Paradox Land is a nice place to visit

I hang out in paradox land a lot.  It’s a useful place once we get used to it.  Today’s bulletin about cognitive dissonance is about form in exercise.

 

On one hand, perfect is the enemy of the good.  Any workout is better than no workout.  This is absolutely true.  We don’t want to sweat the small stuff when what we really want is to sweat.

 

But then there is that other hand.  That hand reminds me that when we don’t pay attention to our form, we get hurt.  We also train our bodies to do things poorly, which may not cause injury, but sets us up for chronic pain or weird overuse suffering.

 

Once again, the middle way comes to the rescue.  We want to be mindful enough about form to avoid getting hurt and not so mindful that we paralyze ourselves trying to execute perfection on the very first day.  Good form is a process, not an achievement.  We may not be capable of getting our knees in the right place on our first squats, but as we get stronger and build our endurance, we learn how to engage the right muscles to do better and better.  We refine as we go on.

 

In short, working out is a skill like any other skill.  We improve when we practice.  Good guidance at the beginning helps us stay safe while we learn how to take care of ourselves. 

No, I can't make you...

I am an enabler, and I’m proud of it.  A lot of people think that my job is to make people work out.  It’s not.  I’m there to help people work out.  I can’t make anybody do anything (if I could, my house would be cleaner, there would be world peace, and really comfortable clothes would be the peak of style).

 

What I can do is give people the tools to motivate themselves and the skills to do a good job of working out.  I encourage.  I share my knowledge and experience and observations.  And then I stand there and watch them go.  That last part, being present, is part accountability and part support.  I do have a Mom Look, but, as I have realized over time, the reason the Mom Look works is because moms love us and want us to succeed.

 

I am here to enable folks to reach their potential.

 

Go play.

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