Tag: strength training

resisting my inevitable death

black and white photo of a kettle bell weight and two medicine balls, along with part of a human leg and sneaker-shod footI’m getting older. It’s hard to avoid. My body isn’t as resilient as it was fifteen years ago when I started this blog. As my income increased, so did my pant size, and being in a sedentary job didn’t help.

January began as January often begins, with a renewed commitment to stay as physically active as I can and work on getting stronger. For the first two weeks, I managed to get out and hike/walk/gym every day but three. Then my choir rehearsals began and things picked up again with new music being sent to the radio station, and I was reminded why I don’t spend two hours at the gym every day.

One of my favorite blogs is Fit is a Feminist Issue, and several of the bloggers over there are talking about a 218 workouts in 2018 challenge. I missed jumping on from the start, but I’ve been keeping track for other reasons and I’m up to 23 so far. Not bad. Could be much better — there was one week in there with zero. If I’m going to hit that goal, I’ll need to be doing 4-5 workouts a week, not the average 3-4 I’ve been doing so far.

I’ve also been keeping track of the food I eat. I’ve done this in the past with mixed success, but I’m finding the tool less frustrating this time. (Or maybe I just care less about being absolutely precise?) I haven’t approached this with the intent to prescribe some sort of diet regimen, but the data has been useful for making tweaks. Since I’m also weight training, I’ve been paying closer attention to macros and increasing protein without blowing up the fat percentage, too.

I’ve also discovered how easy it is for me to consume a massive amount of calories and not even realize it — it simply doesn’t seem like that much food, and by weight, it isn’t, but the nutritional composition is very densely packed with caloric energy. So, I need to out-think my survival brain that compels me towards high energy foods my body can store for later use in the lean times that will never come.

My goals are simple: get stronger, avoid physical injuries, lose some weight to relieve stress on my joints, and get ready for prime softball/baseball/hiking season. Oh, and delaying my inevitable death.

have fun out there

softball
“softball” by tinatruelove

Exercise should be fun. That’s not to say it should be easy — if it’s easy, you’re not really doing anything. No, what I’m saying is that it should be fun. It should be something you look forward to doing, and not just look forward to having done.

I’ve participated in some fitness programs run by the gym at my workplace. These have been short-term programs meant to get the participants started on a path towards better fitness/lifestyles. I have found them very useful as a structured and goal-oriented accountability crutch, where the slightly competitive and also supportive nature of the program makes it harder for me to skip the workouts when I’m tired or busy.

However, after my fifth or sixth time through (I honestly don’t remember how many years I’ve done it now), I found myself in the odd situation of knowing almost as much as the trainer about what I should be doing, and in some instances, assisting my fellow participants on technique when the trainer was busy with someone else. I realized then that I didn’t need this crutch anymore.

Well, at least not when it comes to strength training. I’m all about the strength training. These days, I’m at the gym 4-5 times a week, primarily during the work week, lifting weights for 30-50 min and walking the track to finish off my daily step goal. I love it. Even when I’m the only woman over 22 in the weight room (often the only woman, period), and these college bros don’t quite know what to do with the fat, middle-aged woman who seems to know how the fly machine works.

I feel stronger when I’m at the gym. On days when it’s so tempting to get in the car and drive home after work, just a few reps will get the adrenaline going and all of a sudden that tired goes away for a little while. I feel like I could keep doing reps forever, until I hit the wall and it’s time to stretch.

Strength training is fun. There’s variety. I can focus on a specific muscle group on one day, or do a little with all of them. There are many different exercises to target specific muscle groups, and pieces of equipment to do them, so when I get bored with one, I can change it up for a while.

What’s not fun for me is cardio. Cardio is that necessary thing (or so they say) for burning fat. When I’m lifting weights, I’m putting effort behind it, so the heart rate goes up a bit, but not like it would for an aerobic exercise. I know I should incorporate cardio into my routine, but my options at the gym are so boring. Stationary bike, treadmill, and many variations on elliptical machines. The stair climber is right out. I could swim, but the hours and availability of the pool aren’t ideal for me, and it’s an extra hassle I haven’t felt motivated to tackle yet. Anyway, cardio: yawn.

That being said, I do like to do some athletic activities that involve an element of cardio in them. I play softball once a week about six months out of the year, weather permitting. I hike and bike when it’s not super hot or super cold out. Those are fun activities that I look forward to doing.

I figured out today that the one aspect of strength training I don’t enjoy — targeted core exercises — is one that I can kind of do with fun activities instead. One of the areas I focus on with core exercises are my lateral muscles, primarily because they help me have a stronger swing of the softball bat. You know what’s a fun exercise for lateral muscles? Swinging a softball bat.

This afternoon, I did several rounds (20 balls each) at the batting cage swinging right-handed and left-handed. This made me work both sides fairly equally. It also made me focus more on the ball and not just using muscle memory in my swing when I was batting left-handed (not my dominant side). I immediately noticed I was making better contact with the ball when I switched back to right-handed batting. Bonus! I did exercise that was fun and I got more out of it than I planned.

If exercise is chore for you, I my recommendation is to get out and try a bunch of things until you find the one that is fun. Then, just keep doing it.

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