Let's feel good: four ways

Here are four things about working out that make us feel better:

 

1.     We have to breathe when we exercise.  We get breathless, we recover.  Our breathing becomes more efficient.  And poof!  Feeling better!

2.     We gain a sense of control.  Maybe the whole world is totally chaotic.  Maybe we have a ton of complex problems.  But when we go to the gym, we have simple tasks that we can do.  We leave knowing one thing is checked off the endless list.

3.     We get stronger.  Most of us can use some extra physical strength, even if we just want it to rearrange the furniture again.  But we also get metaphorical strength from the habit of working out.

4.     We like endorphins.  Our brains give us actual rewards in the form of feel-good chemicals when we work out.  And it’s all safe and legal!

 

Go play.

Body, baby!

As I have been returning to work, thanks to the technological wonder that is Zoom, I have been talking with lots of people about what equipment they have or might want.  I love toys and I have pretty much one of everything (and sometimes more!), but we don’t need a lot of stuff to get a good workout.  We come with body weight built in!  And even if we happen to reduce the amount of that body weight as a result of working out, we can STILL use it to good effect with some simple tricks.

 

Take, for example, our friend the pushup.  (Haven’t made friends with pushups yet?  No worries.  They work even if we don’t like them.)  People new to pushups may find the classic position of hands on floor, body long, balls of feet on floor too much of a challenge.  We have lots of choices for modifications.  We can put our knees on the floor instead of our feet.  We can put our hands on a sturdy table or chair.  We can stand facing a wall and put our hands there.  All of those modifications make the pushups less work.

 

As we progress, the classic position might not be enough of a challenge.  We can then make modifications like putting our feet up on a bench or chair.  We can make the work asymmetrical by raising one hand on a box or block.  We can add instability with an exercise ball.

 

The short version is that when we use our brains, we don’t need a lot of equipment to use our bodies!

 

Go play.

Sick workout? Nope.

I spent a lot of last week and the weekend being sick.  Nothing life-threatening, just annoying and inconvenient.  With luck, most of us will not have to deal with too much sickness this winter—we’re all staying home as much as possible and wearing our masks, right?—but germs are really good at finding us, especially when we are stressed.  So:  here’s my guide to figuring out when we are too sick to work out.

 

If we are feeling congestion in our chests or are otherwise having trouble breathing, we want to take things really easy.  Resting is good.  Sleeping is good.  When we get stir-crazy or when lying down and sitting become more uncomfortable than moving, we can do things like stroll slowly around the neighborhood.

 

If we are throwing up, we do not work out.  It is a bad idea.  Really.  Rest.  Drink clear fluids when they stay down.  Rest more.

 

If we have a fever, same deal.  Lots of rest.  Lots of fluids.  Probably our favorite OTC fever reducing medicine.

 

No matter what kind of sickness we have, we need to remember to come back slowly.  Our bodies have been busy with another kind of work.  We work out to be healthy, after all.  When the body is fighting germy or virus-y invaders, we need to focus on that.

 

Did I mention that rest is good?  Rest.

Monday Workout: 30-20-10

This week’s workout is a pretty classic 30-20-10.  We get our heart rate up on the first exercise of each set and keep it up with the later ones.  If you don’t have any weights available for the bench press, lateral raise, dumbbell pass, and flies, improvise with water bottles or cans or heavy books.  Short rest between each set and longer rest between each round.  Do three rounds.

 

woodchopper	30
bench press	20
lateral raise	10
mountain climbers	30
1 leg db pass	20
squats	10
plyo/regular/mod jacks	30
flies	20
femur arcs	10

 

Four

We all get bored with our same old workouts sometimes.  Here are four ways to refresh our routines.

 

1.     Do the other side first.  We all have a preferred side.  Starting with the other hand or leg gives our brains a moment of shock.

2.     Do it backwards.  If we always do the upper body first, try the lower body.  If we usually do cardio first, try weights and then cardio (after a warm up, of course!).  Have a usual circuit?  Go the other way around.

3.     Do it faster (or slower).  We can challenge ourselves to go as quickly as is safe or as slow as we can manage.  One will increase our power, the other our control.

4.     Change the location.  Take it outside, or inside, or into another room.  Or just change the music so it feels like another location—beach music anyone?

 

Go play.

Two kinds of people, one task

There are a lot of ways to divide up the motivations people have for wanting to do fitness activities, but one useful way to think about why we choose to exercise is to ask ourselves if we want to do it for direct or indirect reasons.

 

A direct reason to exercise would be something like enjoying the actual process.  This tends to apply to people who play sports or who get addicted to the mood boost that comes with cardio.  Dancers and those who do expressive sorts of exercise have direct reasons.

 

Indirect reasons are for those of us who don’t really like exercising all that much.  This does not mean that indirect reasons are less important or less powerful.  People who want to keep up with their grandchildren, who want smaller jeans, who want to carry more grocery bags at once and the like are folks with indirect reasons.

 

It’s easy to get the first group of folks to go play.  They already love it.  That second group needs reminding of the connection between the thing they don’t love so much and the reason they are doing it.  It also helps if we can find some kind of exercise that is more fun in the process for those people.

 

No matter what, we can all find a way to do this.

Flexible Pilates

One of the many things I like about Pilates is that it works the body differently than straight weight training.  This means that we can fit it into our fitness schedules in multiple places.

 

On weeks with heavy weight workouts, we can use Pilates as an active recovery, focusing on the way it builds flexibility and mobility.  When we are doing more endurance-based weight training, Pilates complements that work with its focus on core and balance.  No matter what kind of other workouts we are doing, Pilates helps us refine our proprioception (our sense of where our bodies are in space), the quality of our movements, and our use of breath.

 

As with all our fitness activities, we can do Pilates in adaptable ways that suit where we are in the moment.