10 reps.

 

Maximum strength is exactly what it sounds like.  We try to lift the heaviest amount of weight possible.  That means that we warm up with a set of ten at a reasonable weight and increase the weight each set until we can complete only one beautiful rep.  It is actually important that the rep be beautiful so we don’t get hurt.  This is why this kind of lifting has to follow some learning in the endurance phase, where we can work out all our form issues.

 

The good news is that all the kinds of weight lifting, machine or free, make us stronger, help maintain our bone density, and increase our metabolisms.  Go play.

Try

Because I am blessed to have a lovely friend (well, a lot of them, actually, but one in particular matters in this context), I got to try something new last week:  kayaking.

 

Trying New Things is both fun and scary.  I’ll deal with the scary bits first.  When we try something we haven’t done before, we might find ourselves worrying that we’ll get hurt.  Or worse, embarrassed.  Or worst of all:  both!  So, for example, I imagined trying to get into the kayak, tipping it and myself over, thwacking my head on the dock, and bleeding profusely.  It didn’t happen.  For one thing, I was with people who had done it before and they showed me how to get in the kayak safely.  My friend made sure that the kayak was steady and secure.  What we learn from this is that learning from experts is useful.  It is especially useful when the experts are kind, clear, and encouraging.

 

We might also worry that we won’t be good at the New Thing.  Guess what?  That’s okay.  We can approach the New Thing with curiosity and ourselves with compassion.  I mean, heck, there’s a whole concept in Buddhism about cultivating Beginner’s Mind—it’s good for us to be inexpert and fresh from time to time.  Personally, I find that it helps to take myself lightly; laughter makes a lot of things easier.

 

A related difficulty might be that the New Thing will be too hard.  Common sense, that rare commodity, comes in handy here.  If we start at the beginning, we’ll probably be all right.  No one starts skiing on the double black diamond runs.  The bunny hill is there for a reason.  Begin with the easy bits, try it out, explore, and don’t panic.  Sure, we might end up sore in new places from doing a different sort of movement, but that’s part of the adventure.

 

Now on to the fun part.  Well, probably.  Sometimes we try a New Thing and we don’t like it.  This is entirely all right.  We do not have to like everything.  We tried lacrosse or ultimate frisbee or synchronized swimming and it was not the right activity for us.  We can cross it off the list and try something else or return to our favorites.

 

The New Thing offers us a different way to see the world.  We use muscles we haven’t used before.  We think about physics (maybe not consciously and maybe not mathematically, but still) in a new context.  Maybe it turns out that our previous experience in baseball applies, or that summer we played all that soccer comes in handy.  Maybe we learn that we’ve been doing a whole lot with our lower body and not so much with the upper body.  Whatever it is, it keeps our brains and our bodies fresher, awake, interested.  Kayaking turned out to be incredibly refreshing, challenging parts of me that hadn’t been working in a while.

 

The world is a big and amazing place.  Go explore!!!

Monday Workout: Body Weight (to keep the body weight down...)

I know this whole body weight workout thing is getting a little old, but until we can all hit the gym again, it keeps us moving.  Do three or four rounds, depending on time and energy.

 

jump lunges	30
1 leg squats	30
pushup to side plank	10
jump squats	30
transverse punches	30
1 leg ball wall toss	10
plank	hold
superman	hold

Three

We continue to live in difficult times.  Here are three kinds of exercise to deal with different kinds of stress.

 

1.     Strength training.  If we feel powerless, working to make ourselves stronger physically helps.  Also, we can take out any negative feelings on the weights because they don’t mind.

2.     Cardio.  Nothing helps mood more than getting the heart rate up.  It also helps our brains function better.

3.     Yoga/Pilates.  Slowing down and paying attention to the breath helps calm us.  Some of us are good at meditating.  The rest of us can use a little help.  Breathing consciously while moving is a good way to transition ourselves into the peace-inducing process of meditating.

 

Go play.

