One sick workout??

I’ve had a cold for the last week or so, which means I have been thinking about whether or not to work out.  Here are some general guidelines for anyone in a similar situation.

 

First, we want to avoid “sharing” our illness with others.  This means skipping the gym workouts and the non-virtual classes and training sessions.  Having a home-based or outside workout for this situation is a good idea.  No one will like us if we share our germs, and this is especially true in pandemic times as flu season approaches.  I hope we have all learned a lot in the last while about taking care of other people’s health by staying away from them when we are sick, but it is never bad to be reminded.

 

Now that we’ve got public safety out of the way, we can address the personal issues.  One of the first things to keep in mind is that IT IS OKAY TO REST.  Sorry to shout, but it can be hard to be heard over the noise of the Protestant Work Ethic and all that advertising telling us we’re not doing enough to be fabulous and the general ick of the white-supremecist-imperialist-cis-normative-heteronormative-capitalist patriarchy.  Our bodies need more sleep when we are sick.  Fighting off bacterial or viral invaders takes a lot of energy.  If we don’t feel up to working out, we don’t have to do it.  The workouts will still be there for us when we feel better.

 

If we don’t feel like we need to rest all that much, it is still a good idea not to go for a personal record of any kind while we are sick.  Skip the hill route, substitute a walk for a run, do the body weight workout, or do restorative yoga.  This is one time when a light workout is definitely better than a challenging one.

 

Cardio is normally one of my favorite things because of its mood-boosting properties.  However, when just plain breathing is hard because we’re congested or coughing, it is best to choose something like stretching or yoga or light weight-lifting or Pilates.  Our bodies are working hard enough fighting the snot.

 

Another thing to consider is how well our brains are working.  When we are fuzzy-headed from congestion or from decongestants, we may not have the focus to keep ourselves safe while working out.  When in doubt, skip the workout; it’s much better to miss one workout than to get injured and miss lots of them.

 

Finally:  drink lots of water.  This is always true, but especially when we are sick.

Monday Workout: Back at it!

I’m back!  Ready to work?  Good!  Three rounds:

 

jacks	30
rows	20
Arnold press	10
woodchoppers	30
bench press	20
pushups	10
lunge punches	30
flies	20
pretty princesses	10

  

The WORST!

I usually keep stuff positive, because it’s just good practice, but today, just for fun, I’m going to list my least-favorite exercises.  (Guess what?  I do them anyway!)

 

1.     Lunges.  I really hate doing lunges.  They’re hard.  They challenge my balance.  I have to think about how I align my feet and knees and about where my shoulders are in space.  They make my butt sore.  Once I made up a whole song about hating lunges to get through a very long set of walking lunges.  It was a terrible song, but not as terrible as doing lunges.  But, yeah, I do them because they DO challenge my balance and make me think and all that.

2.     Burpees.  Nearly everybody hates burpees.  Doing burpees well requires lots of stamina and a fair bit of coordination.  A sense of humor doesn’t hurt either, as the body tries to go along with what I’m asking it to do.  Practice makes them easier, but so far not more fun.  Unfortunately, avoiding them just makes them worse.

3.     Plyojacks.  Every time I do a set of 30 plyojacks, I question my own sanity around the fifteenth rep.  By the third set of 30, the question has been answered definitively:  yep, I’m crazy.  Also tired.  However, they burn a boat-load of calories, increase metabolism, and build endurance.

4.     The Hundred.  As much as I love Uncle Joe Pilates, when I do the hundred, I conclude that he was not always a very nice man.  Ow.  And yet, it is a great exercise for the core and it helps me figure out how to breathe under challenging circumstances.

 

Agree?  Disagree?  Have some to add?

Stressing Fitness!

Moving always makes the list of stressful life events and I wholeheartedly agree with this assessment.  Even a good move is hard on the body and the soul.  However, I am noticing with this current move, the other kind of moving I do helps.

