Check!

Time for a mid-year check-in!  Remember those goals from back in January?  Here are five things to consider as we go into the second half of the year:

 

1.     Sleep.  Are we getting 8 hours?  7? 4 ½?  Enough sleep is essential to our health and fitness goals. 

2.     Food.  Are we choosing nutrient-dense foods that satisfy our bodies and feed our souls?  Are we getting enough veggies?  Enough water?

3.     Cardio.  When was the last time we got breathless?  Are we doing it consistently?

4.     Strength.  We want strong bones, enthusiastic metabolisms, and lean bodies, so we need to do our lifting.

5.     Fun.  If we’ve been doing the same things every week since January, we’re probably really bored.  It might be time to mix things up a bit.

 

Go play.

How to get less cross by doing more cross...

I think, by now, we’ve all heard about the benefits of cross-training.  We hear about synergies and improved performance and yada yada.  Here’s an underreported one:  it lets us rest stuff that hurts.

 

I love biking, but if I do too much of it, hip pain will keep me from sleeping.  If I mix in some yoga or swimming or pickleball (my new obsession!), I use my body differently, I still get to work out, and I don’t suffer so much.  (Maybe everyone is tired about hearing about what I do, but I am the most convenient example, and I experiment on myself!)

 

In a pain workshop I attended recently, I learned some of the underlying reasons why cross-training helps.  The short version is that movement reduces pain.  We don’t necessarily need or want to move whatever part that hurts, but moving other parts of the body reduces pain everywhere.  This is why it is a good idea to go for a walk at least on the day after that intense workout in the gym.

 

Try it out and report back!

Safety first, even if it is ugly

I bought new shoes last week and boy are they ugly.  However, they do what I need them to do:  protect my feet.  Working out is great, but we need to take some basic precautions to keep ourselves safe.  My horrible shoes are part of that because, having once ruptured my plantar fascia, I know that supportive shoes are my friends.

 

Other fashion choices also keep us safe.  Hats to keep the sun off are good.  Fabrics that breathe in hot weather are good.  They’re not exactly clothes, but wearing whatever braces our doctors or orthopedists recommend is definitely smart, as are helmets, life jackets, knee pads, and the like, depending on what we are doing.

 

Another important safety consideration is company.  We don’t want to do heavy lifting alone; we need to bring a friend and share spotting duties.  Similarly, it is probably best not to swim alone.  If we do need to bike/hike/kayak/whatever alone, we need to make sure that someone knows where we are going and that we have essentials with us.  (My essentials are:  driver’s license, credit card, $20 in cash, water, and snacks, plus car keys if I have to drive to the starting point.)

 

Fitness is supposed to make our lives better.  Getting hurt is not better.  Let’s be smart about this.

Monday Workout: Back At It

We are doing a couple of exercises this week that focus on the back of the body.  This is good because we tend to emphasize the muscles in the front.  Deadlifts work the whole back of the body, squats and lunges work our glutes, and the renegade rows work our lats, among other things.  Three rounds.

 

squat raise	30
deadlift	20
kickbacks	10
mountain climbers	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
clean and press	30
(lunge to) twist	20
brains	10

Hello, my name is Inigo Montoya. You killed my father. Prepare to work out.

Yesterday I talked about different reasons we might want to work out.  Here are five to consider:

 

1.     To look cute.  Yep, it’s a real reason and totally all right.

2.     To feel better.  We like that after-exercise high.

3.     To feel better, another way.  We want to lower our blood pressure, or manage diabetes, or strengthen our hearts, or just get out doctors and loved ones off our backs.

4.     To get to do more fun things.  Maybe we want to be able to play on the playground longer with our kids or grandkids, or do a walking tour in the Himalayas.  Working out helps us build up our strength and endurance to do those things.

5.     To get revenge.  In the sense of living a long and healthy life, anyway.

 

Why do you want to work out?

Existential Questions and What Is Truth (Not Really!)

When I meet with clients for the first time, I ask them why they are here.  (Not in the existential sense; that is way beyond the scope of my practice!)  People tell me about things they want to be able to do, events they have coming up, dire warnings from their doctors, all kinds of things.  This is important, because it helps me know how to program for their different goals and what motivates them.

 

The thing is, sometimes we (yes, me, too!) think that some reasons for exercising are better or more acceptable than others.  We’re willing to admit that it would be nice to get to the top of the stairs without being out of breath, but maybe less willing to say that what we really want is to buy smaller jeans, or to blow away that old flame at the 85^th reunion, or to feel more comfortable in a bathing suit.

 

Eventually, the truth comes out.  And you know what?  I don’t judge.  My job is to help my clients reach THEIR goals, not some ideal set of goals approved by the surgeon general or their moms or the latest research into longevity.  I am here for my clients, whatever their goals.

Plane Speaking

When we describe how we move in fitness, we divide the body into three planes.  One imaginary plane splits us into right and left halves, one splits us into front and back halves, and one splits us into top and bottom halves, as if we were the hapless assistant in a magician’s show.  The three planes are called, respectively, the sagittal, the frontal, and the transverse.

 

When we swing a leg back and forth in the hip socket or raise an arm in front of us in a “Halt!” kind of way, we are moving parallel to the sagittal plane.  This is the plane that most of us feel most comfortable in because that’s how we walk and run and so on.

 

The frontal plane, confusingly, is the plane we are moving parallel to when we shuffle side to side or do jumping jacks.  Practicing this kind of movement helps with sports like basketball and tennis and with everyday actions like getting in and out of cars.  Work in the frontal plane can also help us practice motions that keep us from spraining our ankles as we strengthen the muscles on the inside and outside of our legs.

 

The transverse plane is for twisting.  Think about golf swings and racquet sports, salsa dancing, and getting out of bed in the morning.  We sometimes don’t like working with transverse plane exercises because they tend to require a little more balance control and thus more core work.

 

Working in all three planes, separately or together, is what helps us prepare for whatever life throws at us.