Monday Workout: All Kinds of Fun

 

Time for another shorter circuit!  Four rounds full of compound exercises should be fun!

 

1 min cardio
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
overhead press	10
deadlift to curl	30
renegade row	20
brains	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Goblet Pour

The Amazing Stickie has amazing-looking arms, of course.  To maintain her beautiful shoulders, she often does goblet pours.

She begins standing with good posture, holding two light weights at shoulder level with the ball parts of the dumbbells pointing up and down.  Then she twists her arms as if the weights were goblets and she wants to empty them on the ground.  She repeats this motion about ten times.

More on Spring Cleaning

Yesterday I talked a little about spring cleaning.  Today I’m going to add some stuff we might want to pitch:

Perfectionism.  The best workout is the one we actually do.  Doing something is always better than doing nothing.

 

Negativity.  It doesn’t help to focus on what we can’t do, on what is going wrong, and the like.  Let that stuff go.

 

Other people’s opinions.  Our fitness is our business.  We need to work out in the ways that feel best to us.  Anyone who wants to criticize our current fitness level, our choice in clothing, or our dance styles can just get lost.

 

Punishment.  Workouts are not punitive.  We don’t have to do them because we ate cake.  We don’t do them to become worthy of something.  We are worthy.  We work out because we are valuable humans who deserve to be healthy and happy.

 

Go play.

Spring Cleaning

We’re getting to real spring now, which means it’s time for… spring cleaning!

In the fitness sense, this means we get to stop and take a look at what we’ve been doing and see what needs to shift.  Bodies like change because change promotes growth.  Here are some questions we might want to consider for our spring fitness:

 

Is my stuff in good order?  What needs some maintenance?  Does the bike chain need some lube?  Are our shoes wearing out?  Do we have the right kind of layers for our outside workouts?  Where did we hide our bathing suit?

 

Am I getting the results I want from what I’m doing?  Do I feel good?  Do I look good?  Am I meeting my fitness goals?  If not, it’s definitely time to change stuff up.

 

What would it be fun to learn?  Now that it’s less cold, maybe we want to try outside workouts.  Maybe we’ve always secretly wanted to take karate.  Maybe now is the time to sample a different yoga class or even to try out some other kind of cardio machine.

 

What would make my workouts seem fresh?  Maybe we just need a cool workout shirt.  Maybe we need to do our workout backward from how we usually do.  Maybe we just need to bring a different gym buddy with us or change up the music.

 

Let me repeat:  change promotes growth.  Where do we want to grow this season?

Monday Workout: Weight Bearing

There are a couple of weight bearing exercises on the arms this week, just for fun.  Three rounds.

 

 

kb swings	30
kb twists	20
kb 8s or overyets	10
squat raises	30
bench press	20
spiderman pushup	10
skier jumps	30
flies	20
pretty princesses	10

 

The Amazing Stickie and Pilates Twist

The Amazing Stickie knows that many of us don’t do enough work on rotation.  Uncle Joe Pilates to the rescue!  Today she is doing his Twist exercise.

 

Stickie begins in a side plank position, the upper arm raised and her top foot in front of her other foot.  From there, she lifts her hips and pokes her non-weight-bearing arm through the arch she has created with her body.  Then she returns to the start position.

 

She likes to do about five reps on each side. 

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!