Not even good for nachos...

Doing workouts is not like shopping at warehouse stores.  Or at least not in this way:  we don’t always get the best value from the ginormous pack.  Professional athletes need to work out a lot.  Regular humans don’t need quite so much.  Remember that enormous bag of tortilla chips that seemed like such a good deal?  The one that was the size of a ten-year-old?  And the first few inches of chips were great, but then everyone was sick of chips and by the time the semester ended there was this looming rock of stale corn products that everyone was afraid to approach?  Yeah, not such a good choice after all, right?

 

The metaphor got maybe a little out of control there, but there is a point in there somewhere.  And it is:  we need to work out the right amount for our goals.  If our goal is basic health, we want to commit to about 30 minutes of moderate cardio (it’s moderate if we have enough breath to chat, but not enough to sing) at least five days a week, one or two sessions of weight training on non-consecutive days, and some daily stretching/balance/core work.  That may sound like a lot if we’ve just been holding down the couch, but it averages out to less than an hour a day.  (Also, if we have been truly holding down the couch for weeks or months, we want to work up to that 30 minutes of cardio over a month or so…)

 

If we want to lose weight, it gets slightly more onerous, but only slightly.  We need to make the cardio a little harder and a little longer.  We want to commit to two or three weight training sessions a week.  And yes, we still have to do the stretching/balance/core stuff.  We also need to keep track of what we’re eating so we don’t undo all our good work at the gym.

 

And when we’re done with our workouts, we get to stop and rest.  We don’t need to do another hour on the treadmill or elliptical trainer or four hours of weight lifting.  Remember the chips:  more is not always better.

Somebunny better get hopping...

When things get stressful, my first instinct is to crawl under the covers.  There are certainly times when that is a useful response—many of us don’t get nearly enough sleep.  However, I am learning that it is often better to push back on the stress by doing some cardio.

 

On one level, this might just be caving in to some kind of instinctual pressure.  A bad thing is happening; I should run away (or bike or swim or whatever.  Hmm… anybody know if I can Zumba away from predators?).  Sure, my stressors don’t happen to look like wolves or bears, but how different can they be?  Fine.  Really different.  Still, if it makes my primordial brain feel better to run away, who am I to argue?

 

Or maybe cardio works because instead of lying there suffering, I am Taking Action.  The action might not have anything to do with what is stressing me out, but I am doing it so vigorously that I am clearly accomplishing something and so I am capable of accomplishing other things, too.

 

Yes, of course I am making things up here.  As far as I know, the science hasn’t gotten around to saying WHY cardio tends to make people feel better; the studies so far just indicate that it does improve mood and brain function.

 

So, if stress, then cardio.

Monday Workout: Two

So this week’s workout has two exercises in it.  That’s all.  It’s inspired by my moving process.  We’re going to do squats and farmer’s carries.

 

First, we are going to pick a pair of weights.  (If you don’t happen to have weights around, grab a couple of gallon jugs of water or a couple really big books or, for overachievers, a cooperative pair of kids or pets.)  Ideally, the weight is light enough to deadlift off the floor pretty easily, but not super easy to carry around for a long time.

 

Then we are going to pick a location that is six to ten strides long.  It can be out in the yard.  It can be along the hall.  It doesn’t even have to be a straight line.

 

Now we work.  We pick up the weights, hold them with our arms straight down at our sides, and walk to one end of our space.  Then we keep holding them and do ten squats.  We turn around and walk back and do ten more squats.  Repeat until you are tired or your grip fails.

 

The farmer’s carry works the grip, forearms, shoulders, and back.  The squat works everything, but particularly the lower body.  Abs should be working the whole time.

 

Simple!

Better than what I'm doing...

It’s moving day.  I’ll be spending my day hefting boxes and running up and down stairs and driving long distances and at some point collapsing.  Here are five better kinds of moving to do:

 

1.     Go for a bike/walk/run.  It gets the heart going, gets us out of the house, and improves mood.

2.     Lift weights.  They come in much more convenient shapes for lifting than furniture does.

3.     Do some yoga or other stretching.  Both muscles and mind will thank you.

4.     Hang out with Joe.  Pilates, that is.  Your brain will work along with the body and both will be smarter at the end.

5.     Do a water sport.  Swim, kayak, surf, whatever.   Water makes everything more fun!

Who needs this???

I just looked up at my window.  It has a label on it that says, “WARNING OPEN WINDOWS CAN BE HAZARDOUS.  Failure to heed this warning may result in personal injury or death.”  Suddenly I feel better about the obvious things I say in my blog.  I mean, if we need to be warned that falling out windows is bad, pretty much everything is fair game for advice.

 

So:  failure to get exercise in appropriate doses can make our lives more miserable.  We increase our susceptibility to chronic diseases.  We feel worse.  We can’t play like we want to.  Maybe it’s not as quick a hazard as falling out an open window, but the results are not totally dissimilar.

 

Note:  in general, I’m not into the dire-warning-as-motivation.  I made an exception because the warning on my window struck me funny.  Exercise:  better than falling out an open window!

First, compassion, then Pilates...

Most people do not get to be as old as I am without having some injury history.  Life is just like that.  We break a leg, or sprain an ankle a few times, or hurt a shoulder.  Injuries heal, but our bodies are not entirely the same afterwards.  In fact, one of the best predictors of injury is… previous injury.

 

Even if we don’t re-injure a body part, we can struggle with how that part behaves.  We may consciously or unconsciously compensate for that wrist we want to baby a bit or that knee that makes that weird sound.  These compensations ripple through the body and suddenly some other part is working too hard and starts to complain.

 

So what do we do?  First, we try to have some compassion for ourselves and our hard-working body parts.  Our bodies do amazing things every single day.  Yes, even the ones that don’t conform to societal standards of beauty, even the ones that creak a little more than last year, even the ones that are too whatever for our personal tastes.  Some of us might think it’s too weird to thank our bodies, out loud, for all that work they do for us, but maybe it’s not.

 

Then we tune in to what the body says back.  Maybe the body needs to move a little slower.  Maybe it would be happier moving more often during the day.  Maybe a bath?  We only get one, so it’s a good idea to treat it nicely.

 

We can also do some mindbody work.  Pilates is great for this.  We discover that our left side is both more stable and more inflexible than the right side.  Who knew?  We can encourage the right side to work a bit more and the left side to chill out a bit.  It can be disconcerting, doing a bunch of exercises that expose all the little cheats we use to get through the day, but once we find them, we can teach our bodies to do better, with less pain and suffering.

 

We can do this.

Monday Workout: More TRX

TRX was fun last week, so let’s do it again!  Or at least a different set of exercises.  Do one or two rounds, depending on time or energy.  As always, modify based on equipment on hand and personal needs.

 

1 min cardio
sprinter start with hop	20	long
curtsy	20	long
chest press deep angle	20	long
1 leg squat with hop	20	mid length
kneeling roll out	20	mid calf
TY deltoid fly	20	mid length
back row, deep angle	20	short
hamstring curl	20	mid calf
atomic oblique pushup	20	mid calf
side plank with rotation	20	mid calf