 

Sure, there is the practical bit:  when I lift weights, I get stronger, so I can schlepp more books and boxes and why-do-we-even-have-that-family-gradunzas.

 

The part that seems even more useful right now is what exercise does to manage stress.  I rely on cardio to boost my mood.  I need the weights to take the frustrations that build up in even the best-planned move.  And, of course, I need the exercise to burn off the stress eating I do (hey, nobody’s perfect!).

 

When the move is all over and I’m back to my regular life, I hope I remember how much exercise helped.  I hope I can keep working on my stress-resilience through exercise.

 

Anyone else?

Gratitude!

It might just be me (I doubt it!) who goes around complaining about what my body can’t or won’t do.  News flash:  I am 53 years old, not 23, so some stuff is out of warranty, so to speak.

 

Today, however, it is time for me (and anybody who would like to join me) to express some thanks to my body for all the things it does do.  In some ways, I could kick my own 23-year-old butt thanks to the workouts I’ve put in over the last 30 years, but that’s not even what I mean.  All by itself, my body remembers to breathe.  It keeps my heart beating and processes the food I eat.  When I work it, it recovers and repairs whatever I break.  It carries me from place to place.  It lets me experience this magical world.  What a gift!

 

What I can give my body back is some decent care.  I can feed it healthy food and give it rest when it needs it.  I can remember to stretch it.  I can reduce the bad kinds of stress I put on it and increase the useful, exercise kinds.

 

I am grateful.

Monday Workout: Body Weight

I’m not at work this week because I’m working on moving.  In other words, my personal workout will involve hefting eighty gazillion boxes.  Assuming everyone else would rather have some other kind of workout, I offer this one in my absence.  It is all body-weight exercises, so there is really no excuse.  A sturdy step is useful for this circuit, but if one is not available, substitute marching or running in place.  Three or four rounds, depending on energy and time:

 

step ups	30
squats	30
pushups	10
jacks	30
1 leg squats	10
lunge punches	20
pretty princesses	10
brains	10

 

The clothes make the worker-outer?

Let’s talk about workout basics, like what the heck we’re supposed to wear.  Short answer:  whatever we want, as long as we’re safe.  Longer answer:  here are some things to consider:

 

1.     Shoes.  We don’t have to wear them if we’re doing yoga or Pilates or various other kinds of exercise, but if we’re playing sports or biking or running or lifting weights, it’s a good idea to wear supportive and comfortable shoes.  It is worth experimenting to find the right shoes because nothing makes a human miserable faster than blisters.

2.     Socks.  They help with that blister thing.  They also add some cushion.  Some people love their cotton socks, but there are some spiffy new athletic fibers that can help with the stinky feet thing and also keep our feet feeling drier.

3.     Pants.  Or shorts.  Old-school Rocky-style gray sweats are certainly an option, but again, cotton tends to get wet, heavy, and smelly as we work harder.  Pants can have wicking fabric, extra support, and even pockets!

4.     Shirts.  Again, that ratty t-shirt that the kids gave us as a joke ten years ago is a perfectly acceptable workout shirt, but we deserve something nicer and less sopping if we want it.  I will give a plug here to bike shirts, which very often have big pockets at the small of the back, which are super handy for workouts that don’t involve bikes, too.

5.     Support garments.  I’ll let the male-identifying people discuss their underwear among themselves, but those of us who identify as female need to make sure that we have bras that both allow us to breathe and to feel secure no matter how hard we work or how high we jump.  Also, synthetic fabric undies are less likely to get truly uncomfortably damp and/or baggy.

6.     Other layers.  Folks who work out early or late may want a warmth layer or a visibility layer.

7.     Cute stuff.  No, our workout clothes don’t have to be cute, but it can provide a needed boost to our confidence to have an outfit that looks as good as it works.

8.     Activity-specific stuff.  If we bike, we need a helmet.  Swimmers might want goggles or caps.  We want to get the stuff we need to make what we do fun as well as useful.

 

Go play.