Aware...

The purpose of doing workouts is not just to do workouts.  The point is to feel better than we would if we didn’t do workouts.  Sometimes we lose sight of this, or at least I do.

 

When things get really stressful and I’m overtired or overcaffeinated or both, I get crabby.  I find myself grumbling through my workouts and scrunching up my face and holding my shoulders tightly up toward my ears.  I try to notice when that’s happening.  Once I’m aware, I have two choices:  to keep working or to rest.  Both options have good points.

 

Most of the time, I know that if I keep working, I will end up happier at the end.  The magic of cardio will do its thing on my mood, my brain will work better, and I’ll have the pleasant soreness of after-weights instead of the unpleasant soreness of clenching everything to no purpose.  The awareness lets me release my shoulders, get back in touch with the present moment instead of whatever it is that I’m obsessing over, and get a bit of perspective.

 

Sometimes, however, it is time to stop the workout and rest.  I do this if my body hurts too much, if I have trouble keeping my motion in a safe range, or if I’m too tired to focus.  The final exercise in the set in that case is releasing the guilt.  I am still a worthwhile human even if I rest sometimes instead of working out.

 

Maybe everyone else out there is not like me, but I suspect that I’m not alone in needing to be aware of tension and to decide appropriately how to handle it.  We can do this.

The boss...

I am a trained professional.  This means that I know about fitness in general, along with techniques for losing weight, building muscles, increasing flexibility, and all that good stuff.  What I am NOT is an expert on anyone else’s specific body.

 

We are all unique.  My quirks are not anybody else’s.  No one else has to work around my own personal problems, injury history, anxieties (I hear that collective sigh of relief from way over here!).  I can be the most empathetic person on the planet, but I will never be able to feel anyone else’s pain in a real sense.

 

Because of this, I am never the boss of anybody else’s workout.  I make suggestions and I use my knowledge and experience to guide clients through exercises as safely as possible, but only my clients know when something hurts a bad way.  I can make observations and reasonable inferences about when my clients are reaching limits.  There are times when I certainly tell folks that they are done with a particular exercise.  It’s even more important to note that there are times when my clients need to tell me that they are done—I welcome hearing that and I respect clients’ decisions.

 

I will always encourage clients to go as far as they can.  That’s my job.  But clients have a job, too, and that includes saying stop when their bodies are done.

Monday Workout: TRX

Let’s play with the TRX today.  Do one or two rounds.  (If you don’t have a TRX, that’s all right—all of these exercises work just fine on the ground.)

 

TRX
squat row (mid)	20
mountain climber (mid calf)	20
clock press (long)	20
overhead squat (long)	20
crossing balance lunge (mid)	20
plank (mid calf)	30 sec
low row (mid)	20
burpee (mid calf)	10
crunch	10
hamstring curl	10

 

Make it better...

I think the least useful fitness phrase ever is “No pain, no gain.”  I’m a believer in “No pain, no pain.”  (This does not mean that fitness is never uncomfortable.  There are always exercises that challenge our character as well as our bodies, but less sucking it up is better, on the whole.)

 

However, if we are doing enough in our workouts, we will end up sore from time to time.  This is a good thing and helps us get stronger.  We do need to have a few coping techniques.  Notice that I am NOT talking about injury protocol.  If we get injured, we need to seek medical attention and do what our doctors tell us.

 

Here are a few soreness-fighters, including the classics that all trainers recommend.

 

1.     Rest.  We already build this into our workout plans (I hope) by choosing not to work the same muscle groups two days in a row in our strength workouts.  This also means that if we worked some muscle particularly hard, we give it time to recover before we work it a bunch more.  If we are still really sore on the third day after a workout, we know that we need to dial it back a bit next time.

2.     Ice.  Ice reduces swelling.  If we have an actual injury with swelling, ice is an excellent friend.

3.     Heat.  Heat does not help swelling, but it is soothing.  If muscles feel like they are clenched beyond repair, a heating pad, microwavable pad, or hot bath or shower can help the muscles unfold a bit.

4.     Ibuprofen.  Unless there is an allergy or other reason not to take it.  OTC medications help and we are not weaker humans for taking them.

5.     Massage.  Admittedly, in a pandemic, this is not an easy option to take unless we planned ahead and got quarantined with a talented provider.  However, exploiting our spouses, partners, and/or children to help rub sore spots can be a viable thing, especially if we are willing to reciprocate.

6.     Self-myofascial release.  This works less well than good massage, but a whole lot better than nothing.  Quality time with a foam roller or set of tune-up balls can make the world seem like a friendlier place.

 

Again, we work out to feel better, not worse.  Fight the soreness and then do the next workout.

Lift with legs, not with back...

 

I’m getting ready to move.  I own approximately 75 gazillion books along with all the usual stuff people have in their houses.  This seems like a good time to talk about what kind of activities that are not traditionally fitness-related count as workouts.  (And yes, I am counting packing and schlepping all those books as a workout.)

 

I COULD make a list, but that would be silly.  Instead, I’m going to outline the principles so we can all figure it out in the moment.

 

If we end up sweating, it’s probably a workout.  I qualify the statement with that “probably” because if it happens to be a hot day and we’re sitting on our behinds in the yard leisurely picking a weed or two, we are likely to be sweating, we are technically gardening, but we’re probably not getting a workout.  If we’re lopping branches and hauling them, or raking and sweeping vigorously, or turning over soil, we are gardening and working out at once.

 

If we are sore the next day, it’s probably a workout.  This one doesn’t help so much in the moment, but it’s still useful.  It helps us distinguish between the kind of housework where we move all the furniture and really get in and scrub the floors or walls or whatever and the kind where we just wave a duster over things and call it a day.

 

If we get breathless, it’s probably a workout.  We all have those days, particularly if we have a house with stairs, when it seems like we are up and down them all the time bringing something to where it is supposed to be.  I call this the tidying version of interval training.

 

There are benefits to getting our workouts in a non-gym setting.  The fancy name for it is “functional fitness” and there are plenty of gym workouts that try to mimic the effects of this kind of activity.  We learn a lot about the practical application of physics and about how many heavy objects in normal life would be easier to move if they were only shaped like dumbbells and barbells.  That said, all those gym workouts make things like moving less of a struggle.

 

We can do this.

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.