Tag: workouts

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Who do you listen to, your body or your mind?

Recently, I have been working out less.  I listened to my body and noticed that it wanted a break.  I didn’t quit going to the gym all together, but instead of five or six days a week, it was more like two or three.  I would still set my alarm for all the usual days, but when I got out of bed (I made myself actually get out of bed before the decision was made), I would listen to my body if it told me that it didn’t want to exercise that day.  The trick is to actually get out of bed before deciding to tap out. Otherwise, I couldn’t tell if my body really wanted a break or my brain was trying to trick me.  I find my brain lies to me a lot.

Aside from the get out of bed test, the reason that I could tell that I was listening to my body and not my brain is that I was still feeling good even though I wasn’t exercising as much.  I tend to get really antsy when I don’t get enough exercise, sometimes I feel like I want to crawl out of my skin. I was able to focus and be productive and I was still moving enough to keep my back from getting too angry with me, so it was clear that my body was still getting what it needed.

Now this is no way to achieve one’s fitness goals, but it is a good strategy to keep things copacetic if you are of a certain age.  I am still listening to my body and I am starting to feel like I need to ramp back up to my higher activity level.  I can feel it in my arms a lot right now. 

Thinking about how I need to listen to my body instead of my brain when it comes to exercise led to contemplating other areas of my life in which my brain likes to lie to me. No surprise, food is the next biggie.  When I listen to my body, I tend to eat more fruits and veggies.  I don’t get as hungry and I don’t get tummy aches.  When I eat what my brain wants, it tends to be more white food – things with a lot of sugar, things that are processed … things like French fries.  My brain always tries to convince me that I want to eat fried food.

It’s funny to think that I shouldn’t listen to my brain.  Isn’t that where my smart is supposed to be after all?  It can be more challenging to hear what my body has to say to me, especially when my brain is shouting and jumping up and down. But when I am quiet and listen, it never steers me wrong.

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Indoor Cycling, Summer Edition

I have recently made some changes to my indoor cycling schedule. I’ve traded in my Saturday morning class for Sunday.  I know, I’m surprised at myself too!

I’m happy that I am managing to still get in at least two classes a week, even without having an overwhelming amount of grrrr to get out on a daily basis like I used to.  But every time I go to the gym on Sunday morning, I crack myself up.  Here’s the thing:

Yesterday was a beautiful summer day in southern California.  Around 9am I got in my car, drove one mile to the gym, and spent 45 minutes in a dark room taking an indoor cycling class.  There is nothing about doing that which isn’t at least a little ridiculous. It felt like I was living in a scene from LA Story.

First, it’s barely a mile.  And I don’t think that it is too much to expect that I can comfortably and safely walk there during daylight hours (I give myself a pass to drive when it is still dark out).   Also, after 8am parking enforcement is in full effect.  Either drive around for 10-15 minutes looking for a spot or pay to use the metered parking.  If you’re going to spend 10-15 minutes driving around looking for a free parking spot (like I did), you may as well have walked. 

Second, it was a beautiful day but here I was choosing to do my exercising inside.  Not just inside, but in a dark room.  I really can’t get over my own ridiculousness.  If I had decided to go to the 8:30 class instead, I wouldn’t give myself such a hard time because that still counts as first thing in the morning on a Sunday.  By 9:30, you should have already started your day (unless you had a big Saturday night, which I did not).

One important component for getting habits to stick is to make them automatic.  There aren’t options, it is just what you do.  I don’t spend any time thinking about how I’m going to get to the gym on any other day.  But on Sundays I keep considering all the options.  I should walk…maybe I could take my bike…then I have to dig it out of the garage…do I need air in my tires?  And by the time I’ve run through the whole monologue, it’s late.  I need to either decide ahead of time that I’m going to bike and make sure that everything is ready, or I need to take that option off of the table and just know that I’m going to walk.

The bottom line is that I still make it to indoor cycling at least twice a week and that is what really matters.  But I can’t help but laugh at myself about how I get there. 

