Monday Workout: Christmas in June

It may be hot outside, but we’re pretending it’s Christmas inside this week.  Here’s how the twelve days of Christmas workout works.  On the first “day” we do one push press.  On day two, we do two goblet squats and one push press.  Day three is three overhead presses, two goblet squats, and one push press.  And so on.  Yes, I do know that this means we will have done 42 burpees before we are done.  Yes, I also know that I’m not really your true love.  Have fun!

 

1 push press

2 goblet squats

3 Overhead press

4 1 leg squats each leg

5 deadlifts

6 burpees

7 pushups

8 renegade rows

9 mountain climbers

10 jump lunges

11 kb swings

12 plyojacks

 

The Amazing Stickie and Skier Jumps

The Amazing Stickie wants to work her abdominals, get some cardio, and get stronger, all at the same time.  So today she is doing skier jumps.  She has no idea what this exercise has to do with skiing.

She begins in plank position.  Then she jumps both feet to the left and back to the right.

 

Sets of 30 are good.

Not so sexy

Most of us don’t have to remember to brush our teeth.  It’s just something that happens automatically.  This is the power of habit.  It took me a long time to admit it, because it’s really not very sexy, but I thrive on habits and routines.  I suspect I’m not the only one.

When we have the habit of fitness, it doesn’t take as much energy to get to the workout.  We just go, like we always do.  We know where our shoes are and we know, more or less, what we’re going to do.  The mental load is low.

 

This means we can use that energy toward the workout itself. 

 

This is a win all the way around.

Perfect

Let’s have a little chat about perfectionism.  Even the rebels among us are susceptible to its messages—we have to rebel perfectly to show how little society’s emphasis on perfection means to us.

Perfectionism is not our friend.  It’s a tool that the cis-hetero-white-supremecist-imperialist-capitalist-patriarchy uses to keep us working and working and working some more.  We can never work enough to make the system happy with us.  We can only work ourselves to death.

 

So.  In a fitness context, this has a couple of implications.  One is:  take the time to work out.  We are worth it, no matter what society tells us.  We can take back that much of our time to do something that makes our bodies feel good.

 

Another is:  we can work out before we have the perfect body or the perfect workout.  It is all right to show up at the gym in whatever clothes we happen to have on.  We don’t have to know all the things to do from the first day.  We are allowed to try stuff out and be bad at it.

 

And:  the fact that we’re never going to be perfect does not mean that we don’t want to work hard.  The fun in working out comes from learning and growing and getting better at stuff, which only happens if we show up and play hard.

 

Go play.  It’s gonna be perfect.

Monday Workout: New Again!

Sometimes I forget about an exercise for a while, but then I remember and it’s exciting and new all over again!  We’re doing roll out abs this week.  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
rows	20
pushups	10
overhead high knees	30
deadlifts	20
curls	10
jacks	30
reverse flies	20
roll out abs	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Reverse Lunge Twist

Today the Amazing Stickie wants to work a lot of body parts at once so she can get on with her busy life.  Therefore, she is doing the reverse lunge twist.

She begins standing with good posture, holding light dumbbells.  Then she steps back into a lunge (most of us prefer to step forward into a lunge, but we’re going for challenge here!) while turning her torso to the side and raising her arms to shoulder height.  She returns to the starting position and then repeats the exercise by stepping back with her other leg.

 

She likes to do sets of 30.

Lift Weights

It is my job, as a trainer, to encourage everyone to do all kinds of exercise.  But there is a very good reason that my work focuses on strength training:  it works.

Most of us work out for some combination of the following reasons:  to look good and to feel good.  Looking good, for many of us, implies losing some weight and/or shaping up the weight we have.  Feeling good may spring from looking good, or from doing something we couldn’t do before, or from taking pride in our new skills, among other things.

 

Strength training is the way to maximize looking good and feeling good.

 

When we do strength training, we increase our lean muscle mass.  That lean muscle mass burns more calories.  We increase our metabolism.  That, in turn, can lead to weight loss (no, we can’t out-exercise a terrible diet).  Even if we don’t lose weight, the weight we have will look better as we build muscle and we are likely to get smaller if not lighter.  In other words:  we can check off looking good.

 

As for the feeling good part, lifting heavy stuff releases the good brain chemicals.  When we lift weights, we get stronger both in body and in mind.  We take the sense of accomplishment we have in the gym out into our regular life.  Plus we can open our own jars and move our own couch.

 

Don’t know how to start?  Talk to me!