Monday Workout: They're Baaaaaack

This week, burpees are back.  Sorry/not sorry.  Three rounds.

 

mountain climbers	30
bench press	20
burpees	10
kb alt arm swing	30
kb hammer curl	20
kb halo	10
squat raise	30
flies	20
Russian twist	10

The Amazing Stickie and Medicine Ball Rotational Toss

The Amazing Stickie knows how important it is to work in all planes, even though she herself is two-dimensional.  Today she is doing a medicine ball rotational toss.

To begin, she kneels in the proposal position, holding a medicine ball next to her back hip with both hands (i.e., twisting toward the back leg).  From there, she tosses the ball across her body.  (It is helpful if she has a partner to fetch the ball back for her between reps.)  When she has done a set on one side, she repeats on the other side.

Halloween Hint

Today I’m just going to offer a small Halloween hint.  It is:  buy candy that you don’t personally like.  Then there is no temptation to snarf it all instead of giving it away.

Routine

I am a big believer in routine.  For a long time, I resisted this.  I mean, I wanted to be one of those floaty creative people who went as the spirit moved and somehow managed to be interesting and well-dressed at the same time.  Yeah, OK, I was deluded.  And not just about the part where I am ever going to achieve well-dressed.  (I’ll settle for clean.)

It turns out that, for me, routine is the thing that unlocks both creativity and achievement.  I’m pretty sure I’m not alone in this.

 

What I observed, when I looked at my life, was that the things I did automatically always got done.  I, like most of us, do not forget to brush my teeth when I get up in the morning.  I have forgotten to eat approximately twice in my entire life.  Attaching other things I wanted to do to those automatic tasks eventually turned them into automatic tasks, too.  Which means that now, when I get up in the morning, I know that I’m going to get certain stuff done without devoting a lot of mental energy to it.

 

One of those things is my workout.  It just happens, along with brushing my teeth.  (Haven’t tried working out and brushing my teeth at the same time, but I don’t think it would work very well.)

 

Please note:  I am a morning person.  Attaching stuff to my morning routine is relatively simple for me.  Even making an evening routine is a struggle because I am extra stupid at that time of day.  We need to do stuff at times that work for us.

 

Try it.  Then tell me how it worked!

Monday Workout: Halloween!

The end of the month means a different workout style, which seems appropriate for Halloween week.  Costumes optional.  Three or four rounds, depending on time and energy.

 

H - high knees	30
A - Arnold press	10
L - lunge	20
L - lateral raise	10
O - oblique crunch	10
W - woodchopper	30
E - extend triceps	20
E - elbow plank
N - narrow squat	20

 

The Amazing Stickie and Plank Saw

The Amazing Stickie is working her amazing abdominals today with the plank saw.  She begins in elbow plank position, her body resting on her elbows (forearms straight in front of her, hands not touching) and the balls of her feet, a nice straight line from her heels to the top of her head.  From there, she rocks her body back toward her feet and then forward again.

A set of ten is good.

Don't Apologize

When people hear what I do for a living, they tend to apologize to me.  They tell me that they really mean to work out, but they don’t.  Or they look anxious as they take a bite of cake.

For the record, I am not the Fitness and Diet Police.  (I really hope that there is no such thing!)  While I firmly believe that our lives are better if we move our bodies and feed them good stuff, we are happier, I also understand that life is complicated.

 

I can’t (and don’t want to!) make anybody do anything they don’t want to do.  Sure, I think that we’d feel better if we moved more often.  Yes, it would probably be healthier to eat more veggies and less candy.  But the impetus to change has to come from inside.  Otherwise it just won’t work.

 

Change, my friends, is hard.  We have to know, deeply, what we want and why we want it to do it.  It also doesn’t happen in one fell swoop.  The occasional piece of pie is going to happen to all of us.

 

My job, as a human and as a trainer, is to be there when folks are ready to do the work.  I bring my skills and knowledge, my encouragement and accountability, and my clients do the hard part.

 

Workouts will always be there when we’re ready.