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Flabdominals

Flabdominals (noun): flabby abdominals, particularly the kind that jiggle when participating in high-impact exercises and/or solicit congratulations on a person’s non-existent pregnancy. Also, a word that Cynthia made up.

I have lovingly referred to my tummy region as my flabdominals for several years now.  I’m not sure when it happened, but at some point, my daily abdominal exercise habit evaporated and the era of flabdominals began.  Up to that point, I had been used to having a toned middle; it was not one of my problem areas that I needed to dress around.  Quickly, I had to learn to dress around the fluff that had invaded my middle.

Currently, I am feeling that I may be at a point with my fitness that I can conquer the flabdominals and reclaim an at-least moderately toned middle region.

And so, I am going to issue a challenge to myself to do 10 minutes of abdominal exercises everyday (in addition to anything that happens in any workout class at the gym) for 30 days.  I don’t want to turn it into a big thing that is going to become another block of time to schedule; I think that I can fit 10 minutes in either in the morning when I get back from the gym or as part of my bedtime routine.  I know that I will see some difference, I’m interested to see how much.  Also, I’m curious to know if it will stick, if I can get my daily ab exercise habit back.

One of my barriers to re-forming a daily ab habit (cough *lame excuse* cough, cough) was deciding what exercises to do.  So, this time, I’m going to set a series that will be my daily go-to.  Afterall, I do like to eliminate that whole having to think business whenever possible.

I think I’m going to go back to good old-fashioned Pilates mat series.  These are the exercises that I kept up for years after college.  Yes, I took Pilates as a class in college, that’s what dance majors do.  It was two units, we had a text book and tests and everything (of course I got an “A”).  The full series takes more than 10 minutes, I’m going to start with just a few.

The Pilates Method of Physical and Mental Conditioning by Friedman and Eisen
Pilates text book from college

10 (ish) Minute Ab Series

  • Heel lowers (10 reps)
  • Pilates 100s
  • Roll Up (3-5 reps)
  • Roll Over (3-5 reps)
  • The Vacation Special (10 of each):
    • Single Leg Stretch
    • Grand Battement
    • Double Leg Stretch
    • Cross Over (Bicycles)
    • Leg Lowers

Do you already have a daily ab habit?  What are some of your go-to ab exercises?  The one you love and/or the one you hate so much but you know it works.

If you don’t have a daily ab habit, do you want to play flabdominal boot camp with me this month?  We can do a check-in at the end of the month (no measurements!) just to see how we did with doing the work, if we noticed any difference, if we are going to keep doing/do more/do better/do less.

Let me know if you want to play along at home!

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Strength Training Works

I’ve been spending my Mondays with Adam doing glutes, guns and guts for a few months now.  I am still the wimpiest gal in class, but I have a workout buddy who I partner up with every week and she helps keep me motivated.  The workout still makes me sweat my brains out and feel like I’m going to die but I’ve learned to keep a towel tucked into the back of my pants like a little tail so that I always have it handy as we move through the circuit.

Here’s the thing that I want to tell you: strength training works.

Ok, so that isn’t a shocking revelation.  I’m just saying that with the rest of my weekly activity staying pretty much the same, I’ve lost three inches from my waist and hips since I added this into my week. 

Every week is a mash-up of a bunch of various exercises using dumbbells, barbells, TRX, steps, Bosu, and any other random stuff Adam finds laying around the gym. When I started out, I would always pick the lightest weight so that I could do more reps and not take breaks (who knew that one minute could be so long?).  I remember Adam telling me that he would rather see me doing less reps with a heavier weight and thinking he was crazy. 

As the weeks went along, I would pick at least one exercise on the circuit to try a heavier-than-I-wanted weight.  Sometimes I would surprise myself with being able to manage it.  Sometimes I would notice that the exercise felt more effective because other muscles were being recruited to provide stability.  I’ve learned that using heavier dumbbells (20lbs) for exercised like walking lunges forces you to engage your core and helps you keep your balance more than a lighter weight will. Sometimes I would just have to stop after a couple of reps and find a lighter weight.  C’est la vie!  

