I love the gift of time over the holidays. No alarm. No paid work. No chores (we did them earlier this week). It’s lovely and relaxing.
Michel has returned to spinning on the regular indoors. We are taking time today to get our strength training back in our schedule.
It’s a common experience to have an ebb and flow to routines. Thankfully the breaks are getting shorter as we get older.
Being less fussed about a break makes it easier to pick it up again. Literally no one cares if I’m perfect at sticking to a routine. Everyone celebrates any workout I do get in. Yay!
I’m rewarded with more pain free days when I get strength training in and that is very motivating. Yay!
Plus all my silly little physiotherapy exercises have taught me there are infinite ways to challenge my body. No fear of being bored. Yay!
I hope you are getting time to do what you want today. It’s the gift that keeps on giving.
There’s nothing dumb about dusting off my dumbbells!
There was a time, not so long ago ( a year ago) where most of my strength training was done alone, on machines at my work gym.
I had a solid routine of twice a week for an hour. I got stronger, especially on the leg press.
Injuries outside of the gym meant I could
No longer do most lower body machines. I started working out at home with body weight exercises and some dumbbells.
I’m now firmly a fan of dumbbell exercises. Through the two Total Strength programs I’ve been exposed to a wide variety of movements.
The exercises ensure a full body workout that includes flexibility, balance and range of motion.
I like the option of picking different weights for each exercise to tailor my workout.
I especially enjoy sharing this time with Michel. It’s become our touch point four times a week. We laugh, grunt and encourage each other.
When my sister Anj was visiting she joined us. She loved that she could jump in and grab the weight that felt good for her.
Not taking it too seriously and modifying moves makes success achievable.
Nat and Michel squint into the sun on a beautiful fall day. They are wearing black shirts because they are very cool people.
After a summer and fall of traveling with our dumbbells I don’t see me leaving them behind anytime soon. Oh. And I definitely need to go buy some 25 lb ones!
It’s not my Peloton instructor Andy’s fault. He has a reasonable expectation that I can count the number of sets I can complete of 6 reps of 4 moves.
I mean. IT IS COUNTING IN MY FIRST LANGUAGE.
It’s as easy as one, two three, right?
Uh. No.
My beloved and I wrapped up week one of our latest strength training program with a 10 minute baseline test. A four minute warmup and six minutes to complete as many sets as possible.
A Strava screenshot showing Andy at full extension of a single arm shoulder press.
Sets were 6 single arm shoulder presses with a medium dumbbell then 6 split squats, repeat on the other side for a total of 24 movements.
The switching of sides challenges my vestibular system. I have a mild impairment and I am improving my balance with exercise. I know it takes a lot of cognitive work for me to move an asymmetrical load.
I suspect that is the point of a single shoulder press, engage your core and glutes to stabilize while pressing upwards. It’s a great move.
I completed the test using my 10 lb dumbbell. I was not at muscle failure at the end of the test. I think I completed six sets? I do not know. Counting reps and staying balanced pushed my set counting aside.
I find split squats, one leg forward, one leg back, very challenging. I do not get the full range of motion to 90 degrees in both legs. I tend to fall more into a lunge.
Screenshot of an instructor demonstrating a split squat. Note the two 90 degree leg bends
I get nervous about dropping past the point of positive control and hitting my back knee on the floor.
I’m using chairs and other assistance to explore going deeper outside of workouts.
Suffice to say, I was challenged in some ways for the test while also feeling validated that I’m stronger and more competent with these two moves. The end of the program test I won’t have a numerical baseline but I’ll use this post as my qualitative baseline.
I hope you are getting the results you want from your workouts!
I’ve come to enjoy strength training. I had a run of a few years going into my gym at work. It was twice a week for an hour. Not enough for big gains but definitely enough to support my wellbeing.
I had a few injuries last year and I stopped going to the gym. There were so few things that I could do there that I couldn’t do at home it didn’t feel worth it.
When looking at my overall movement I had not been consistent at home. Yes, I was doing Physio exercises and the occasional strength workout but. It was sparse.
Michel wanted to get back to a regular strength routine. I am happy to take classes with him. We grunt, fart and laugh as our bodies ineffectually do things.
To put more structure to our training we decided to go back to a Peloton favourite, Total Strength with Andy Speer.
It’s a great 4 week program to begin/restart strength training. It’s 10 minutes of warm-up, 30 minutes of strength and 10 minutes of stretching.
I’m not great at warming up or stretching so this has been a welcome change.
This week we wrapped up week 1 with a short test.
A Strava screenshot showing a smiling Andy with open arms. The text announces the 5 minute strength test with Michel in my group.
What’s great about beginnings is the early gains. I got 22 squats and 12 pushups. I’ll let you know my week 4 results. They are sure to change.
I was talking with my RMT Kiet about restarting strength training. I shared that I was starting even easier than i thought I could do to build success.
He agreed that a common mistake is to go too hard too early and then folks don’t go back.
I focus on form, then get the speed up on reps and finally add more weight.
It’s a slow ramp up that works for me.
I hope you are finding fitness things that are working for you!
A couple of months ago I moved back to Toronto after 33 years in London, Ontario. I last lived in Toronto when I was a Master’s student at U of T from 1987-88. Both I and the city have changed a lot since then. So I had nothing familiar as far as working goes to tap into when I got here in May. Not only that, but my routines had fallen to the side completely over the winter as I prepped for my move. And finally, it’s been a stinking hot summer, not a great time to get back into running.
