Friday Exercise: Kettle Bell Swings

The Amazing Stickie likes kettle bells.  This may be because they look like really powerful handbags with which to whack bad guys who try to mug you in dark alleys.  For those of us who do not have kettle bells (essentially a metal ball with a handle), this exercise can be done using a dumbbell.

Form is important no matter what exercise we are doing, but even more important in this exercise because no one wants to throw out a back.  As you may have guessed, Stickie begins standing with excellent posture and maintains control of her abdominals throughout the exercise to protect her back.

She swings the kettle bell down between her legs, bending her knees into a slightl squat.  Then she swings it up to shoulder level in front of her, keeping her arms straight the whole time.  Her legs straighten, her glutes contract, and her hips thrust ever so slightly forward.  Because Stickie has practiced a lot, she tends to do swings in sets of 20 or 30, but they are surprisingly aerobic, so don’t feel compelled to begin with that many repetitions and be sure to allow yourself time to recover between sets.

Thursday Book Report: Trail Guide to Movement

Trail Guide to Movement by Andrew Biel is a companion to Trail Guide to the Body, which I wrote about a while back.  Over the course of the book, we “build” a body in motion.

The excellent information comes packaged with humor.  The illustrations are both entertaining and informative.  Unlike many other movement books, this one goes into detail about the neurological aspects of the process.  I’ll be keeping the book close by for reference.

Try (some of) this at home

Sometimes balance work seems silly.  It’s not like we are going to have to get out of bed and walk a tightrope or anything (most days, anyway…).  But then there is that thing on the top shelf in the kitchen and suddenly we are perched on our toes on the counter and it doesn’t seem that silly after all.  (Don’t tell Brent that I sometimes do that…)

Admittedly, standing on the counter might not be the best place to start working on balance.  Standing next to the counter, however, is a great place.  We can rise up on our toes with the support of the counter top, or with our hands hovering over the counter once we have mastered the first part.  We can shift our weight to one leg and lift the other and then reverse it.  We can see if we can load the top rack of the dishwasher on one foot, or transfer dishes from the drainer to the cabinet that way.

Small, easy, everyday actions can build into great things.  But I probably won’t install a tightrope from my bed to the closet any time soon.

The weight of years...

I went to visit my parents over the weekend to help them pack some things in advance of moving.  It was thought-provoking.

My parents are both in their seventies and reasonably healthy.  They are dealing with some age-related issues in their knees and backs.  They are not as strong as they used to be.  They do not have the same stamina.  Like many of us, they could lose a few pounds and make better food choices.  They are living out the results of their life choices; some are good, some less so.  They count their blessings, and I count them as blessings.

Sometimes it is easier to see in other people what we need to see in ourselves.  I want to be a healthy and strong septuagenarian.  That means I need to work now to be healthy and active because I will never be younger!

The other provoked thought was about stuff.  They have a lot of it, like all of us.  I packed things that they hadn’t used in a long time and may never use.  They are carrying a lot of extra pounds.  A few of them got shed while I was there and maybe more will get lost before the move is over.  Moving the extra pounds around, putting them in boxes, was hard on their bodies. 

Let’s lighten up.

Even though it is pi(e) day...

Rewards work.  Sometimes.

When we want to build a habit or achieve a fitness goal, it can help to promise ourselves a treat for our accomplishment.  However, there are a couple of risks to the technique.

For instance, if we choose a reward that isn’t that compelling, we can decide, moment to moment, that it isn’t worth it.  Maybe, in a general way, we want a new gizmo or outfit or thingie, but not enough to motivate ourselves not to eat the cake or to do more pushups or to spend the extra ten minutes of cardio.  That can be useful information, of course, but it doesn’t get us closer to our goal.

Alternatively, we can choose something small that we do want, like maybe a car wash or a pedicure (two of my favorite fairly inexpensive, inedible indulgences).  Then, when we screw up, we think we don’t deserve any of those things ever.  That, in some cases, can throw us into the whirlwind of self-doubt, self-hatred, and even self-punishment.  Not helpful.

In order to make rewards work for us, we need to choose carefully.  With a big goal, giving ourselves incremental rewards can help us feel special and empowered along the way.  If, say, we get some new workout clothes halfway to our goal, we might make better, faster progress toward the ultimate goal and the big reward, which might be something like a weekend away, or a better bike, or a fancy makeover.

Just watch out for the ice cream rewards.

Friday Exercise: Reverse Flies

Last week, Stickie had so much fun doing flies that she decided to do reverse flies this week.  This balances the work she did on the front side of her body by giving the back muscles a turn.

The starting position is lying face down on a bench.  Most people prefer to have their heads sticking out over the end of the bench, and many women may find that putting the end of the bench just at the bra line is more comfortable.  Stickie has a dumbbell in each hand.  This exercise is challenging enough that she uses much smaller weights than she does for flies; do not feel bad if you need to use what seems like a silly light weight.

Keeping her arms in a slightly curved shape, Stickie lifts the weights out to her sides.  It looks like she is flapping her wings.  She thinks about drawing her shoulder blades toward the center of her back.  While it is tempting to bend her elbows more as she lifts the weights as if she were doing a row, she resists because she knows this is cheating.  Three sets of 10-12 reps is sufficient.

Thursday Book Report: We Have the Technology

So We Have the Technology by Kara Platoni is not really about fitness.  Don’t tell anyone, but it is perhaps more of a philosophy book than a technology book.  Why am I writing about it?  (Besides that I finished it and needed to write a post, of course…)  Well, because the book is about human perception and how technology is changing it.

The chapters on each of our senses trace out the biologic mechanisms as far as we know them.  They explore prosthetics and investigate our innate filtering and sorting systems.  Underlying that whole discussion is our whole definition of “normal” functioning.

Other issues that arise include who is creating the technology, who controls it, and how much is too much.  A fitness example cites my beloved Fitbit.  I choose to wear it and track various things.  But what if my company (not MY company, but my company if I worked for someone else) asked me to wear one and track my data for health premium calculations?  What if my Fitbit evolved to track other things, like my medications or my cholesterol level?

Then there are the people who are trying to add superpowers.  Who doesn’t want superpowers?  But maybe not magnets implanted in our hands, or a camera installed in our eye sockets.  Issues abound.

When I was done reading, I was not particularly freaked out.  Technology has always changed the world and culture has evolved to deal with it.  What I did think was that each of us might want to think about what and how we perceive things, about why we want various perceptions, and about how that might influence all of our decisions, including our fitness choices.