My favorite development over the past few months is the improvement in my posture and my shoulder strength.  I really took for granted having a strong upper back from all those years of ballet training.  Sitting at a desk, staring at a computer all day has that sneaky way of building that permanent hunched forward posture that is neither attractive or comfortable.  Eventually, I hope to get everything evened out; it’s nice to see and feel the progress so far.  It made me really happy when I could see the line of my shoulders more closely matching the line of the barbell when we were doing back squats last week. I am not a fan of the over-developed trapezius look.

So even though I suck at it and it hurts, I keep showing up and trying my best.  I’m never going to be the ripped girl in the belly shirt, but I am optimistic that if I keep it up, eventually I will be able to do a proper push-up (and maybe even crush some 10lb dumbbells for bicep curls).

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Pinnacle Peak

Remember how I’ve been working on my walking?  Not walking, but getting my steps in.  Well, it’s a good thing! I was just in Arizona to visit my beautiful and talented friend K who recently relocated there.  Among the many fun shenanigans that we got up to, she took me for a hike at Pinnacle Peak Park in Scottsdale.  Since I’m barely a walker, you can imagine that I’m not much of a hiker at all.

Of course, K happens to be an elite marathoner, so walking (even up and down hills on a rocky trail) is a piece of cake for her.  Let’s just say that it’s a good thing that she is so kind and sweet-hearted because I was certainly not anywhere near being able to keep up with her natural pace.  My accomplishment was that I didn’t hold her back too much for at least part of the trek.

It was an incredible experience.  Shortly after we began our hike, we saw a couple of Blue Angels fly overhead.  Since it was a cool day the beauty of the dessert landscape was easier for me to appreciate.  The trail had great signage identifying the different plants along it.  We took a break to admire this in-between things tree.  It was certainly thriving in the gaps.

There were also fantastic views of gigantic Scottsdale golf course homes.  This one has a bridge to the guest home!  A guest home that is probably at least twice, probably three times the size of my little bungalow.

Once I got home, I looked up Pinnacle Peak Park. I was guessing that we hiked around three miles.  The trail is 1 ¾ miles one way (so 3 ½ miles round trip) which is a do-able walk.  It was all of the up and down hills that got me, especially the last third of the trail (where the “strenuous past this point” sign was) which became a long, steep uphill coming back.  Turns out that the 1,300 feet of elevation change is something that I don’t get in my ambles around town.

It was such a fun excursion.  Even though it was strenuous and pretty challenging for me, I can’t wait to try it again.  We’re already planning my next visit and that will give me a training goal to make sure that at a minimum, I’m getting my steps in every day.

Are you a hiker?  Where do you like to go?

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100 Cycle Classes with Rachel in 2018

On Saturday, November 17, I completed my 100th cycle class with my instructor, Rachel.  Not only that, I was the first person to complete the challenge that she set out for us in January.  I don’t know how that happened, but I am basking in a sense of accomplishment over it.

I had only become a Rachel groupie a few months earlier.  There is just something about when she is yelling, “yes, you can!” at you that makes you believe it.

Rachel teaches twice a week, Wednesdays at 5:45am and Saturdays at 8am.  No one goes to spin class at those hours for just for kicks, those are serious, get the grrrr out people. But 100 classes is still a formidable challenge.  I love getting activity credit, checking things off, and discrete goals so I signed up right away.

At first blush, it seemed nearly impossible: Rachel teaches twice a week and there are 52 weeks in a year, so you can only miss four.  All year. Yikes. If she was subbing for another instructor, that would count; also, you could count up to ten classes with other instructors toward your 100 (so really you only need to take 90 Rachel classes). If someone was subbing for her, that counted toward your ten.  Ok, still challenging, but potentially moderately do-able.

