Aaah.

Want to do something in every category of exercise today?  I’ve got you covered.

 

1.     Cardio:  Go for a walk.  Just for fifteen minutes.

2.     Weight training:  do three sets of 20 squats with a minute rest between them.  (If you are really pressed for time, you can use the rest period to do core or balance.)

3.     Core:  one set of 10 pretty princesses.

4.     Balance:  one set of 10 calf raises.  (Bonus points:  do them on one foot at a time!)

5.     Stretch:  stand in a doorway with your arms outstretched.  Lean forward.  Feel your chest open.  Say aaah (that part’s optional).

6.     DONE!

Don't ask them anything heavy, though...

Weight lifting makes us stronger, but that’s not even the best reason to do it, or not necessarily.  (If our goal is to be stronger for the sake of being stronger, then it is the best reason.  In that case, we should stop reading and go lift some weights.  Nothing to see here.)

 

If our goal is weight loss, lifting is our friend.  It builds lean body mass, which burns more calories than our fat mass does.  It increases our metabolisms.  And, while doing all of that, it makes us look better even before we lose any weight.

 

If our goal is to live a long and healthy life, weight training has our back there as well.  Working with weights keeps our bones strong as well as our muscles.  Strong bones resist breaks.  Additionally, working with weights improves our core musculature, which helps prevent falls.

 

If we love a sport, weight lifting is still a useful pastime.  Increased strength translates into increased speed and performance.  Basically, it teaches us to play harder and faster.

 

Go say hello to the dumbbells and barbells.  Tell them I sent you. 

Holistic!

This post comes with its own disclaimer.  I lived in Berkeley for 20 years, so I am allowed to use the word holistic.  You’ve been warned.

Sometimes working out is not the right answer.  I admit that working out is usually the right answer, but usually is not the same as always.  We have to take a holistic view of our health and fitness.

 

What that means is that unfortunately we have to rely on our good judgment.  This is boring, irritating, and risky.  We have to engage in the decision-making process.  And behave like responsible adults.  Phooey.  (We thought lunges were the hard part!)

 

So, let me give a couple of examples of how this might work.  I wake up tired and grumpy.  It’s cold out.  Working out requires that I wear a bra.  I have a gazillion things to do in the day ahead of me.  All of those things added up mean I should skip the workout, right?  Nope.  Working out will wake me up.  It will improve my mood.  It will get my brain working better for all those other gazillion things.  (No fix for the cold or the bra, but hey, nothing is perfect.)  On the whole, working out is better for me in this situation than not working out.  Plus, I get to feel virtuous.

 

In the second example, I still wake up tired and grumpy.  This time, it’s because I got a Covid booster and a flu shot the day before.  I spent the night having chills and fever and body aches.  This time, my body needs to rest and restore itself, so turning off the alarm, rolling over, and going back to sleep is the right answer.  If I wake up in the afternoon and feel a lot better, I can consider doing something light and easy like a bit of stretching or a gentle walk, but I can also keep on resting.

 

Please note:  our brains are very, very good at rationalizing.  If we discover that we have found “good reasons” to skip our workouts for three days in a row and those reasons don’t involve illness or injury, we need to give ourselves a (gentle) kick in the behind to get back to the gym.

 

Go play.

Monday Workout: Donkey

This week we are revisiting an exercise we don’t do very often:  the donkey kick.  It’s a good exercise for the glutes and it reminds us about using our abdominals to help our lower backs.  Three rounds.

 

1 arm clean and press	30
flies	20
pushups	10
squat raise	30
bench press	20
donkey kick	10
(lunge) punches	30
rows	20
brains	10

It's a Beautiful Day!

Sometimes it seems like workouts are all slog, all the time.  Here are four ways to find joy in workouts:

 

1.     That sense of accomplishment.  It can be tiny, like, “Hey!  I showed up today with shoes on and everything!”

2.     That sense of progress.  “A year ago, I couldn’t lift this!”

3.     That great song.  Maybe the workout itself is terrible, but the beats rock.

4.     That shower afterward.  Ahhhhhhh!  It feels so good! 

It's Wednesday and Captain Obvious Is Here

It seems like I feel like Captain Obvious about once a week.  Today’s the day this week.  My pearl of obvious wisdom this time is:  we all have strengths and weaknesses.

 

It’s fun to play to our strengths.  Some of us are fast; some of us are strong; some of us are flexible.  Fast people like to finish first.  Strong people like to have the opportunity to display their strength.  Flexible people show off the way they can scratch the tops of their heads with their big toes, or whatever it is that flexible people do (I am not one, so I am simply admiring and jealous when they bend like that.).  Of course we want to continue to build on our strengths.

 

But.

 

We also have to spend some time on our weaknesses.  I may never be able to scratch the top of my head with my big toe, but if I don’t spend at least a little time working on flexibility, I’ll be lucky if I bend at all.

 

Nearly everything we do in fitness is a combination of cardio, strength, and flexibility.  We can have a preferred mode among the three, but we can’t avoid the others forever.

 

Go play.

Dreams

I got to be a guest speaker in a high school health class (via Zoom) last week and I got asked what the best thing about my job is.  I could have said that I get to wear sweats all day every day and call it professional dress, which is definitely a good thing about my job, but it isn’t the best thing.

 

The best thing is getting to see people do more than they ever thought they could.

 

Every day I get to watch as people put in the work to accomplish their goals.  I see the effort.  I see the struggle.  And I get to see the success.  Things that used to be hard aren’t anymore.  Things that used to hurt feel better.  Bodies change.  Attitudes shift.  Strength in one area translates into strength somewhere else.

 

I get to help.  What is better than enabling people’s dreams?