Spiral up

 

We human organisms adapt.  This allows us both to build habits and to change those habits to accommodate different circumstances.  So far, facts.

 

Now for the interpretation part:  there is good news and other news in this.  The good news is that we can ride the upward spiral of our habits.  An example?  My body now pretty much demands yoga every morning.  I don’t have to think about it or force myself to schedule it—I just start.

 

The first part of the other news is that even our good habits need to adapt.  We need to recognize that our bodies are getting stronger and increase the load on our muscles, or that our lungs and heart are working more efficiently and give them more challenge in our cardio workouts, or that our growing flexibility has made other poses more accessible to us.  We may not have to expend brain energy to get ourselves to show up anymore, but we do have to use our brains to sort out how to challenge ourselves enough.

 

The other part of the other news involves the direction of our spiral.  As much as we can build good habits, we can also build bad ones.  We need to remember that we don’t really WANT to spend the rest of our lives eating M&Ms on the couch watching cooking shows (well, maybe some of us do, but I find that stuff is better in small doses.).

 

The take-away here is that starting is the hard part.  One of the yoga mantras that speaks to me sums this up:  to begin is the victory.  Once we start, we can build fabulous things.

 

Let’s do this.

Monday Workout: Choices

This week, I am providing even more choices than usual.  This is everyone’s chance to build a workout to order!  I’ll provide the framework, and then everyone can choose.

 

The basic format is our trusty 30-20-10.  We do three sets of three exercises, doing 30 reps of the first exercise, 20 of the second one, and 10 of the final one.  Then we repeat the whole thing three times.  (If you have been reading my blog or working out with me, this should look familiar.  If not, don’t worry; there will not be a test.)

 

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

 

Using the chart above, choose three from each column.  When I design workouts for clients, the final exercise of the round is always abs, helpfully located after the space in the 10 column.  Choose based on what you have on hand in terms of weights, what you like, and what you need.  Have fun with it!

 

Go play.

That is one funny hat.

Sometimes we get all bogged down in the soup of unhappiness that surrounds us.  It seems wrong somehow to be happy in the face of all the ick.  Except it isn’t.  We can spread a little happiness around if we get some.  (If you need permission to be happy, I’m here to give it to you.  Go forth and laugh!)  Three (fitness) things to increase happiness today:

 

1.     Do something you love.  Or as close to it as you can.  Maybe I can’t go skiing right now, but since one of the things I love about skiing is going fast, I can hop on my bike and see how fast I can go.

2.     Do something new.  Curiosity and exploration wake up our brains and awake brains tend to be happy brains.  Try a new route.  Take a different class.  Do the workout backward.  Even if it goes wrong, it will give us a chance to laugh at ourselves.

3.     Do something that makes your heart pound.  In a good way.  Which is to say, some cardio.  It makes us happier and smarter.  Really.  Science says so.

 

Go play!

Let's dance...

I called my business Recess on purpose.  While it is true that one way to describe my work is that people pay me to make them do things they don’t want to do, that’s not the whole story.  I do my best to help people like doing stuff that is good for them.  I try to bring a sense of play to fitness because we tend to do more of what brings us joy.

 

It is absolutely true that some things are joyful in themselves and others are joyful at one remove.  We need both.  What do I mean?  Take dancing.  Dancing is fun.  Every human culture that I can think of has had some kind of dancing (or else a need to frown upon dancing, which proves my point in a different way).  Kids do it spontaneously.  It plays a part in celebrations, religious ceremonies, and high school rituals.  No one needs to make us dance, at least before we get all self-conscious.  It’s just joyful.

 

Burpees, on the other hand, don’t make very many people joyful in and of themselves.  They are joyful at a remove (no, not because we rejoice when they’re not part of the workout).  We get joy from burpees because of what we get from having done burpees—more energy, strength, stamina for the things that make us happy.  Maybe burpees give us joy by way of chasing our kids around for hours or by helping us find the perfect outfit to knock someone special’s socks off.  We have to wait a little for the burpee kind of joy.

 

So when I design workouts or when I talk about what we all need to do for fitness, I try to include both kinds of joy.  The first kind is easy:  we pick stuff we like to do, like dancing or biking or curling or whatever.  The second kind requires a two-pronged approach.  We keep in mind the secondary kinds of joy we want to achieve by doing the less joyful exercise, and we employ coping techniques.

 

Some of my favorite coping techniques are:  friends, loud music, bribery, and speed.  Other people like classes, fancy workout clothes, or special tools.  Whatever works.

 

Let’s play.

