Monday Workout: Christmas in July

It’s time for the 12 Days of Christmas in July.  We do this workout twice a year, once in December and once some time in the summer and I’ve decided that now is the time.  Here’s how it works:  On the first “day,” we do one push press.  Then it is magically the second day right away and we do two goblet squats and one push press.  The third day follows immediately on the second and we do three overhead presses, two goblet squats, and one push press, continuing on until we have completed all twelve days.  We try to keep our rests to the ends of the days (most people want their first rest after day five and before the burpees start), but rest whenever necessary.  And yes, I do understand that we end up doing 42 burpees before we are done with this workout; I am probably not your true love, but I will make all of us stronger.  As always, modify as needed for your body.

 

1 push press

2 goblet squats

3 Overhead press

4 1 leg squats each leg

5 deadlifts

6 burpees

7 pushups

8 renegade rows

9 mountain climbers

10 jump lunges

11 kb swings

12 plyojacks

 

New Month!

It’s a brand-spanking-new month, so it might be a good time to make a goal or two.  Here are some possibilities:

 

1.     Work up to that 150-minutes-per-week moderate exercise that is recommended for all adults.  That’s 30 minutes of brisk walking on weekdays.

2.     Ditch the added sugar.  We don’t need those extra calories.

3.     Add some weights.  One or two weight training workouts per week can really amp up metabolism, shape the body, and encourage weight loss.

4.     Drink water.  Lots of it.  Most of us walk around slightly dehydrated, which is a good way to get tired and cranky.

5.     Get some sleep.  The average American gets less than 7 hours of sleep per night.  Literally everything works better for us when we are well-rested.

 

As always, make bite-sized goals with a bit of wiggle room in them and focus on the successes!

Natural Habitat

Lately, the illusion that I am a relatively adaptable and easy-going human has been shattered.  It was the weather that did it.  I found out that being adaptable and easy-going is a lot easier when I’m not boiling to death.  My little epiphany is useful when we think about working out.

 

It is worth taking the time to figure out what our natural workout habitat is.  Doing the workout should be the hardest part of the experience, not coping with irritating music we don’t like or too much/not enough ventilation or itchy tags in the back of our shirts.  For some of us, this means that we need to go outside and play.  Others of us want our air conditioning.  Maybe we need noise-cancelling headphones or especially cushy socks.  It is all right to work out with Bitch Face to keep people from talking to us if that is what we need; it is also all right to chat like crazy to the human on the next treadmill (assuming that person also wants to chat and that you both keep moving fast enough to count as a workout!).  This might take a fair amount of experimentation, but it really helps.

 

Go play.

Not Just a Buzz Word

I hate it when business fads wreck perfectly good words.  Synergy is a great word and a useful fitness concept, but I hesitate to write about it because I don’t want anybody spilling their coffee while they jump up and yell, “Bingo!”  (Although jumping up and down is a good way to raise heart rate…)  In business, the concept has come to mean “squeezing more out of less.”  This is not at all what I mean.

 

Every different kind of fitness activity helps every other kind, so we end up getting more out of doing two things than out of doing one for the same amount of time (two or more things working together to produce more than expected is definitional to synergy).  Let me explain how.

 

When we lift weights, we primarily use big muscles for big movements.  Pilates, on the other hand, tends to focus in on doing small movements correctly and recruits a lot more core muscles and little muscles that make fine adjustments to our motion.  The weight training makes us strong and Pilates makes us precise.  Combined, we get a lot better form in our weight training from the precision we gain in Pilates, and we find a lot more of the Pilates repertoire available to us as we get stronger.  Cardio and weight training combined have their own synergy:  the endurance of cardio makes weight training go better and the strength from weight training makes us faster in our cardio workouts.

 

Go play, in several ways!

Monday Workout: Compound

I love compound exercises.  A lot.  So this week we’re making our simple squats a bit more difficult just by raising our arms, which adds another joint to the mix and challenges our form.  Three rounds.

 

kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s or over yets	10
mountain climbers	30
overhead squat	20
lateral raise	10
step ups	30
rows	20
brains	10

 

Out loud is all right

We all talk to ourselves, although some of us are more subtle about it than others.  How we talk to ourselves when we work out matters.  Here are some things to consider:

 

1.     Give yourself positive feedback.  This means noticing what is going right, even if it is very small.  “I showed up today!  Good job!”  “Lifting that weight one time is more than I did yesterday!  Hooray!”

2.     Focus on process.  “I went to the gym three times this week.”  “I spent 30 minutes on the elliptical trainer.”

3.     Process your feelings.  It is all right if you don’t like working out.  One of the things I said about a gazillion times to my kids (and still do, even though they are adults now) is “You don’t have to like it, but you do have to do it.”  Acknowledging that some parts of what you are doing to get what you want are unpleasant is healthy and useful.

4.     No insults and no apologies.  You are not lazy or stupid.  You may not be where you want to be in terms of your fitness or your body shape or whatever, but you are working on it, so give yourself some respect.  You are also doing your best, so do not apologize for not being perfect (I had to learn this one the hard way; my trainer made me do pushups every time I apologized during a workout.  I got a lot better at pushups while I learned…)

5.     Encourage yourself.  This can be a hard one.  Sometimes it helps to imagine that you are encouraging someone else, maybe a small child or a best buddy.

Fantasy and reality

It is the nature of my work that I read a fair amount about workout programs and systems and how to achieve goals.  They’re all very neat and pretty.  I have a recurring batch of fantasies about how someday I will find or make the perfect system, enabled by the perfect planner and suddenly the planets will align, my skin will be flawless, peace will break out throughout the earth, and I’ll never sink into the murk of despair again.  I mentioned that this is a fantasy, right?

 

Here in Reality Land, it’s not quite so neat and pretty.  We don’t all progress through the stages of a workout program at the same rate.  Sometimes we hit a plateau and we have to get creative to climb off it.  Sometimes we backslide.  And, on special occasions, we progress faster than we expect.  The nice clean workout sheets get marked up and corrected and scribbled on as we adjust to what is actually happening.

 

We do have the option of avoiding adjusting, but it’s not a good one.  When we force our progress to adhere to an abstract idea of what it should be, we are asking for boredom if we happen to move faster or injury if we need a little more time.  The key, as always, is to pay attention.

 

This, of course, is why a trainer can be handy.  It’s my job to pay attention to how things are going, make the adjustments, and help my clients get to their goals.  I’m here to customize the workouts for each individual and to shift in the moment if life has made unexpected left turns.  I am not necessary, but I am useful.