Mobility vs. Flexibility: YES!

I hear a lot about people feeling stiff (No, not like that.  Get your mind out of the gutter!).  There are at least two things going on there, and we often have some confusion about a couple of common terms.  I’m going to explain.

 

Flexibility is about muscles.  When our muscles feel stiff, we need to stretch them.  This happens when we are stuck in a chair for too long or we do a bunch of exercise and don’t stretch afterwards to help our muscles recover from all that contracting.  Flexibility is a learnable skill, although there will always be folks who are more flexible than others.

 

Mobility, on the other hand, is about bones and joints.  As we get older, mobility can be affected by things like osteoarthritis.  We want to preserve as much mobility as we can and the way we do that is to take our joints through their full range of motion pretty much daily.  Mobility is a lot more structural, but we still can help it along by working on our flexibility and by continuing to move.

 

Bottom line:  moving is still good.  Go play.

Improve Mental Health!

Let’s talk about mental health for a minute or two.  Mental health treatment is out of my scope of practice (I am not a doctor or a therapist; I don’t even play one on tv.).  That said, actual researchers have gathered data on the links between exercise and mental health.  Here’s what they have to say:

 

Cardio exercise improves mood.  Those of us who suffer from depression and anxiety can benefit from getting moving.  In some studies, cardio was as effective or more effective than antidepressants (please note:  do NOT stop taking medication without talking to a doctor.).  It is a helpful adjunct to whatever our healthcare providers suggest we do for our mental health.

 

Exercise also helps relieve stress.  Different kinds of exercise relieve it in different ways, in my experience.  Those of us who need to practice chilling out might want to go to Pilates or yoga.  Those with some aggression to burn might prefer cardio or weights.

 

Finally, that whole Juvenal (yes, I looked it up) healthy mind in a healthy body turns out to be true.  When our bodies are healthy, our minds feel better, too.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Twist!

This week we’re working with the transverse plane (that is, twisting!).  This is good practice for the twists and turns of real life!  Three rounds.

 

overhead curtseys	30
deadlifts or 1 leg deadlifts	20
kickbacks	10
kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s	10
suitcase swings	30
lunge twists	20
pretty princesses	10

 

I think we can all include that fifth reason...

We all have different reasons for working out, and they’re all valid as long as they are really ours (other people don’t get to have reasons for OUR workouts; they can do their own).  Here are five we might find motivating.

 

1.     We want to live longer.  Exercise helps us avoid a huge long list of things that can kill us, including heart disease, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, glucose management, and more.

2.     We want to live better.  None of us particularly want to live to be 215 if the last half is all about wheelchairs, diapers, and drool.  Active people tend to have a better quality of life as they age.

3.     We want to look cute.  For some of us, this is all about muscle tone.  Others of us would just like to fit into cuter clothes.

4.     We want to do something else that requires our fitness.  Maybe we want to do a hiking trip through Europe.  Maybe we want to check out 57 books from the library at once and get them all to the car.  Maybe we want to play tag with our puppy or child or grandchild.  Fitness is useful for all of those things and more.

5.     We want better sex.  Do I need to explain this one?  I didn’t think so.

 

Go play. 

I don't care about your attitude

There is a strong trend or pressure or theme in our society about having a positive attitude.  You read about people who feel that they beat cancer by thinking positive or visualized their way to great wealth and happiness or whatever.  I am not going to opine about whether those stories are true or not, but I am going to say that it is not all that important to have a positive attitude during a workout.

 

Workouts are challenging.  They’re supposed to be.  We are, on purpose, pushing our bodies to do more than they’d choose to do on their own (bodies are really really good at finding the easiest way to do something).  We do not need to project our inner ballerina while we work out; we are not performing for an audience.  It is all right to sweat and swear and whine about how hard things are.  Smiles are not essential to the process.  We do not have to put pressure on ourselves to do the hard thing and project enjoyment the whole time—workouts are for bodies, not for character development.

 

That said, it is definitely all right to celebrate that record lift or new fastest time.  It is all right to make silly jokes and to take ourselves lightly while we lift heavy.

 

The important bit in all of it is that we show up and do the work.

No pain, no... Yeah, I don't buy it

I am, perhaps, a little countercultural for a personal trainer.  I really hate the slogan, “No pain, no gain.”  A lot.  Pain is there for a reason, and the reason is not to make us stronger, but to make us stop when we need to.

 

This is not to say that working out is always as comfortable as lying in bed or as fun as a birthday party.  Sometimes we do have to do some things we’d rather not.  Very few exercises actually hurt (looking at you, hamstring curls with the TRX) if we are doing them correctly.  I will always be honest about exercises that may not be the most pleasant, I will explain why I want us to do them, and, if they are not appropriate for the person in front of me, I’ll substitute something else.

 

We need to understand the difference between discomfort and pain.  Discomfort is the feeling we have when we’re out of breath because we’re doing some challenging cardio or when our muscles are fatigued on the last rep of a set.  Pain is the feeling that accompanies injury—the sprained ankle, the broken arm, the torqued back.  When we feel pain, the appropriate response is to stop what we are doing, period.  It is not something to push through or buck up under or whatever macho suck-it-up phrase we want to use.  If we do keep going when there is pain, we are asking to make our injury worse, our recovery longer, and our lives more miserable.

 

Discomfort, on the other hand, means that we are doing what we need to do to grow.  We need to put up with it during our workouts, but once the workouts are done, I am a big believer in making it go away.  That might mean rest, or Ibuprofen if that is something we can take, or extra hydration, or a hot bath or shower, or ice.

 

It doesn’t have to be horrible, dear ones.

Monday Workout: Balance

We had a bit of a break from balance exercises, but now I’m back to them because they are so beneficial to our daily life.  Three rounds.

 

squat to leg lift	30
curls	20
pushups	10
mountain climbers	30
1 leg deadlift	20
skullcrushers	10
lunge punches	30
1 leg squat	20
Russian twist	10