Chimney-Building, Anyone?

Never ask your kids for blog ideas.  Especially just after visiting the Winchester Mystery House.  They will suggest stairs, lots and lots of stairs, in varying sizes as appropriate for one’s level of arthritis.  They will try to figure out what sort of exercise a door to nowhere (one that opens on a two story drop) could be used for and will suggest running from ghosts as cardio.  (Maybe your kids are different.)

However, they do, sort of, have a point.  We can do workouts wherever we happen to be using the environment around us.  This is the basic premise of boot camps that meet in parks and use benches and playground equipment.  Improvising a hotel room workout can make the difference between maintaining progress while traveling and coming home needing bigger pants.  I often say that if I could choose only one exercise for people to do, it would be squats.  If I could choose two, the second one would be pushups.  Those can be done anywhere, without stuff.

And if ghosts motivate us to run, I suppose that’s good, too.

Monday Workout: BOSU fun!

Maintaining stability in an unstable world is one goal of fitness, both literal and metaphorical.  We’re working on that this week with the BOSU.  (If you don’t have access to the BOSU, just do the exercises plain—they will still make you both stronger and tired!)  When working on exercises with added instability, it is important to choose slightly lighter weights to avoid too much challenge at once.  Three rounds.

BOSU step ups	30
BOSU lunges	20
BOSU pushups	10
mountain climbers	30
squats	20
dips	10
clean and press	30
bench press	20
pretty princesses	10

Friday Book Report: Teaching Yoga

Donna Farhi’s book Teaching Yoga:  Exploring the Teacher-Student Relationship outlines what ethical practice in yoga should be.  It discusses money, sex, boundaries, and confidentiality, among other things.  It’s also a short read, even with the exercises at the end.

Most of the books I read are useful for both fitness enthusiasts and professionals.  This book, obviously, is designed for teachers, but I suppose anyone deeply interested in one way to live out one’s yoga could find it interesting.

It is unfortunate that someone needs to remind yoga teachers (and other professionals in fitness, since I have read similar chapters if not books from both Pilates and personal training angles) about how to be a decent human being in the context of work, but there it is.  None of us is perfect and having ground rules out there is a good idea.

Let’s all be kind and good to each other while respecting each other’s boundaries.