This week we have a bunch of compound exercises (no surprise). Some of them are old friends, like burpees, and some are newer friends like skier jumps. All of them will challenge us! Three rounds.
skier jumps | 30 |
kb hammer curl | 20 |
V sit press | 10 |
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squat heel lift | 30 |
skullcrushers | 20 |
burpees | 10 |
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mountain climbers | 30 |
Arnold press | 20 |
pretty princesses | 10 |
Today we see a rare image of the back of the Amazing Stickie! In this picture, we are looking down on her from above as she does a star plank.
To do the star plank, Stickie begins in plank position: hands directly under her shoulders, legs out long. She makes sure that her body is a nice straight line from the top of her head to her heels. Then she moves her arms out into a V position on the floor and spreads her legs into another V. This will lower her body toward the floor a bit. She holds the position for as long as she can manage without losing good form.
Thirty seconds is a good first goal.
In response to a post last week about pain versus discomfort, I was asked about how to cope with discomfort during workouts. It’s a good question. And, like all good fitness questions, the answer is to experiment and see what works.
No, I’m not going to leave it at that. That would be mean. I’m going to offer some suggestions that we can try.
My first suggestion is that we find something we love to do. When I am biking, for example, I can tolerate way more discomfort than I can if I’m stuck in traffic. The sheer joy of biking helps me deal with the burning in my thighs and the breathless feeling and the way my hands eventually stop working altogether. (OK, that last part is why I keep my bike rides short nowadays; that hand thing edges over into the pain and damage thing I talked about last week.) Maybe for some of us we find our joy in dancing or in heavy lifting or in swimming or skiing or roller skating. All of those things can bring on discomfort if we are working/playing hard.
Sometimes, though, for our own good we find ourselves facing the parts of workouts that do not bring us joy. We need to get through those parts, too. Don’t worry: I have yet more suggestions!
Most of those come down to treating ourselves like fractious toddlers. We can try distraction (hey, listen to this great song while we do our lunges!). We can make sure we’re hydrated, fed, and rested to minimize the energy crashes (filling up a water bottle is a totally allowable rest period during a workout). We can figure out what the absolute minimum goal is and stop then (Just one more lunge; you can do it!). And we can use bribery (after this workout, I get to take a long, hot shower with the good-smelling soap!).
One other non-toddler friendly technique that we can use since we are grown-ups is keeping our eyes on the prize. When we focus on why we are suffering through these lunges (to look cute, to climb Machu Picchu, to reduce our body fat percentage, to impress the boys, to have strong bones for independent living in old age, whatever…), we are more willing to undergo the hard parts. A caveat: it has to be a real reason, not one that we think we should have. This is not the time to pretend we have some noble reason like being able to rescue baby animals from burning forests when what we really want is to make the mean girls at the high school reunion jealous of our awesomeness. No one has to know our reasons. No one gets to judge them.
A final thought: for most exercise goals, there are lots of ways to accomplish them. It is possible, oftentimes, to avoid exercises we truly hate by doing one we hate less.
Go play.
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.
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 |
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woodchoppers | 30 |
flies | 20 |
kickbacks | 10 |
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squat to leg lift | 30 |
deadlifts | 20 |
star plank | 10 |
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.
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!
