This week we are working compound exercises. Adding the reach to the side lunge will make it harder and challenge our balance. That high pull added to the sumo squat means the whole body gets involved. Three rounds.
jacks | 30 |
bench press | 20 |
side lunge with reach | 10 |
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sumo squat to high pull | 30 |
flies | 20 |
goblet pour | 10 |
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mountain climbers | 30 |
rows | 20 |
femur arcs | 10 |
All right: we know what we want. Here’s what we need to do.
If we have cardio goals: Our first target is 150 minutes of cardio per week. Those of us who haven’t been outside since 2001 will need to work up to this, starting with something stupidly easy, like five minutes of cardio per day. We want to increase our time gradually, about 10 percent per week. (It is also all right to choose a distance and work up to longer distances instead. Do what works.) When we are building a cardio habit, I’m not actually in favor of total rest days unless we really need them. It is better to have a very light day than a total rest, just to keep our rhythm going. One rest day can magically turn into a rest month. Once we have hit our target 150 minutes, we can add intervals, work on speed, or increase the intensity some other way if we want.
If we want to get stronger: we need to have strength training goals. We start with one weight workout that works all our muscle groups per week. Once we’ve got that habit well established, we can add a second and even a third. In all our weight workouts, we need to adjust the weights so that we are challenged but not overwhelmed. This takes some practice and there will be some times when we overdo ourselves and need plenty of recovery time.
If we want to refine our movement, we probably want a Pilates goal. A session every week with a professional plus daily brief home practice should do the trick.
All of us need a stretching goal. It’s simple: stretch every day. Five minutes is a good start. Fifteen minutes should take care of everything amply.
Folks who want to lose weight and get more shapely need goals in all four categories.
Still need help? Talk to me!
Over the last few weeks, we’ve talked about the basic components of working out. One of my pet peeves about folks who write about goals is that they always tell people to set manageable and achievable goals before we know anything about what is manageable or achievable, particularly when there is a time element involved. This is why I talked through the basics of cardio, strength training, Pilates, and stretching before turning my attention to goals.
The first question we need to answer when setting goals is what do we want? For some of us, this is obvious. We know we want to run a marathon or wear smaller clothes or show that gym teacher from high school that we actually can do stuff. Others of us are not so sure. We know we feel a little breathless sometimes. We struggle lugging groceries more than we used to. We wake up stiff and that nagging ache in our back lingers and lingers. It might take a little digging to come up with what we actually want.
This is important: our goals need to be things we want, not things that other people say we should want. When we get to the part where we have to do the work, we are not going to be motivated by someone else’s desires and values. Our goals need to be meaningful to us even if they make zero sense to anyone else.
What we want dictates the goals we make. Breathless folks need cardio goals. People who want to be smaller need both cardio and strength training goals. Nearly everyone will feel better with some Pilates and stretching goals.
Tomorrow: what those goals might be.
This workout has a few exercises that target our less-used back muscles. This is good for posture and balance! Three rounds.
1 arm clean and press | 30 |
rows | 20 |
reverse fly | 10 |
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(jump) squats | 30 |
skullcrushers | 20 |
pushups | 10 |
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kb alt arm swing | 30 |
deadlift | 20 |
chest lift | 10 |
This week, the Amazing Stickie is doing a similar exercise to last week. This one is called Criss Cross. It also works her oblique abdominals and her spinal flexion.
Today, she begins lying on her back with her hands behind her head and her knees bent so that her feet are flat on the floor. She twists her torso slightly so that one elbow is touching the ground. From there, she lifts her head and shoulders off the mat, maintaining the twist, and raises her opposite knee toward the higher elbow. Her other leg stays long, floating just above the floor. Then, without lowering her head and shoudlers toward the mat, she switches the position of her legs and twists her body the other direction.
Sets of ten are good.
Stickie would like to point out that this exercise may look familiar to gym-goers who are not Pilates people. This exercise is done with more control and usually less speed than the gym version.
I hope that yesterday I convinced the skeptical among us that stretching is worthwhile. Now let’s talk about how.
The first thing I need to emphasize is (and I’m about to yell it, so be prepared): STRETCHING SHOULD NOT HURT. Not even a little. It is all right to feel, well, a stretch, but not pain. In my recent experiments on myself and my family members, best results were obtained without even discomfort. (I feel like I have been lied to in the past by the Stretching Industrial Complex and I’m a little bitter, but I’m sure I will get over it now that I can stretch in comfort!!!) When we stretch a muscle group, we want to find the first place where we feel even slight resistance to the stretch. We want to go a little bit past that, but not so far that we feel a lot of resistance. Between these two points is where the magic happens.
However, we have options about how we work in that stretch zone. Perhaps the most familiar and traditional method is the static stretch. We get into stretch position and we hang out there. It’s simple and pretty much foolproof, but we need to make sure we hold the stretch for at least 30 seconds for best results.
A newer and potentially more interesting method uses perpetual motion. We take the muscle into the stretch zone and then explore around with motion, being careful to avoid pain and stay between the minimal resistance and the much resistance points. We may discover, as we keep moving, that the range of painless motion gets larger!
Finally, I need to talk about reciprocal inhibition because it’s cool. To paraphrase Newton, for every muscle group, there is an equal and opposite muscle group. The hamstrings bend the knees and the quads straighten them, for example. If we are stretching our hammies, we can help them relax by tightening up our quads (do this by trying to move the kneecap up toward the hip). The act of tensing the quads (the antagonist muscles to the hammies) tells the hamstrings to relax, opening up a whole bunch more flexibility and range of motion. It is the optional add-on to the stretching process or a fun party trick, if you go to those sorts of parties.
Go play. AND IT IS NOT SUPPOSED TO HURT (in case I wasn’t clear about that).
Stretching is possibly the most neglected part of our workouts (assuming we manage to DO workouts in the first place). I think there are a few different reasons for this. One is that we have this idea that working out has to be hard and painful and stretching, done right, is not. In fact, it feels good. How dare we have a good time at the gym??? Another is that by the time we get to the stretching part, we’re tired, we want to go home, and we don’t really see the point. I get it.
So: we are allowed to do things that feel good and there are plenty of benefits of stretching.
That feeling good thing, from a certain point of view (does everyone hear Obi Wan when they use these words, or just me?), is why we work out at all. There are people who love sweat for its own sake and enjoy the process of lifting weights, but most of us work out because we want to feel good at some later time. That time might be when we go out on that hot date in our very cute outfit that we bought to show off our toned body or it might be those extra years of independence we get by putting in an investment in our health now or something in between. In the same way that we try to pick activities we like to do in order to get the appropriate amount of exercise, we can put stretching right in there as a good part of the process. Far be it from me to get between people and their desire to feel guilty for feeling good, but on the scale of self-indulgence, stretching is not up there with getting another puppy or eating an entire cake. Live a little, people!
I know some of us really need to know the reasons. So here is why it is good for us to stretch, assuming that feeling good is not enough of a reason for the sticklers among us. The most obvious benefit of stretching is that it improves our flexibility and mobility. And yes, those things are important. It doesn’t matter how strong we are if we can’t raise our arms over our heads, for example. Stretching reduces tension in our bodies and I should not have to explain why that’s a good thing. Additionally, it can help us sleep well and reduce pain. Not enough? How about improving performance and balance?
Tomorrow: how to do it!
