ADHD · planning · strength training · yoga

Christine’s Planuary 2025 – Part 1

Christine Hennebury

Do I know how many parts there will be in Planuary? I do not.

I do, however, know that this is Part 1 so I am going to forge ahead from here.

By the way, Planuary extends far beyond my fitness/mindfulness/wellness plans but since this is not the “Christine talks endlessly about her life” blog, I’m going to stick to things related to our focus here at Fit is a Feminist Issue…mostly.

So, since I can’t seem to stop myself from overthinking at the moment, I decided to lean into it and just let my brain wander around until it settled on something that appealed to me as a possible new fitness practice to incorporate into my life this year.

And I settled on pushups.*

I really want to be able to do pushups easily and, more important than that, I want to *know* that I have the upper body strength to do pushups easily.

I don’t have a particular number of pushups in mind because the number doesn’t matter to me – I’m chasing a specific feeling.

A woman doing pushups outside.
This is the feeing I am looking for – it’s not that pushups are necessarily easy for her but she has put in the work and she knows she can do them. Image description – a woman in black exercise clothes lowering herself into a pushup. She is outside on a deck and the sun is shining.

And I think that seeking a specific feeling will be far more useful to me than trying to reach a certain number because seeking a sensation feels more like a meaningful practice than trying to reach an arbitrary target.

Of course, once I got that settled in my mind, I went into overthinking mode again. This time I churned up a bunch of thoughts about overdoing things, about how my shoulders and neck might not appreciate my pushup goal, and about how anxious I feel when my neck muscles are tight and and and…well, you all know how overthinking goes, right?

And that’s when I overthought my way into a possible solution (yes, this *does* seem to be a dangerous precedent, indeed.)

I’m going to pair my pushup work with some yoga for my upper body.

I know, not a groundbreaking solution, but hear me out.

I have trouble convincing my ADHD brain not to rush through stretching so even if I had great intentions of stretching after each pushup practice, I would soon be strolling along a road paved with those intentions and heading for a hell of my own making.**

BUT

I can definitely convince myself to do a 10 minute yoga sequence for my upper body every day for a month. My brain loves a month long challenge!

A woman doing a seated twist outside
This seems like a helpful sort of twist, doesn’t it? Image description: a woman, seated on a yoga mat outside, is doing an upper body twist so her lower body is facing the camera but her upper body is twisted away. Her right hand is on her left knee and her upper torso and head are facing to the left.

So, when I put those two things together – a plan to get used to pushups over time and a plan to choose an enjoyable yoga practice that will ease tension in my upper body – I may just be on to something.

Now, I’m moving on to Part 1(b) – choosing and practicing an upper body yoga sequence that I enjoy and then adding Part 1 (c) – choosing and following a pushup plan that seems doable.

Further updates as Planuary warrants.

*Yes, I have tried a pushup goal before and, no, it didn’t stick at the time but I know more now than I did then so it’s worth giving it a try.

**Is a hell of your own making the worst kind of hell? There is a case to be made here but I think the philosophers on the Fit is a Feminist Issue team are better equipped to discuss that than I am.

Published by Christine Hennebury

I'm a writer/storyteller/director/creativity & lifestory coach with a black belt in ITF Taekwon-do. I read voraciously and I write like my fingers are on fire. I'm the founder and Chair of the Association for the Arts in Mount Pearl and I'm a former president of the St. John's Storytelling Festival. I bake a mean chocolate chip cookie.

One thought on “Christine’s Planuary 2025 – Part 1”

Comments are closed.