I wound up using nine of my ten freebies, so I’ve decided to dedicate the rest of the year to making those up.  My new-improved goal is to have 100% Rachel classes before Christmas.  I’m not a perfectionist, but I do like to go back and fine-tune things when time allows.

Did I mention that there were prizes?  How fun is that?

At 25 classes, you got a certificate.  To me, this is a prized possession.  For so many years a big part of my job was creating and producing recognition certificates and awards but this was the first one that I had received since I was in school.  It makes me so happy to see it on my refrigerator every day.

Best certificate ever

At 50 classes, you got a granola bar.  I somehow neglected photographic evidence of this award, but let me tell you, it was delicious.

At 75 classes, you got a water bottle. A fancy, Lulu Lemon squeezy-style water bottle.  It says, “Your GOALS are showing.”  This treasure spent a few weeks on my desk (aka dinning table) as a trophy before I deigned to put it into action.

Anabel practicing her trophy pose

I had to show up to class number 101 to claim my final prize.  It is  starting to feel like winter in So Cal and as I walked out to my car at 5:30am that morning, I remember thinking that I really should spring for one of those cozy Lulu Lemon snappy scarf things.  Long story short, that was my prize!

Manifesting dreams

Sally and Anabel thought that my accomplishment was great and sure, that was a nice gift, but they really thought that the gift bag was the real prize.

Kitten priorities

I am very grateful to Rachel for all the time and energy and resources that she put into this challenge because she loves her spin tribe.  And I am so honored to have found and been granted membership into this group.

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RBG

This summer, my friend and I went to see a documentary about Supreme Court Justice, Ruth Bader Ginsburg.  It was very good and I found it tremendously moving.  The news of her being hospitalized after a fall last week brought her again front-of-mind.  Today’s post is a little-bit less about RBG the documentary and more about RBG the hero for women’s rights.

The older I get, the less that I take for granted the rights that we women have. The fact that the 19th Amendment was only ratified in 1920 is astonishing enough, but I really had no idea how recently so many of the rights that I take for granted were established.  And how much we as women owe to Ruth Bader Ginsburg for securing these rights for us.

The documentary took us through her life, starting with her childhood with a devoted mother who was very invested in her daughter’s education.  Ruth Bader went to Cornell where she met Martin Ginsburg and after she graduated they got married.  She was accepted to law school and it was socially acceptable that she went only because she was already married. She first attended Harvard (with Marty), but completed her degree at Columbia because he had graduated and was hired by a firm in NYC.  RBG graduated first in her class from Columbia.

She was the first woman on both the Harvard and the Columbia Law Review.  In spite of her outstanding credentials, in her words, “Not a law firm in New York would employ me…I struck out on three grounds: I was Jewish, a woman, and a mother.”

These were considered acceptable reasons for denying someone employment in those days.  At least part of the reason that those reasons are no longer acceptable is thanks to her work.  Ironic, no?

RGB became a professor of law at Rutgers in 1963 and co-founded the Women’s Rights Project at the American Civil Liberties Union in 1971.  In that capacity, she brought six gender-discrimination cases to the Supreme Court. These cases were strategically selected to systematically establish a framework of anti-gender discrimination legal precedent.  In the seminal case, Reed v. Reed (1971), RBG wrote the plaintiff’s brief. The Supreme Court ruling in that case extended the protections of the 14th Amendment to include women.  Ok, so what?  Ok, so the 14th Amendment was the outcome of the Civil War, yes?  Basically, it says that all citizens are entitled to equal protection under the law, right?  Ok, so UNTIL 1971 THIS PROTECTION WAS UNIFORMLY INTERPRETED BY THE COURTS TO NOT EXTEND TO WOMEN.  Is it just me or is that a big deal?

She was appointed to the Washington DC circuit court in 1980 by President Jimmy Carter. What surprised me when watching the movie was that she wasn’t appointed to Supreme Court until the 1990’s!  She was the second woman appointed to the Supreme Court.  Ever.  In 1993.  Are you kidding!?! No, that is for real.