Perfect and Not So Perfect: All OK

When I was in college, I used to joke that the format of a lot of my non-literature courses consisted of presenting two opposing views, a bunch of discussion, and the conclusion that we need both views in some combination.  While I don’t know if this is a valid way of instruction, it did prepare me to embrace the paradoxes of life.  The one I have in mind today is about how well we do things.

 

“If it’s worth doing, it’s worth doing well.” 

 

“Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good.”

 

Yes.  To both of those.

 

Some of us don’t like to work out because we think we are not good at it.  Maybe we are right and maybe not.  I am not here to tell anyone how to feel, but at some level, it doesn’t matter.  Working out is good for us, even if we do it poorly.  We do lots of things we don’t like that have much fewer benefits for us.  It is okay to be slow/awkward/new/confused/weak/whatever.  The workout will take us however we are and leave us a little better (and tired).  The culture will have us think that we shouldn’t do anything we aren’t experts at.  We’ll always be able to find (jerky) people to make fun of our mistakes.  Let’s take away their power and do stuff that makes us better.

 

Want an example?  I am not a great swimmer.  I can’t seem to figure out how to breathe on the left side.  I’m slow.  I’m not skinny.  If I put in a bunch of time, hired a coach, practiced a whole bunch, I could probably overcome most of those issues and get to be a better swimmer.  Or I can just get my butt in the pool and go, knowing that the exercise is good for me and that I will feel pleasantly sore and chlorinated at the end.  (Fine.  I know I can’t go to the pool right now, but it’s still true in principle.)  It is all right to be bad at it.

 

However, as I keep swimming, I notice stuff.  I figure out that some parts hurt if I use them wrong.  I think that it might be a good idea to learn what good form might be so I don’t injure myself.

 

The same stuff applies to weight lifting.  It is all right to be bad at it.  We don’t have to lift heavy or do a gazillion reps.  We need to pay the minimum amount of attention to form and safety and after that we can just show up, do the work, and get out of there.

 

We need to let go of our ideas of perfection in order to show up.  Once we’re ready to work, we can think about improvement in a kind and gradual way.

 

Go play.

Cardio on Fire

I write my blog ahead of time, so I hope that by the time this post gets published the air quality has improved.  If so, go workout as usual and think of this as information for the next batch of fires (hi, climate change!).  If not, here are some thoughts about how to get a cardio workout inside in fire season during a pandemic when it is hot.

 

Those of us who have cardio equipment and air conditioning are golden.  Carry on, folks, as usual.

 

Those of us who have cardio equipment who usually rely on fans and ventilation from outside to make the workout tolerable are still in pretty good shape.  We may find ourselves hotter than usual and we may find that we want to take the intensity down a bit until we can throw open all the windows and doors.  We want to pay attention to staying hydrated even more than usual and watch ourselves for overheating.

 

If we do not have the blessing of cardio equipment on hand, we still can work out.  (Keep in mind the tips above for those of us who don’t have air conditioning.)  We just have to be a little more creative about it.  The most important tool will be a timer.  This is one of those times when we can all give thanks for intervals because they help us avoid boredom.  What we want to do is this:  pick out some cardio exercises (jacks, burpees, step-ups, mountain climbers, woodchoppers, high knees, jump lunges, etc.) and alternate minute segments of those with minute segments of walking around the house.  If we pick five different exercises, we’ll want to do two or three rounds of the whole thing to get 20 or 30 minutes of cardio in.

 

All of us need to remember that our bodies and minds are stressed right now.  We may not be able to work out as hard or as long as usual.  This is okay.  Doing even a little bit will help our moods and our bodies.

 

Be safe and go play.

Monday Workout: Yep, body weight

Yes, it is another body weight week.  If you have weights available, add them.  If not, you’ll still be tired at the end.  Do three or four rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
squats	30
good mornings	20
lunges	30
jump or hop ups	30
punches	30
Russian twist	10
femur arcs	10