Wear your bathing cap if it helps...

In so many of the conversations I have with people right now, I find that we’re all feeling overwhelmed.  We struggle to sleep.  We are easily distracted and often irritable.  There is too much of everything—disease, distress, ash, heat, noise, laundry.  People tell me that they just can’t.  I hear it.  I feel it.  And yet, somehow we have to cope and do.

 

For some of us, dropping the workout is the obvious way to get a bit more time.  I am not going to blame anybody who makes that choice.  I will, however, tell why that is not my choice, even when I feel like there is too much to bear.  Maybe my experience applies to more than just me; maybe not.

 

I work out for a lot of reasons.  For one, it is wonderful to have something finite that can be checked off the infinite list of things to do.  I show up, I get sweaty, I check it off.  There is no lingering sense of incompletion.  That workout is done forever.  I get to feel an increased sense of my own power because look!  I did one whole thing!  Maybe I can tackle the next thing!

 

Some of the things I do in my workout are plain fun.  I got to go swimming last week (thus the silly photo of little me in my bikini and my grandma’s bathing cap).  I love swimming.  This is a good time to choose the kinds of workout that are joyful rather than the horrible guilt-inducing ones.  Even in these times, it is all right to pick things that make us happy.

 

Speaking of making us happy, cardio exercise boosts mood.  I know I say this all the time, but it bears repeating.  When we have limited energy to spend, we need to choose to spend it on stuff that helps us.  Cardio can be one of those things.  I will never tell anyone to stop taking their antidepressants, but I will say that cardio is an excellent adjunct to medical and therapeutic help.

 

That focus thing?  Working out helps with that, too.  The science shows that our brains work better after exercise.

 

These are my reasons to work out, even when I’m tired, even when the world is full of chaos.  Join me if it seems like working out will help you, too, or rest if you need that more.

Monday Workout: Cardio Poker

This week’s body weight workout is the return of Cardio Poker!  It’s a buddy workout, so grab your partner or your kid (dogs usually can’t read, but if your dog wants to try…) and a couple decks of cards.  Choose a space that is big enough to run back and forth in.  This might be inside or out in the yard if the air allows.  You and your partner will stand at either end of the space, each with your deck of cards.

 

Both players flip over the top card of their decks.  Use the chart below to figure out what exercise to do (or make up your own chart) and do the number of repetitions based on the card (e.g., 9 of hearts means nine jump squats).  Then run to the other end of the space, flip a card, do the exercise.  Continue until both players have a full “hand” of cards to give bragging rights to the best hand, or until you are tired.

 

As always, modify as needed.  If running is not your thing, brisk movement back and forth is totally fine.  If you don’t want the kids running in the house, you can tell them to hop back and forth.  Hate squats?  Swap in jacks or something else.  What I love about this workout is that it is a great template for many workouts.

 

Go play.

 

Suit	Exercise
Hearts	squats/jump squats
Diamonds	lunge punches
Clubs	pretty princesses
Spades	pushups

Keep breathing

Almost every list of mindfulness techniques includes some kind of breathing.  I’m in favor of breathing.  It keeps us alive.  Here are four things to do to make breathing easier.

 

1.     Quit smoking.  If you don’t smoke, you’re already ahead and you can just cross this off the list.  If you do, I encourage you to quit when you’re ready.  It will help.

2.     Stretch.  Breathing uses muscles.  Muscles work better when they have some flexibility.  In the context of breathing, we want to stretch the muscles of our torsos, so do a few side bends, a forward bend or two, and maybe a bit of a backbend every once in a while.

3.     Do my favorite exercise.  Really.  It’s my favorite.  And you get to do it lying down.  Lie on your back on a firm surface (bed is ok, but the floor is better) with your knees bent and your feet flat.  Lift your arms toward the ceiling and put your hands together so that they are directly over your shoulders.  Holding your head still, move your hands from side to side, keeping your arms straight (one shoulder will move off the ground when you go to one side, the other on the other).  Do this ten times.  Now do it again, but this time move your head along with your arms.  After ten repetitions, do a set where you turn your head away from your arms.  That’s it.  It feels good and it loosens up all the tiny little joints in your thoracic spine so that you have more room to expand your ribcage when you breathe.

4.     Practice.  When we get stressed out, we tend to breathe shallowly, using the muscles of our neck to lift our shoulders instead of using our diaphragm and abdominals to breathe lower into our bellies.  When we practice deep breathing, it becomes habitual.

 

If you want, ignore all of these ideas except this one:  keep breathing.  The world needs you.