Not a one-dimensional legal justice crusader, RBG is an interestingly, multi-dimensional woman (aren’t we all?).  Fun facts about her include: her love of opera; that she shared that hobby with her good friend and philosophical opposite, Antonin Scalia; the collection of collars that she wears with her judicial robes, in particular, the Dissent Collar (here is a good image that I found online); and her hard-core workout routine (you too can have a body like RBG!).

I was happy to learn that RBG is back at work.  Should we credit her workout routine?

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Good Morning Habits

I sure hate this whole changing the clocks thing.  I really, really wish that we didn’t do it at all.  But if we’re going to have to “fall back,” I’m going to encourage you to take advantage of this week to put that time to work for you.  If you don’t have an early morning habit and want to start one, this is the week.  Now’s your chance!

Caveat: you will probably wind up wanting to go to bed an hour earlier (aka, your usual bed time before the time change) too.

If you want to try to get up an hour earlier to work out, here is my advice: KEEP IT SIMPLE.  Trust me, you can get out of bed, but you don’t want to have to do a lot of thinking after you do.

First tip: set out your gym clothes before you go to sleep.  Just make a little pile (don’t forget your socks and sneakers) somewhere near your bed.  If you put on your gym clothes as soon as you get out of bed, it’s a deterrent to climbing back into bed.  Also, have your gym bag ready to go – water bottle, headphones, cycling shoes, yoga mat, grippy socks, whatever – you don’t want to be looking for/collecting these things when you’re just waking up.

Next: get out quick.  Brush your teeth, grab your gym bag and get out the door.

Last tip (or actually, this probably should have been the first tip): know what you’re going to do when you get to the gym.  You already know that I’m a fan of group fitness classes.  More reasons why: 1) they happen at set times, so you know when you need to be there; and 2) someone is going to tell you what to do when you get there, so you only have to be awake enough to listen.  Also, you usually have to sign up ahead of time and there is usually some sort of penalty for no-showing, which can be motivating on those days when turning the alarm off and rolling over seems like the better option.

If you aren’t interested in starting an early morning work-out habit but you do want to start meditating or journaling or eating a healthy breakfast or one of the million other things “first thing in the morning” options that you haven’t tried to start doing yet, this is your week.  Pick one.  Try it.  Starting your day by doing something for yourself is a wonderful gift.  Maybe you decide that the best gift you can give yourself is that time in bed,  that’s ok too.

For me, I feel like my “first thing in the morning” list is long enough.  Sure, there are more things that I would like to do like meditate, or drink hot lemon water, or read the news (ok, well maybe this is a good one to keep not doing). But, going back to my main point, it’s better to: KEEP IT SIMPLE.  When something becomes important enough to me, I’ll find time in my day to make it happen.  In the meantime, I’m going to protect the small habit that I’ve established.

Do you already have an early morning routine?  What gets you out of bed?

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Indoor Cycling, part 1

I love to watch the Tour de France on TV every July.  The drama!  The metaphor for the human condition! The scenery!  I totally get why folks like to spandex up and ride bicycles for miles and miles outside in the fresh air, but cycling as a sport is something that I prefer to participate in as a spectator.

I do like ride my beach cruiser around the neighborhood.  Sometimes I’m going somewhere that is just a little too far to walk, or the parking situation is too much trouble.  But serious outdoor bike riding is not for me.  The two big reasons why are: 1) the ground is hard; and 2) cars.

I do like to ride bicycles inside.

I first tried indoor cycling about 16 years ago.  I have never been a cardio person and cycling is super challenging for me. The great part back in those days was that there really wasn’t anyway for anyone to know if you weren’t keeping up.  I could just dial the resistance down or slow my pace or both when I started to feel like my lungs were on fire and my heart was going to explode.  I still got stronger as time went along and could maintain an increasingly greater levels of effort but I certainly wasn’t ever keeping up with the class.

