Time Out

Finding time to work out is challenging, but here are three places you might be able to find some and one place we don’t want to look.

 

1.     Between the couch cushions.  Ok, not really, but couch time is one of the easiest places to repurpose time.  Do we really need to watch five episodes of that show?  Maybe we could cut it down to four and do a workout.

2.     Looking at you, Facebook/Insta/Whatever.  We all love to scroll, but maybe we should spend some time doing stuff we want to post?  Let’s show our friends that we’ve been to the gym.

3.     Coffee.  Not the drink, the activity.  Of course we need to catch up with our friends, but we don’t have to do it sitting down.  Meet up with buds for a walk or run or swim.  It’s a good-for-us kind of multitasking.

 

Here’s the place we don’t want to take the time from:  sleep.  We need it to be healthy, good humans.

Time IN Workouts

Yesterday I wrote about why working out is good time management.  Today I want to talk about time management within our workouts.

 

When we consider all the things we’re supposed to fit into our workouts, it can be overwhelming.  How are we supposed to get in cardio and weights and balance and flexibility and ever manage to leave the gym?

 

There are a couple of ways.  One is that we plan to do different things on different days.  Maybe we focus on cardio three days a week, weights on two, and flexibility and balance on one, leaving ourselves one rest day.  That’s a workable system, but I have one I like better.

 

The most efficient way to hit all our fitness needs is by circuit training.  By incorporating cardio intervals into a weight circuit that includes asymmetric exercises like single leg squats, we can get everything we need in about 45 minutes, leaving five to fifteen for stretching.  This is the principle behind the workouts I post every Monday.

 

The beauty of a circuit is that it is infinitely adaptable.  Those of us who need more balance work can do it.  Those of us who want to build endurance can choose to do more reps with lighter weights.  Cardio enthusiasts can add more intervals.  Best of all, the easily-bored can change it up as often as we like.

 

Go play.

Time for Workouts

One of the most commonly cited reasons people give for not working out is lack of time.  I get it.  We all have way too much to do and working out seems like one thing too many.

 

For most of us, it is worth finding the time to do it.  (Exceptions:  we are sick or in the middle of an emergency.)  It might feel like a paradox, but working out will actually give us more time. 

 

All right:  it doesn’t literally give us more time.  What working out does do is give us tools that help us use our time better.  One of the most important of those tools is additional energy.  As we build our fitness, our energy levels increase.  We find that we’re not as easily tired out.  For a lot of us, this translates into less time zoned-out on the couch, which is almost always a time-waster.

 

Another time-enhancing gift of working out is improved mood.  When we manage our stress and get those happy brain chemicals moving with our workouts, we don’t lose time because we have to cope with so many negative emotions.  Further, as we get stronger, we increase our sense of personal efficacy, so all those other things we have to do seem more manageable.

 

Give it a try.

Monday Workout: New Stuff!

I spent some of my time off reading (big surprise!) and learned some new exercises, so this workout has a bunch of new fun stuff in it!  Here’s how to do the new stuff:

 

Lateral bound:  It’s pretty much exactly what it sounds like.  We start standing with our feet together.  We leap to the right, landing on our right foot.  We bring our left foot over to meet the right.  Then we do the same thing to the left.

 

Kettle bell bottom up press:  Stand with feet about hip-distance apart.  Bend one arm so that the elbow is more or less at the side of the body and the hand is at shoulder height (in other words, in a position to do a single arm overhead press).  Instead of using a dumbbell, we use a kettle bell with the handle pointing down toward the floor and the ball of the kettle bell toward the sky.  It’s challenging!

 

Kettle bell hammer curl:  This works like a regular curl, except that again, we hold a kettle bell instead of a dumbbell.  As in a regular hammer curl, the palm faces toward the midline of the body, not toward the ceiling.

 

Skier jumps:  Begin in plank position.  Jump both feet together to the left and then to the right.

 

As usual, modify as needed.  I suggest three rounds, but you do you.

 

lateral bound	30
kb bottom up press	20
kb hammer curl	10
skier jumps	30
renegade rows	20
pushups	10
step or jump ups	30
1 leg squat	20
pretty princesses	10

 

Monday Workout: No Excuses

While I am on vacation, here is a no-excuses body weight workout.  Use a medicine ball and an outside wall if available for the ball wall toss, or a soft ball inside.  Four rounds.

 

jump lunges	30
1 leg squats	30
pushup to side plank	10
jump squats	30
transverse punches	30
1 leg ball wall toss	10
plank	hold
superman	hold

See you in September

I am off from now until after Labor Day.  Time away from the blog will, I hope, give me a chance to find some fresh ideas and some new inspirations.  I will post workouts on the Mondays, so that everyone can work out without me, but otherwise, see you in September!

Second Thoughts

At the risk of sounding too woo-woo (it happens to me; I lived in Berkeley for twenty years), let me suggest that sometimes we choose our workouts by listening to our bodies.

 

This is not as far-out as it sounds.  A way to quantify it would be to consider heart rate variability (HRV).  If we have a smart watch or other device, we can track HRV and work out harder on days it is above our average and less strenuously when it is below.

 

However, relying on a device to tell us how we are does not build our ability to figure out what we need ourselves.  The listening I am thinking about does build that ability.  We wake up in the morning, check in with the body, and decide what we need, whether that is cardio to boost our mood or stretching to recover from a previous workout or weight-lifting to improve our strength.  One note:  most of us, upon waking up, will have the first thought that what our bodies really want is to go back to sleep; we need to wait for the second thought before we decide.

 

Go play.