Curious!

One thing I want my clients to know is that I am not the boss of them.  Sometimes they are glad to be reminded of this, but sometimes not.  If I am not the boss, then it means that they are actually responsible for their own results.

This is not to say that I don’t have useful knowledge and expertise.  I have studied and observed and tried a bunch of stuff.  The thing is, I have never lived in their bodies.  They are the ultimate experts on what works for them, what feels good, what makes a positive difference in their lives.

 

What I like best is when my clients adopt an attitude of curiosity.  We can try things and see how they work.  We can experiment, keep the good stuff, and tweak the less good stuff.

 

I’m always curious to see how things turn out!

Travel!

Fitness while traveling can be a challenge.  We’re out of our normal routines, we’re away from our gym or our instructor or our equipment.  We may have to deal with jet lag.

This is where our adaptability comes in.

 

If we’re traveling for work, we can maintain some of our normal frameworks and habits.  We can seek out places to stay that include some way to work out, whether that’s a hotel gym or a pool or just a neighborhood where we can walk or run.

 

Pleasure travel is a different animal.  We’re going to relax or to experience new things or both.  We want to see what there is to see, do what there is to do, and try all the fabulous foods.  I find that I generally get in a lot more steps when I travel than I do at home and I do a whole lot less weight lifting, even if there is a gym in my hotel.  It is absolutely all right to have vacations as vacation.  I do notice, however, that as we get more fit, we tend to choose more active kinds of vacation.  We’re inclined to walk through the cities we visit or we seek out the scenic hike or we decide to swim in a different ocean than our usual.

 

As always, we need to use our good judgment about how much we move and how much we eat.  And, if we blow it and eat our way through our trip, we need to accept the consequences, return to our healthy habits, and avoid punishing ourselves.

Monday Workout: Challenges

There are a couple of challenges built into this one.  Obviously, burpees are back.  But we’re also adding jumping (if appropriate!) to our squats and recruiting our muscles a little differently with star plank.  Three rounds.

 

woodchoppers	30
rows	20
burpees	10
suitcase swings	30
skullcrushers	20
1 leg deadlift	10
(jump) squats	30
lateral raise	20
star plank	10

The Amazing Stickie and the Pilates Pushup

The Amazing Stickie knows that when Uncle Joe Pilates does a version of an exercise, it’s going to be interesting.  The Pilates pushup is a whole-body experience.

Stickie begins standing with good posture.  Keeping her weight toward her toes to keep her hips from falling back as long as possible, she curls her spine forward until her hands touch the ground.  From there, she walks her hands forward until she is in plank position.  Keeping her elbows close to her body, Stickie lowers and raises her body three times, maintaining a straight line between her head and her heels.  Then she walks her hands back toward her feet, returning to the forward bend position before stacking her spine up again to return to her starting position.  Stickie likes it that each Pilates pushup incorporates three pushups.

Look at that guy's...

Patience is one of those boring virtues.  It’s just not sexy.  No one goes, “Whoa!  Look at the patience on that guy!  So hot!”  And yet, under whatever it is we do find sexy in that guy, I am guessing there’s a fair amount of patience.

It takes patience to put in the work to get and stay healthy.  No matter how much we try, there are going to be some boring or unpleasant parts of our workouts.  (Which parts those are vary from person to person.  One person’s treadmill torture is another person’s happy place.)  And, when we start from the couch, we’re going to need to exercise our patience along with our bodies as we wait for the results of our actions to show.

 

The good news is that, much like the rest of our work in fitness, the patience we build is something we can use in the rest of our lives.

 

We can do this.

A Bulletin from Captain Obvious

Captain Obvious has some things to say today.  She would like to remind us that things that feel good in the moment are not necessarily good to have as habits, that things that feel a lot less good in the moment might make good habits, and things that hurt are to be avoided.  (It is OK to stop reading now; the rest is just unpacking this part a bit.)

So:  things that feel good in the moment.  Some of them, like massage, are fabulous habits to have.  If I ever have more money than I know what to do with after saving the world and feeding all the hungry people and all that, I’ll be getting a massage every day.  There are plenty of things in this category, like getting enough sleep and hugging people and petting puppies and hot showers.  However, there are some things that feel good in the now that are not that great long term.  I’m giving the side-eye to Haagen Dasz right now.  While I’m eating all that sugary dairy deliciousness, I feel fabulous.  Later, when my innards react to all that dairy and I’m headachy with a sugar hangover, not so much.  It is all right as an occasional indulgence, but a pint a day is just too much for my health.  When we’re stressed, it can be challenging to choose something that feels good and is good for us in the larger sense.  It’s worth trying.

 

As for things that feel less good in the now, my whole career is based on those.  My job is to get people to do stuff they don’t want to do for their own good.  Tough workouts are tough.  We may not enjoy them.  We may feel sore and grumpy afterward.  And yet, in the long term, those very workouts make us healthy and strong to live long and enjoyable lives.

 

That last category of things, the things that hurt, should be self-explanatory.  Sadly, the no-pain-no-gain crowd is way too popular.  It’s a Mean Girl of a motto, ready to abuse us at any time.  We do not need that kind of negativity in our lives.  We want our workouts to be enough work, but not so much that we actually hurt ourselves and suffer.  When I was studying flexibility and stretching, the course had to emphasize again and again that pain is counterproductive to improving mobility and flexibility.  No pain is a Good Thing.

 

Now go play.

Monday Workout: Back

This week, we’re doing a couple of things that work the back of the body.  Three rounds.

 

 

jacks	30
flies	20
bench dips	10
step ups	30
renegade row	20
1 leg squat	10
mountain climbers	30
bench press	20
plank	10