Grateful!

It’s time for the annual gratitude list, focusing on fitness things.  Here are ten things I am thankful for:

 

1.     My body.  Sure, it’s not perfect, but it is one amazing gizmo.  It breathes!  It moves!  It lets me experience the world!

2.     Food.  I have plenty of access to healthy and nourishing food.  Also, food is tasty and makes me happy.

3.     Clean water.  So much of the world does not have access to reliable, clean water.  I can stay hydrated, cook food, and even get clean!

4.     Health care.  This could be several gratitude items, but the one that is top of mind right now, not surprisingly, is vaccinations.  Not only do I not have COVID, I also do not have polio or measles or chicken pox or smallpox or diptheria.  My children did not die when they were small from preventable diseases.

5.     Outside.  Walking, hiking, swimming, and biking out in the world are joys in my fitness life.  Nature is beautiful and restorative.

6.     Spin bike.  Or as I often call it, the Magic Mood Machine.  Cardio in general is good for moods, but my spin bike in particular is excellent.

7.     Uncle Joe.  Pilates, that is.  He created a system that makes my body feel so much better.

8.     Uncle Patanjali.  He’s the author of one of the basic yoga texts.  Yoga helps address the challenges my mind and body present.

9.     Weights.  They make me stronger and they do not mind when I take my bad moods out on them.

10.  Getting to work with wonderful clients.  I am very very lucky to work with such strong, funny, smart humans.

 

What are yours?

How to Modify

Workouts are not one-size-fits-all.  I mean, I’m not going to try to do a marathoner’s workout because I like continuing to breathe and I’m not going to get what I need from a workout geared toward someone who has been bedridden for the last year.  That part is obvious.  However, even workouts that are designed for people with more or less our level of fitness may need modifications to be right for the individuals we are.  Here are some ways to customize the exercises to make them optimal for us.

 

If we have an injury, current or chronic:  we may need to make some substitutions.  Folks with bad knees will want to avoid jumping.  People who have recently given birth may also prefer non-impact exercises to avoid leakage.  Those of us who are older and may have bone density issues will want to avoid spinal flexion.  These are only a few examples, but the basic principle is that if it hurts, don’t do it.

 

If the workout is too hard:  we have some choices to make, depending on how it is too hard.  If we are too out of breath, we need to tone down the cardio by moving slower, moving smaller, or resting more.  This is another place where lower- or no-impact exercises can help.  If our muscles can’t cope with the load, we can, obviously, use smaller weights, but we can also do fewer repetitions.  Also, there are many ways to work the same muscle groups.  If, for example, a renegade row is too challenging, we can do a bent-over row instead.

 

If the workout is too easy:  we can increase the challenge.  From a cardio standpoint, if we want more challenge, the easiest way to do that is to add jumping.  Plain squats become jump squats.  Step ups become jump ups.  It is also possible to increase the cardio aspect of a workout by making movements bigger.  This is the cardio difference between overhead presses and clean and presses.  Heavier weights can also add more cardio to the mix.  And there are always cardio intervals:  throw in a minute of jump rope or a quick sprint on the treadmill between sets of weights for cardio fun.  The solution if the weight part is too easy is not always just throwing more weight at ourselves, although that does often do the trick.  It depends on what our goals are.  Many of us may find that we get the challenge we want from doing more compound exercises and fewer isolation exercises (lunge to curl versus bicep curl, for example).  In general, when we increase weight, we want to reduce the number of repetitions until we get used to the new weight.  Then when the new weight gets easy, we add reps, alternating our way upward to greatness.

 

If we really really hate a particular exercise, most of the time we don’t have to do that one.  There are a lot of exercises out there and we can usually find a different way to attack the same problem.  There are very few things we just have to suck up; this is a good thing.

 

Ultimately, I encourage everyone to experiment and see what works.  As we work out more, we will need to continue to experiment as our capabilities expand.

 

Go play. 

(Not) Crunch Time

There are a fair number of misconceptions floating around out there about what our core muscles are and what they do and how we are supposed to work them.  I could write a very long post about that, but none of us has that kind of attention span.  Instead, I’m going to focus on one that I really dislike:  we can flatten our stomachs by doing crunches.  It’s a particularly sneaky misconception in that it is not entirely false, but definitely misleading. 

 

First of all, we cannot out-crunch a bad diet.  Doing a thousand crunches a day (and who has that kind of time?) will not help if we are living on Snickers bars and gravy.  The biggest step we can make toward a flatter stomach, if that is one of our goals, is to begin or recommit to healthy eating.

 

Second, crunches are not a good exercise for everyone.  Anyone with bone loss should avoid exercises with flexion (curving the spine forward, like we do when we bend over to tie our shoes).  Crunches can be challenging for people with low back pain as well.

 

Then there is the whole issue of form in crunches.  When we put our hands behind our heads and use our arms to yank our skulls forward, we are not getting the optimum bang for our exercise buck.  I teach crunches (which are called “chest lifts” in Pilates) very differently than many of us learned back in our P.E. days.  Yes, we put our hands behind our heads, but the only reason our heads lift when we do chest lifts is because they are attached to the top of our spines.  Instead, we focus on pulling our breast bones down toward our feet.  This focuses the work on the area of the abdominals just below where those of us who identify as female have our bra straps in the front.  Additionally, when we try to force ourselves up too high, our abdominals tend to puff out in the area between our navels and pubic bones.  It is important to take a moment to think about spreading the lower abdominals out across our bodies to encourage them to stay flat as we work them.  We also need to work with our breath when doing crunches:  we want to exhale as we curl up and inhale as we return to the starting position to allow for best recruitment of muscles.

 

Finally, crunches tend to focus on the upper abdominals.  We need a more comprehensive approach to our abdominals to assist our goal of flattening the stomach.  I suggest, at the very least, adding an exercise like femur arcs to target the lower abdominals and one like brains to recruit the obliques.

 

Let’s be effective.

Monday Workout: Core

This week we’re continuing to work on exercises with a sneaky commitment to our core and balance.  When we do asymmetric exercises, our bodies have to work harder to stabilize, which is good for us.  Also, we are remembering that our core muscles are not just in the front of our bodies—those reverse flies help us learn to recruit the core muscles in the back.  Three rounds.

 

(jump) squats	30
flies	20
1 leg deadlift	10
mountain climbers	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
1 arm clean and press	30
reverse flies	20
pretty princesses	10

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.