Tuesday, February 7, 2023

Vacation workouts are fun. Unless they're not.






I spent last week on vacation, so I’m thinking about vacation workouts.

For some of us, the whole idea of vacation workouts is oxymoronic.  Or just plain moronic.  It’s a vacation.  Nothing work-like or workout-like about it.  I am actually totally fine with the idea of going on vacation and not working out.  We all need rest times and seasons.

 

Then I go on vacation and… I want to work out.  Maybe I don’t want to do heavy lifting and it’s not like I can pack my Pilates equipment to take with me, but I want to move.  I now always travel with a yoga block and some yoga tune-up balls.  I have done yoga and mat Pilates in hotel rooms, at my mom’s house, and in the slightly-larger-than-a-folding-table space in our trailer.

 

Depending on the vacation, I may also walk a lot more than I do in my regular life.  I love to explore new places on foot, poking around in shops and trekking through museums.  I love strolls on the beach and hikes in the hills.  On other vacations, I get to swim.  Skiing is a vacation and a workout at the same time!  This last one, we got to play some pickleball.

 

What I’ve learned is that I personally do better when I get a bit of movement in, even if I spend most of the day sitting in the sunshine reading.

 

As always, my guiding principle for everyone is experimentation.  We need to do what works best for our own unique and wonderful selves.

Monday, February 6, 2023

Monday Workout: Abs






This week we’re keeping our abdominals engaged by doing asymmetrical exercises and exercises with a plank element.  Three rounds.

 

1 arm clean and press

30

bench press

20

renegade rows

10

 

woodchoppers

30

flies

20

kickbacks

10

 

squat to leg lift

30

deadlifts

20

star plank

10

  

Thursday, February 2, 2023

The Amazing Stickie and Leg Kicks






Sometimes the Amazing Stickie wants to keep it simple while still getting her heart rate up.  Doing leg kicks is a good way to accomplish both of those things.  No equipment is required.  On days when Stickie’s hamstrings are feeling tight, this exercise also gives her some dynamic stretching.

To begin, she stands with her usual good posture.  Then she quickly kicks her right leg up in front of her, touching her toe (or shin, or knee, for those of us with less flexibility than Stickie).  She lowers her arm and leg and repeats on the other side.  The faster she goes, the more her heart rate gets up.

 

Sets of thirty work well.

Wednesday, February 1, 2023

Pain in the...






Let’s talk about pain, because of course we want to start the day on a good note, right?  If we have started to work out for the first time in January, or if we got back to our good workout habits, we have probably noticed that it’s not all fun and comfy times.

While I try to keep workouts fun, or at least tolerable, discomfort is an inevitable part of growth.  What we need to learn is to distinguish between that discomfort and actual pain.

 

Pain is intended to be our friend.  Its job is to warn us that we’re doing something dangerous or harmful.  When we feel pain during our workouts, we need to stop.  Working through pain is not bravery, but stupidity.  Yes, even if we are professional athletes in a crucial game situation, which most of us are not.

 

However, if we feel our muscles complaining a little while we’re working them, that is all right.  If we feel sore and tired at the end of our workout, that is also all right.  Soreness may persist or even worsen the next day.  This is entirely normal and expected.  We can do some gentle movement, take some Ibuprofen (if that is appropriate for us), or use heat (to soothe) or ice (to reduce swelling).  If we are still sore several days later, we learn that we might want our next workout to be a little less strenuous.  (This can be frustrating if the workout is one that we used to do with ease, but we work out with today’s body, not the one we had back in the day.)

 

In that last paragraph, I’m betting that a lot of us skipped right over that gentle movement as a treatment for soreness, so I’m giving it its own paragraph.  Movement reduces the perception of pain.  Now:  I’m not saying that we should go hop up and down on a broken leg or anything.  I AM saying that taking our sore selves for a short walk or doing some stretching will help us feel better sooner.

 

Then, when our soreness has passed, we can go work out again!

Tuesday, January 31, 2023

Yes, Maybe, No






The best blog post ideas come from my super awesome clients.  One of them asked me whether it was possible to do, say, bench press with twelve-pound dumbbells forever and have it be okay. 

There are a lot of ways to answer that question.

 

One:  yes.  The workout we are willing to do is always better than no workout.

 

Two:  maybe.  It depends on why we want to do that.  We, culturally, are under so much pressure to do more and faster and better that it’s a little bit amazing that we don’t all just blow up.  If we are trying to unplug from the competitive machine without sacrificing our desire to be healthy, exercising beings, it is perfectly all right to have a go-to workout that hits all our major muscle groups, gets our heart rates up, and gives us a chance to balance and stretch.  We do not have to do the shiny new workout of the moment.

 

Three:  no.  BORING!  Bodies and brains need different stimulation in order to prosper.  Doing the very same workout forever sounds like absolute torture to me, personally, and while I may not be entirely normal, I’m sure I’m not alone in this.  A boring workout is easy to postpone or shirk entirely.  Worse, when we’re bored, we tend not to pay attention to what we are doing and that is a good way to get injured.  From a body perspective, there are several reasons to change things up from time to time.  One is that we grow in response to challenge.  Those twelve-pound weights are going to become ridiculously easy to press after a while, so we are not providing our muscles with sufficient challenge.  Another is that, depending on our age, we need either to build up strong muscles and bones or to prevent and/or postpone the natural loss of muscle and bone that comes with aging; we do this by lifting challenging weights.

 

We need to consider why we are asking the question when we choose our answer.

 

Go play.

Monday, January 30, 2023

Monday Workout: While I'm Off






I am on vacation, but y’all can still work out!  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers

30

bench press

20

lateral raise

10

 

 

clean and press

30

1 leg squat

20

curls

10

 

 

jacks

30

flies

20

pretty princesses

10


Thursday, January 26, 2023

The Amazing Stickie and the Kettlebell Hammer Curl






Today the Amazing Stickie is working on her biceps.  She could do ordinary curls, or hammer curls, but she wants a little extra challenge.  Enter the kettlebell hammer curl.  Because of the shape of the kettlebell, she has to work extra hard to stabilize the motion as she curls it.  Here’s how it works.

Stickie begins holding the kettlebell in one hand down at her side.  Keeping her upper arm next to her body and her torso still, she bends her elbow to lift the kettlebell toward her shoulder.  The ball end of the kettlebell should be pointing up at the top of the movement.  Then Stickie lowers the kettlebell back to the starting position.

 

A set of five reps on each side is a good place to start.