FAQ about SAQ?

This week’s workout, posted Monday, includes work with the speed ladder.  Speed/agility/quickness (SAQ) work often gets neglected, but has plenty of benefits for both athletes and non-athletes.

Bursts of speed raise our heart rates and make excellent high intensity intervals, proven to improve our cardiovascular fitness and pump up our metabolisms.  Shockingly, training for speed also makes us… faster!  Life is not a race, but really, who doesn’t want to be fast?

Agility, in this context, means that we can start, stop, and change direction quickly without compromising our excellent posture.  We need agility to escape from linebackers and to dodge wayward shopping carts.  It helps our brains, because agility, by nature, breaks us out of our always-forward mindset and reminds us that we sometimes have to go backward, sideways, or around.

Quickness is all about response time.  If we want to stop suddenly because the car in front of us has inexplicably burst into flames, we need quickness.  Mentally, we need to be alert and ready for action.  Quickness allows us to elude cheetahs and muggers, adapt to suddenly encroaching curbs, and avoid stepping on the cat.

Also:  fun.

Even if you dream of Hamlet

I spend plenty of time getting people to move.  Today, for different, I suggest sleep.  We don’t, in general, get enough of it and it is just as bad as not getting enough exercise.

We have some of the same excuses, too.  “There’s so much else to do!”  “It’s boring!”  “I don’t want to waste time.”  “It takes too long.”

Without sleep, we aren’t fit.  Sleep enables us to lose weight.  It helps us consolidate our memories.  It keeps us from being insane.  And, obviously, it makes us less tired.

I’m not suggesting we sleep through important things—but do we really need to watch that much television?  Facebook can live without us for eight hours at a time.  So can all those tempting video games.  It is worth losing a little sleep to have that great conversation with your spouse or kid or best buddy or to catch that amazing show or to squeeze in a workout before work, but let’s choose wisely what we are willing to trade our snoozing in on.

And no, napping in meetings doesn’t count.

Monday Workout: Speed Ladder

This week’s workout uses a speed ladder.  If you don’t have access to one, you can substitute any cardio exercise of your choice for the minute exercises at the beginning of each set.  Try to choose one that moves forward, one that moves sideways, and one that moves transversely (e.g., forward step-ups, side step-ups, and crossing step-ups).  Yes, there are burpees in this workout; we can all whine about them together, but we have to do them.

ladder out out in in	1 min
lunges	20
burpees	10
ladder lateral in in	1 min
deadlifts	20
reverse fly	10
carioca	1 min
ball bench press	20
pushups	10

Friday Book Report: How Not to Die

How Not to Die by Michael Greger, M.D. is a big book, both in terms of pages and ideas.  In it, Dr. Greger lays out piles and piles of evidence about what we should eat to prevent diseases including heart disease, diabetes, and clinical depression.  And yes, there are piles of evidence.  The good news is that he is also an entertaining writer, so it does not feel like a slog.

Also he does not mince words.  He points out the inherent difficulty of government recommendations for diet:  the government must attempt to promote healthy eating and support the food industry.  In general, the food industry wins.  He goes on to skewer both government and other recommendations for essentially dumbing things down rather than presenting the best possible recommendations based on the evidence.  In other words, he says that many sources recommend diets based on what they think people might actually follow rather than on what would be best.

Here is the very short version of the book:  go vegetarian and probably vegan.  I’m in because I kind of like living.

Medals? Eh, whatever...

Over the weekend, I played some board games.  I like board games.  Here’s the thing, though:  I don’t really care if I win.  I play because I like the conversations that happen around the game.  I fidget with the pieces and make silly jokes.  I try to play well enough that I’m not hindering the flow and I don’t object to winning if it happens, but I’m not driven by competition.

That’s okay, but it doesn’t help me too much when it comes to fitness.  I could be a little more competitive with myself and it would be a good thing.  I could want to beat my previous records (or, hey, track records at all!!!) more.  I could work a little harder to be faster or stronger or thinner or more agile.

Wanna race?

Embrace the change

Often I am in favor of baby steps.  They are super useful when we need to talk ourselves into something new.  We can try out some tiny little change that isn’t all that threatening and then see how it goes.  It can lead to amazing and large change in a semi-painless fashion.

But there are times when giant steps are called for.  Sometimes it is not enough to temporize with ourselves, to compromise, to approximate our way to greatness.  We need to start being great right now, totally.  We need to commit.

So.  I’m now a vegetarian.  I’ve looked at the evidence.  I’ve remembered how I used to feel when I was one before.  I’ve bid fond farewell to the bacon, which was pretty much the only thing I missed last time.

Maybe your giant step is different.  Maybe it is exercising first, before anything else.  Maybe it is ditching the sugar, or the boyfriend, or the bad attitude.  Maybe it is embracing the kale or lacing up the shoes.  Whatever it is, let’s do it.  I’m here for you, eating my salad.

Heavy Objects

There are times when fitness is just simple.  I like to lift weights because I like being strong.  That’s it.  I like the challenge of heavy objects, the feeling of struggle and pull in my muscles, and then the success.

Of course there is a metaphor in there somewhere, but let’s just stay literal.

What success shall we go for today?