The Amazing Stickie has a busy life, so she loves compound exercises for their efficiency. Today she is doing plié bend extend.
To begin, she stands in what she thinks of as the starfish position: arms holding light dumbbells held out at shoulder height, palms facing up, and legs wider than hip distance apart and externally rotated. From there, she bends her knees and elbows and then straightens again.
Sets of thirty are good.
Yesterday I wrote about tracking for people who would rather not track. Those of us who love the process of making lists and graphs and color-coded systems are the target audience today.
I don’t have to convince those of us who love this stuff to do it, so I’m just going to talk about some good practices.
First, let’s talk about what we want to track, besides everything.
We want to have some baseline data about our bodies, so we can start by weighing and measuring. We need to step on the scale (sorry!) and write down the result. Please keep in mind that we are way more important than any number and that we are valuable humans, no matter how much or how little we weigh. Then we need to spend some quality time with the tape measure. I suggest measuring the chest (at the nipple line, so we always measure the same place), the waist (at the belly button, for the same reason), the hips at the widest point, the thigh halfway between the spot where the hipbone juts out in front and the top of the kneecap, the calf at the widest point, and the upper arm halfway between the shoulder and elbow. It can be easier to make these measurements (especially that last one) with help, but it isn’t essential. A couple of selfies can also be useful here.
There are a lot of ways to get baseline data for cardio fitness. In my studio, I give new clients a step test, which has handy charts that separate results into categories based on a huge chunk of data from tons of people doing it. A simpler and more individual approach would be to pick a specific route, walk or run it, and note down how long it took, how hard it felt, and the heart rate at the end. If we have Wristy Overlords, we can start noting down our HRV numbers daily. Averaging a week of numbers will give us our baseline.
For strength, our baseline is best obtained through doing a one-rep max workout. For this one, it is best to have a friend to spot us for safety. After a warm-up, we go through our repertoire of strength exercises with heavier and heavier weights until we can only complete one (good form) rep. We write that number down next to each exercise and we have our benchmark.
With all this data in hand, we’re ready to start tracking our daily work.
For cardio, we want to record what kind and how long. Depending on what we’re doing, we might also record distance, speed, max heart rate, elevation gain, and route. We might want to include some qualitative data, too, like how close to death we felt on those hills.
In our weight workouts, we want to note down the exercises we chose, the number of reps and sets, and the weights we used. We might want to say something about tempo or about specific modifications we made. Again, qualitative data can be helpful.
If we’re working on flexibility and balance, again we need to write down what we did, how we felt, and any milestones we managed to pass.
Tracking data from classes can be more challenging. It’s hard to stop to write down what we’re doing and still keep up with what’s happening, so it might be best to summarize, writing down something along the lines of “boot camp class, weights up to ten pounds, hard, but manageable” or “yoga class, flow, struggled with tree, fell asleep in savasana.”
Every month or so, we get to review the data. We can look for patterns, like it’s really hard to get a workout in on Thursdays, or my measurements really changed once I switched to free weights, or that hill route is actually fun now.
As we think of more things we want to keep an eye on, we can refine our systems. We may notice that we could use some accountability around food, and add meal tracking and planning to our routine. We may recognize that sleep has a major impact on the quality of our workouts and decide to track how many hours a night we manage.
We can get as fancy as we like. But I do suggest getting a clipboard and/or a binder because we need a place to corral all that paper.
Sometimes the worst part of the workout is the tracking. It’s fussy. It’s boring. It usually needs to be done while we’re tired and sweaty and distracted. There are a couple of ways of dealing with this.
One is: skip it. I hate to break it to my fellow achiever-minded folks, but there is no great gradebook in the sky. God is not going to conduct a notebook check, even if every middle- and high-school teacher led us to think it was inevitable. If writing down the details of a weight workout or the parameters for a spin session or even the very fact that we did in fact work out seems like too much trouble, that’s fine.
But. (Of course there is a but.)
Maybe it’s worth doing if we can keep it simple. (I’ll talk to those of us who love our complicated systems and colored pens and boxes to tick in tomorrow’s post.)
How simple our system can be depends on what our goals are. If all we want is a little accountability, we can get that from a basic checkbox on our normal to-do list or calendar. Or we can rely on our Wristy Overlords (aka fitness trackers) to do it for us; once our little circles are complete, we’re done.
If we are the kind of folks who are motivated by making progress, we might want to track a few more things. It doesn’t have to be a huge burden. If, say, once a month we do a benchmark workout and record stuff like how long it took, what weights we used, how we felt, what speed or incline we used on the treadmill, we can see whether or not we’re moving toward our goals. (A caveat: some days we just aren’t as strong as others, even if we are generally improving. We need to avoid attaching too much emphasis to any one snapshot and check out our general trends.)
Another option: we can take a literal snapshot of our bodies, front and side view, to see how our bodies are changing.
Let me know what happens if you try!
We have some jumps this week. If jumps are not appropriate for you, modify!
woodchoppers | 30 |
rows | 20 |
kickbacks | 10 |
| |
squat raise | 30 |
flies | 20 |
YTA | 10 |
| |
lateral bound/side lunge | 30 |
curls | 20 |
V sit press | 10 |
When the Amazing Stickie wants the benefits of plyometrics plus some extra ab work, she chooses to do plank jacks.
She begins in the classic plank position, her hands directly under her shoulders and her body a straight line from the top of her head to her ankles. Then, keeping that straight line, she jumps her feet apart and then back together. That is one rep.
Try a set of thirty.
Go play.
Sometimes our workout equipment needs to be reminded that we love it. Here are a couple of things to think about:
Inflating the stability ball: If it’s getting a little squishy, it’s time to get out the foot pump and add air. Bonus points: stomping on that thing counts as part of the workout!
Lubricating the cardio stuff: It depends on what kind of equipment we’re talking about here, but most stuff with moving parts needs some lube from time to time. This might mean the pedals of an elliptical or the wheel of a stationary bike or the chain of a real bike.
Checking for wear: Things that have straps or springs or chains may need an eye cast over them. We need to replace frayed or stretched or rusty bits before they break, just to be safe.
Cleaning: Of course we wipe down the sweaty bits every time we work out, right? That’s just good manners. But dusting the weight rack, wiping down the weights, sweeping and vacuuming the floor are all important things to do, too.
Go play.
Captain Obvious here: not all our fitness comes from actual workouts. Here are some things that count toward fitness:
Moving. It’s a little extreme to decide to go live somewhere else just for the fitness benefits, but all that packing and schlepping of boxes does in fact make us stronger. This item is here to alleviate any guilt anyone might have for missing workouts during a move: you are doing enough.
Gardening. OK, not the kind where you sit in the shade and pull a weed every once in a while and you drink a lot of lemonade (although it does sound fun). The kind where you need to mix a bunch of compost and vermiculite into your garden beds, rake up a bunch of debris, or lug a bunch of 5-gallon plants to their new locations.
Housework. Again, not the light swishes of a feather duster. More the heave-the-vacuum-up-the-stairs sort of housework, or the kind where all of a sudden there are fifty seven things in the wrong place and you need to run all over the place putting them where they belong because company is coming and God forbid they see you make messes sometimes.
Shopping. That twenty pound bag of dog food counts as weight lifting. Ditto the bulk rice, the cases of fizzy water, and the twenty cans of on-sale soup. Depending on where you’re shopping, you may also have to walk miles and miles (looking at you, Costco).
Pro tip: if you get sweaty and/or breathless, it counts as exercise.
Go play.
