On Balance

Balance is both a talent and a skill.  I can’t help the talent part, but here are some exercises to practice to build it as a skill.  (Note:  safety is key.  Have something nearby to hold if needed.)

 

1.     Stand on one foot.  Basic, I know.  A good time to do this is while brushing our teeth in the morning, since we are standing there anyway.

2.     Play one-leg catch.  We need a friend for this one and a soft ball.  I use a Koosh ball.  Both of us stand on one leg and toss the ball back and forth.  Then we switch legs.  This is more difficult than just standing on one leg because we’ve added movement and coordination to the mix.

3.     Do calf raises.  Stand with feet hip distance apart and rise up on the toes and come back down.  When that gets easy, try doing it on one leg at a time.

4.     Do single leg squats.  This is the opposite of a calf raise.  Stand on one foot and bend and straighten the knee of the standing leg.

5.     Do single leg dumbbell passes.  Stand on one leg holding a light dumbbell or kettle bell (start with 3 or 5 pounds).  Pass the weight from one hand to the other around the body five times in one direction and five times in the other direction.  Then repeat on the other leg.

6.     Do single leg deadlifts.  I call these drinking birds, after the toy.  Stand on one leg and bend the torso forward as the other leg lifts up behind.  Return to start and repeat five or ten times; then do the other leg.

 

For all of these exercises, make sure that the abs stay engaged.

 

Go play.

Older but better.

We are all, God willing, going to get older.  What we do now can help determine how well that process goes.

 

First, we can make sure that we’re getting our cardio exercise.  Cardio helps us maintain or reach a healthy weight.  It increases our endurance.  It reduces stress, improves brain function, and lifts our mood.  Not incidentally, it contributes to heart health.

 

Then we can lift some weights.  As we age, our muscle mass drops unless we work on it.  Weight lifting improves our metabolism, helps with our bone density, and assists us with what physical therapists call Activities of Daily Living, like opening jars and moving furniture.

 

Additionally, we can work on our flexibility and balance.  Flexibility work (like yoga and Pilates) can help us increase or at least preserve our range of motion so we can do things like pick up stuff from the floor or turn our heads while driving.  Balance work targets our core muscles.  It helps us prevent falls and other injuries and generally move through life with more grace.

 

Let’s not go gently!

Is Your Trainer Fit?

I have mentioned before that I am not the right trainer for everyone.  There are people out there who need different things than I can provide.  Here are some ways to tell if a trainer is a good fit.

 

Does the person have the knowledge/education/training to keep us safe?  All of us should ask if the trainer we are talking to has a certification (NASM or ACE or similar) to be a personal trainer at all.  It is also worth asking about a trainer’s specializations and continuing education.  For example, people with an extensive injury history might want to know that their trainer knows about corrective exercise.  Older folks might want to know that their needs are understood and planned for.  That’s just basic.

 

Does the person know how to get us to our goals?  If we are just getting started on our fitness journey, we want someone who knows how to move us along gradually so we don’t burn out or get injured.  If we are training for an event like a marathon or a century ride, we want someone whose workouts facilitate those goals.  If we are trying to lose weight, we might want to seek out someone who not only has the skill to plan our workouts but also the appropriate knowledge to help us make good food choices.

 

Is the person likeable?  I know likeable is a very fuzzy term, but I’m using it on purpose.  We have to feel comfortable with the person training us.  Some of us want rah-rah cheerleading trainers.  Some of us want a more matter-of-fact approach.  Some of us (I find this hard to believe, but it seems to be true) want someone to yell at us until we do our work.  How much does the person talk?  Does the person give enough information?  Too much?  Not enough?  Do they give understandable directions and demonstrations?  When we are struggling, do they understand how to motivate us?  Most importantly, does the person listen and hear what we have to say about what we need?

 

Finally, is the person reliable?  We need to know that our trainer is organized enough to show up for our workouts as scheduled and to communicate with us when there is a problem.  This is a surprisingly rare skill.

 

Do not hesitate to ask lots of questions.  When we pay good money for training, we should know that we are getting what we need.

Monday Workout: Old Favorites!

Sometimes I forget about an exercise for a while and then I remember it and get all excited.  This week, we return to the clean and press AND we get to (have to?) do YTA.  Three rounds.

