Friday Book Report: Grit

Angela Duckworth’s book Grit inspires me.  We all have moments (and I sure have a lot of them!) when it doesn’t seem like we are enough, whether that’s smart enough, strong enough, cool enough, or whatever.  In those moments, grit can come to our rescue.

The central thesis of her book is that hard work beats talent, pretty much every time.  She has gobs of research to back up that thesis.  That in itself is good news because it means that we can do something to get where we want to go.  The underlying premise is pretty cool, too: who we are and what we are capable of are not carved-in-stone permanencies.  We may not be able to do the Big Thing yet, but we can work our way up to it.  The universe is changeable and moldable and we can make a difference.

The other big takeaway is deliberate practice.  Hard work and lots of hours are key, but the kind of hard work matters.  That is to say, showing up is a great place to start and going through the motions is probably better than not, but real improvement starts with mindful, challenging, stretch work.  Pushing the limits of our capabilities, failing, reevaluating, and trying again teach us what we need to know.

I highly recommend this book.

Plans!

A well-planned exercise program addresses several needs.  A really well-planned one addresses them all and keeps it efficient and interesting and maybe even fun.  Hiring the right trainer can take care of that, but if you prefer to design a program for yourself, you probably want to include:

1.     Cardio.  If your heart and lungs don’t work, you die.  Increasing their efficiency makes everything better.  We are all happier when we can get to the top of the stairs with breath left over.

2.     Strength.  Besides the fact that we need to move ourselves and other heavy objects all the time, strength training improves our metabolisms, builds and maintains our bone density, and makes us look cuter.

3.    Flexibility.  While we might want to look like classical statues, we probably prefer being able to move.  Flexibility training allows us to use all those lovely muscles we have built.  Range of motion can be a determining factor in our quality of life, whether that means we can reach the stuff on the shelves above our heads or do a killer butterfly stroke.

4.     Mindfulness.  This is about breathing and not being stressed, but it’s also about coordination and grace.  We can learn where we are in space and use our powerful brains to move our beautiful bodies skillfully.

5.     Enjoyment.  Finding exercise that gives us joy beyond the relief that it is over can make all the difference.  Maybe that’s loud music or a funny exercise buddy rather than the perfect sport.  Whatever it is, look for the play aspect.

I didn't ask why, but you can...

Sometimes events make us consider the Big Questions.  While, thankfully, my kids and husband and I are all healthy, our wider family has been facing a variety of health issues.  It is to be expected, of course, as our parents and aunts and uncles get older, but that doesn’t make it easier or more fun.

There are at least two kinds of Big Questions.  One kind speaks to long term thinking.  What do we want our lives to add up to?  Where do we want to end up?  How can we make sure that we are healthy and happy as long as possible?  These are the questions that spur us on to move our bodies and save our pennies and build our skills.

The other kind, at least the way I’m thinking about it today, speaks to living in this moment, this one we have right now.  How do we promote joy?  How do we reduce suffering?  How do we shift toward the good and beautiful and right?  These questions wake us up and tune us in.  This is how we breathe.

I am not going to propose answers.  My answers might not be correct or useful.  I do think I know some useful questions, though.  Let’s think about them together.

Stretch, but not until your limbs fall off...

All of us need to stretch more.  Our sedentary lives stick our muscles together.  Our bursts of activity create strength that could use a bit more looseness.

Of course, we could just do it.  We could put stretching on our lists of things to do and tick it off every day.  If that works, great!

However, most of us don’t.  We finish a workout and we’re tired and stretching seems like one thing too many.  We promise ourselves we’ll do it later.  And then we get distracted by the hot shower and the commute home and it doesn’t happen.  Here are two things we can do to get the stretching in:

1.     Get someone else to make you do it.  Maybe that means taking a yoga class or Pilates.  Maybe you work out with a trainer who plans it in at the end for you.  We are good and obedient people, most of the time.  If someone is standing there telling us to do it, we will.

2.     Tie it to something else.  I, for example, call my parents every Saturday morning.  If I promise myself that I will stretch while I am chatting about what Peanut (their dog) did, I get off the phone with longer muscles and Good Daughter Points (not to be sneezed at!).  It might work to tie stretching to doing the dishes (hi there, calves!) or checking email (piriformis stretch anyone?).  We can find something we do anyway and let stretching piggyback on it.

Monday Workout: Dead (or alive!)

Because I love squats so much, I sometimes forget about deadlifts.  I am fixing that this week.  Choose a heavy weight for the deadlifts and rows and go lighter on the curls than you might otherwise because of the lunge part.  Four rounds.

1 min cardio
deadlifts	20
lunge to curl	20
plyojacks/jacks/mod jacks	20
rows	20
plank	max time
side plank	max time

Friday Book Report: Two Books! One with Pictures!

As I’ve said every month since Andrew Luck started his book club, I love it that he chooses a “rookie” book for his younger fans every month.  That is being a good role model, encouraging the use of brains as well as body.  As luck would have it (pun!), his March selection, Zen Shorts by Jon J. Muth is about mindfulness.  This Caldecott Award-winning book obviously has lovely pictures, but also three lovely little stories a panda neighbor tells to the children next door.  Kids or adults who want some gentle ways to think about mindfulness will enjoy the stories and the panda-human friendship.

Luck’s April selection is a book I happen to have read when my kids were younger, the first in T.A. Barron’s Merlin saga, The Lost Years.  I have a weakness for Arthurian stories.  This reinterpretation asks how Merlin became the wizard we all know so well.  Young Merlin faces all kinds of challenges in a well-paced and interesting adventure.  Barron has written in other places about how story shapes our characters in real life.  This is a book that lives up to his own standard.

Read these books to yourself or to a kid and enjoy!

No bump on the head required

Where am I?  Fitness helps us answer this question, if not always the more existential Who Am I?  As we move our bodies mindfully, we build up the neural capacity to know where our bodies are in space.  The fancy word for this is proprioception.

We see it at work when we try to learn a new sport.  Our coach or teacher or friend keeps telling us to drop our shoulders or swing our legs or move our knees out and we react with surprise; weren’t we already doing that?  We had no idea what our body parts were doing.

One of the things that I like about Pilates is that most of the movements are slow.  This gives the body time to coordinate with the brain to build up a fuller picture of where all the parts are.  Yoga does the same kind of thing.  Of course, we can bring mindfulness to whatever we are doing, but sometimes it is useful to choose a practice that makes it easier.