Reflect: Sleep and Recovery 2

Sleep and recovery are a little different than the skills we’ve been working on so far.  For one thing, they’re inherently pleasant.  You’d think that would make them easier to prioritize, but no.

Here is your takeaway:  you, you wonderful human you, deserve to rest when you are tired, to sleep when you are sleepy, and to recover as needed.  Some people, some forces in our culture, will try to deny this, but they are wrong.  Fight the power:  go take a (short) nap.

 

To improve our sleep, we might have to admit that our moms were right.  We need a bedtime.  When we are consistent about when we go to bed and when we get up, our bodies adapt and we fall asleep more quickly.  Please note:  the bedtime and the wake up time need to be at least seven hours apart.  Planning to be underslept is not good planning.

 

Setting that bedtime and wake up time can make us feel really efficient because look:  we just implemented a recovery technique!  Two things at once and we accomplish them in bed?  Sign me up.  However, our bodies do need more than sleep.  We might need to think about what kind of food would help our bodies recover, or whether we’ve had enough water recently, or if massage might help.

 

It can feel overwhelming when we take stock of how much recovery we could use.  Baby steps.  Treating ourselves with love takes practice.

Reflect: Sleep and Recovery 1

So:  we’ve spent three weeks talking about and maybe working on various aspects of fitness.  We might be tired.  Time to talk about sleep and recovery.

The two are related.  Sleep is a great recovery strategy.  A whole lot of us don’t get enough sleep and we don’t get good sleep.  How to tell?  Do you wake up rested?  QED.

 

Recovery is a broader concept.  It’s all the things we do to help our bodies feel better after we work them.  It includes things like nutrition and massage, foam rolling, and, a concept I would really like to introduce to my Wristy Overlord (aka Apple Watch):  rest days.

 

We will know if we are recovering enough if we are not constantly sore.

Monday Workout: Endure

We’ve got a bunch of compound exercises today so we’ll be working endurance and coordination along with everything else.  Three rounds.

 

db circles	30
squats	20
1 leg deadlift	10
woodchoppers	30
rows	20
pushups	10
squat to leg lift	30
flies	20
windscreen wipers	10

Thursday List: 7

Here are some good starting exercises for weight training:

 

1.     squats

2.     deadlifts

3.     bench press

4.     flies

5.     rows

6.     kickbacks

7.     chest lifts (some folks know these as crunches, but the Pilates way is better!)

Reflect: Strength 2

Those of us who would like to gain some strength will perhaps not be surprised to learn that, like all the other skills we’ve been talking about this month, habit and routine help.

When we’re first starting out, we might want to commit to one weight workout a week.  We’ll see more progress when we increase to two non-consecutive days a week.  Most of us don’t really need more than three weight workouts a week, but that will depend on our goals and on how we structure our workouts.

 

In general, we don’t want to work the same muscle groups two days in a row.  The way strength training works is that we do damage to our muscles when we work them and they heal stronger.  (That’s an oversimplification, but it gets the point across.)  People who want to work out on consecutive days do things like alternate between upper body days and lower body days.

 

The specifics of our workouts will be dictated by our goals (remember:  endurance, hypertrophy, max strength, power), but the mechanics will work similarly.  We will do a number of reps of an exercise at a weight.  We’ll increase the reps until we’ve hit the target for the kind of goal we have, then we’ll increase the weight, reducing the reps back to our starting number.  In short, we’ll alternate increasing reps and weight.

 

A trainer can help plan and track all that data.  You know how to find me!

Reflect: Strength

There are both formal and informal ways to evaluate strength.  (Spoiler alert:  there’s a workout in the last week of the year designed for evaluation!)  Hit me up if you want to talk about getting into the nitty-gritty.

Some of the evaluation of your strength training routine will depend on what your goals are.  There are, very loosely, a few categories of goals:  endurance, which is exactly what it sounds like, hypertrophy, which is a fancy word for building big muscles, max strength, which again is exactly what it sounds like, and power, which is exerting a lot of force in a short period of time.  If the weights you use are getting heavier over time, you’re probably doing fine.

 

Another way to think about how well the workouts are working is to see how our everyday tasks are going.  If schlepping the groceries is not a problem, great!  If you need to move the couch and you can, also great!  Problems lifting the Pekinese?  Maybe not so great.

Monday Workout: 12 Days of Christmas

No, it’s not quite Christmas yet, but just to make sure that everyone gets a chance, we’re doing the 12 days of Christmas workout this week.  It’s tradition, like getting coal in my stocking.  Hmm.  Are those two things related?

Anyway:  here’s how the workout works.  On the first “day” of Christmas, we do one push press.  Hooray!  One down!  On the second day, we do two goblet squats and one push press.  You see where this is going.  By the twelfth day, you will be absolutely sure that I am not your true love, but you will have had a great workout.  And yes, I do know that you will have done 42 burpees by the end.  I’m not sorry.  I got you strength, bragging rights, and fatigue for Christmas.

 

Try to keep rest periods to between the days, but if you can’t, don’t fret.  Now you’re safe until Christmas in June.

 

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