 

clean and press	30
deadlift	20
lateral raise	10
squat to leg lift	30
lunge with twist	20
YTA	10
standing mountain climbers	30
rows	20
quadruped	10

 

In the bag!

Getting organized to go to the gym can be stressful.  Here are six things to make sure we have in our bags:

 

1.     Mask.  Going to the gym is a lot less healthy when we share germs.  I know it’s uncomfortable, but so is dying.

2.     Water bottle.  Dehydrated people are crabby people.  They also perform worse.

3.     Toiletries.  What exactly we bring depends on how elaborate our routines are, but shampoo, comb, and deodorant seem like the minimum.

4.     Extra clothes.  Sure, we need regular clean clothes for after the workout, but sometimes stuff happens even before that and we need something to wear that doesn’t have food/blood/sweat/whatever on it.

5.     Plastic bag.  For dirty and messy stuff.  If we’re not getting dirty and messy, why are we going to the gym at all?

6.     Headphones.  Not only can we listen to what we want to listen to while we work, we can avoid annoying conversations (whether ours or other people’s!).

 

Now go!

Whine away...

One of the things I used to say to my kids a lot was that they didn’t have to like doing whatever it is I needed them to do, but they did have to do it.  It may have annoyed them (I have it on good authority that I am the Meanest Mom in the Entire Universe, so I’m sure I annoyed them often!).  I thought it was important, though, and I still think so.

 

There is a lot of pressure around us not only to do hard things but to do them with a positive attitude.  This may be because it helps other people avoid feeling bad for not giving us a hand or for not overthrowing oppressive systems or something.  Point is:  there is plenty of pressure out there and life is hard enough without pretending that we feel great about doing difficult stuff.  We may feel proud of ourselves afterward.  We may like what we got out of the experience as a whole.  But we don’t have to like the process.

 

It turns out that sometimes allowing ourselves to dislike things (like, say, lunges) takes away some of their power.  I can do more lunges when I don’t have to smile and pretend they’re fun and I can even have enough energy left to remember why I’m doing them anyway:  they work my lower body and core and balance and burn a bunch of calories.  Whining can be entirely good for us.

 

As long as we do the work.

Enthusiasm, cookies, minimums, and the dark side

Every gift we have has a darker side, as we all know.  Cookies:  delicious, but so many calories!  Speed, but then we feel impatient.  Cars, but then we don’t walk as much and we get mad at traffic.  All fine examples, but the one that is plaguing me today is enthusiasm.  Maybe I am not alone.

 

I get excited about stuff.  Spin is great!  Weight lifting is great!  I love yoga!  Oooh!  Shiny Pilates!  Oh, yeah, and I want to ride my bike and ski and rent a kayak and and and.  I run around trying to Do All The Things and suddenly I am very very tired.

 

I could just become enthusiastic about naps, which is not a terrible idea; I, like nearly all of us, could use more sleep on a regular basis.  However, there is another way to cope:  the minimum.

 

I’ve talked about this a lot from various perspectives, but today the minimum protects us from the excesses of our enthusiasm.  We have those times when we’re convinced that we should do that AND that AND that AND that other thing over there, too, until we are exhausted, overwhelmed, and inclined to feel inadequate for not finishing everything.  The minimum is the basic amount we need to do to be healthy and sane.  It is a widely applicable system, but I’ll confine my examples to fitness since that’s the scope of my practice.

 

We all need to find our own minimums.  The general guidelines for health suggest that we need about 30 minutes of moderate cardio exercise about five days a week.  If we have not been moving at all, that might be way too high for a first minimum and we might want to choose something like walking to the mailbox or around the block.  Those of us who have been working out regularly may find that we need that cardio every day and that there are some stretches that really make life a lot better when we do them daily.  Others of us may not need to set a cardio minimum, but we know we need to lift weights on Mondays and Fridays to feel like ourselves.  The key is to make it something we can achieve even when we’re having a terrible day.  Maybe everything possible went wrong, but darn it, we did five whole minutes of yoga; if we can manage that, we can cope with whatever else comes up.

 

Go do just a little.  It’s enough.  And we are enough, too.