I credit indoor cycling classes for helping me discover the beauty of morning workouts.  I think that it’s a great way to start a morning workout habit because you don’t necessarily need to be fully awake to do it.  I mean, there’s not a lot of coordination or balance involved.  And usually the room is pretty dark.  You can get half-way through your workout before you realize what’s happening.

My current cycling routine is Wednesday mornings at 5:45am and Saturday mornings at 8am with Rachel.  There is a great camaraderie in her class and once I had started showing up regularly, I was warmly welcomed into the tribe.  Which is great and all except it’s not like the old days when no one really knew what you were doing.  These bikes light up!  Blue = easy, green = moderate, yellow = hard and red = breathless.  So everyone can tell who is keeping up.   Fortunately, everyone is very supportive and we really just judge each other on whether or not you show up.

Rachel’s class is very different from other instructors.  She has us  grind it out at various moderate-to-hard (green and yellow) intensities for long stretches with occasional bursts of red sprinkled in (last Saturday was 28 minutes straight through before any recovery, then repeat).  It’s a different kind of mind game to hold pace for those long stretches.  I’ll tell you, I still remember the first time I kept up on a six minute hard hill.  Something clicked over somewhere around the four minute mark. I don’t know how to describe it, but all of a sudden I wasn’t just surviving anymore.  I’ve been a Rachel groupie ever since.

I will tell you all about Rachel’s Great Cycle Challenge of 2018 in a future post.

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Back to the Bar (Method)

Last week, I headed back to the bar (method) for the first time in a few months. I love the Bar Method. It was the only workout that I did for five years and I enjoyed every moment of it.

I call Bar Method my “middle-aged lady workout” because everything about it is very civilized, elegant, and no-nonsense.  Bar Method studios are known for their spa-like atmosphere.  Every one that I’ve ever been to is calming feeling and nicely lit but my local Bar Method in Long Beach is for sure my favorite.

The workout is not easy but the classes themselves are also very civilized and elegant.  The exercises are designed to be very safe and very toning.  There is an focus on posture throughout the entire class that gives regulars a very elegant carriage. And there is stretching integrated all throughout class, which is something that tends to be given short shrift in a lot of other group exercise classes.

I credit Bar Method for ending the war that had been going on between my thighs and my bum for years.  You might know what I’m talking about: it seemed like my thighs were trying to grow their own bum at the top of my legs and my bum was doing everything that it could to hang down low enough to hide it.  One significant result that I noticed after doing Bar Method for just a short while was that my thighs and my bum went back to minding their own business (which was greatly appreciated).

I had been feeling like I needed a bit of a re-set.  What I was craving was a good stretch and to give my posture a tune-up. I found some time in my schedule that coincided with one of my favorite instructor’s class time and decided to pop in.

When I walked in to the studio, I was so warmly welcomed by the owner, Jo, Geanna, the instructor that I thought I was going to have class with, and SURPRISE! by Bar Method Master Instructor Heidi Revay (I don’t know if that is an official title, but that is what she is to me).  She was in town visiting and was going to teach class.  Wow! That was a fun surprise.

Pretty much every Bar Method instructor is toned and poised, but Heidi is more like a goddess. She is not only beautiful and elegant but she has this amazing energy that is loving and nurturing and demanding all at the same time. I feel like I work harder than I would naturally want to in Heidi’s class because she can see what I’m capable of and expects me live up to my potential.  Making the effort is my tribute to her goddess energy.

Part of what makes Bar Method so civilized is that you can have a really great workout without sweating your brains out. You’re not generally going to ruin your blow-out or your make-up. I tend to sweat pretty easily when I exercise, but I have never gotten as drenched in a Bar Method class before as I did in Heidi’s class that day.  It was not cute. Fortunately, I didn’t have a blow-out or any make-up to worry about.

When I left the studio, I felt that I had gotten the re-set that I was looking for and a little bit more.  I’m looking forward to going again this week. It’s nice to be back at the Bar (Method).