So when a friend suggested that we try out the Y, which turns out to be just a 12-minute walk from where I live, it sounded like the perfect solution for so many reasons. Most notably, if we were going to join a gym, we wanted it to be a relaxed place with a truly inclusive vibe. The Y definitely ticks that box. It’s also convenient, has great equipment, lots of programming, and a 25m pool. We joined, and here’s what I’ve tried so far:
Aquafit — you can do this 45-minute class in shallow or deep water. So far, I’ve only signed up for shallow. I had a bit of a misconception about aquafit, I have to admit. I thought it would be easy and not feel like much of a workout. It turns out to be a good workout, very much more exerting than I anticipated, especially the part where you use the water dumbbells to create resistance. I’ve been using the blue ones, which are apparently easier than the yellow. I can’t imagine feeling ready for the yellow. But then that is the wonderful thing about resistance training — it makes you stronger.
MuscleFit — another 45-minute class, this time in the gym. Each participant gathers a mixture of light-medium and medium-heavy barbells and dumbbells for a guided full body workout. Again it’s a tough one, where the muscle fatigue is from high reps rather than heavy weights (even the “heavy” weights aren’t especially heavy). The first time I did it I overdid the barbell weights and had to lighten my load. I did better the second time, and have also learned over time that it’s okay to set the weights down and do body weight or take a break if needed. Will I keep doing that? Maybe on occasion but I also want to reintroduce resistance training on my own. The Y has lots of equipment in multiple different rooms and studios. So even when it’s busy it looks as if no one has to fight too hard to get the weights they need, and I remember enjoying the community atmosphere in the weight room.
Yoga — I haven’t found a hot yoga studio yet and will likely wait until the fall to do that, given the heat this summer. But I wanted to get back into a yoga class and it turns out that the Y has those too. I’ve gone a couple of times and had a good experience. Not the most challenging yoga or the most careful instruction, but it’s in a pleasant studio with loads of space, and as with anything, if you know what you’re doing you can make yoga as challenging or as unchallenging as you wish.
Lane swimming — I couldn’t be around a 25m pool for too many days without feeling tempted to get back to lane swimming. I did that this week for the first time, gathering up my gear from back in the day with the intention of doing 40 x 25m in 30 minutes. That would be a pretty slow pace and I didn’t quite make it. I started off with 10 x 25m of breast stroke, which took me to 10 minutes, then cut back from 20 to 15 x 25m freestyle, following by another 10 of breast stroke. It was a lot tougher than I expected it to be but now I have a benchmark and a goal. The goal is to get back to 40 x 25m by the end of the summer. I have no idea if that is realistic. I want to add drills and workouts to my lane swimming at some point. I remember enjoying that kind of training. Being in the pool again feels incredibly good.
As far as running goes, I’ve been out a few times and have reconnected with the “getting started” series of the Nike Run Club again. It’s been a sticky hot summer and I miss my running crew and my familiar routes. But if I can get back to 3x a week, I’ll be pleased with that.
Living in a large urban centre again means a lot more walking in my day to day than before. The traffic here is horrendous at unpredictable times, and if at all possible you want to avoid paying for parking. So much is easily accessible to me on foot, and though people complain about the transit, I adore the subway and live conveniently close to a few stations.
So that’s my report on establishing some fitness routines in a new city. As with anything, it can feel daunting at first. And the loss of community (in my case my running group and the hot yoga studio I frequented) is no small thing. But now that I’ve reconnected with the Y, it’s been an enjoyable experience that’s put me in touch with new and familiar activities in a relaxed atmosphere that offers a sense of community and belonging that I really like.
Image description: Overhead shot of gym stuff lined up on a towel: shower shoes, swim cap, goggles, swim suit, and running shoes. Photo by Tracy I
Image description: Outside shot of a woman (Christine) with dark medium long hair and wearing a short-sleeved shirt, holding a young boy while he climbs on a rope climber in a playground, with dappled light, a fence, and a tree in the background. She is looking up at the boy and the boy is looking up at the next rung of the rope. Photo credit: Viceth Vong.
“Why aren’t you doing another triathlon this year?” an acquaintance asked.
I gulped. “I’m having some, uh, health issues,” I said. I was keeping things vague out of necessity—I had no damn idea what was happening, only that I had a constant (and I mean 100% of the time) headache that reached an unbearable level by the time I left work for the day. I went to sleep pretty much as soon as I got home—not only because being in pain is exhausting, but because sleep was the only time I didn’t feel awful. My life goals had gone from: publish a book, rock my career in publishing, and finish a tri even though I can barely swim, to: get through the day.
In the year after the pain started, I had test after test. They all came back negative, which was a good thing on the one hand (who wants to have a brain tumor or Lyme disease), and utterly frustrating on the other. After each of my appointments at Boston’s various prestige medical clinics, I wanted to scream, Why can’t you just tell me what was wrong with me?
Eventually, through a process of elimination, they diagnosed me with occipital neuralgia (nerve pain in the upper neck) and idiopathic chronic migraines (idiopathic just means that they have no flipping idea why it’s happening.) I tried treatment after treatment (Botox injections, handfuls of pills, various psychologic therapies) but the headaches wouldn’t budge. I was in bed for the vast majority of most days. The body I toned through hours of training atrophied.
Eventually I went to the Cleveland Clinic for a three-week “headache camp,” as a friend called it. There they tweaked my medications but more importantly, they taught me more than I could’ve imagined about headaches and how to maneuver your lifestyle to live with—and hopefully eventually prevent—them.
One of their prescriptions was to get back to exercising. I had all but stopped as the pain consumed me. There were a few scientifically backed reasons for this recommendation: exercise has been shown to reduce the severity of pain in people with many chronic pain conditions; it also greatly helps with the anxiety and depression that often hits people with chronic illnesses of all stripes (and that certainly hit me).
For me, it also allowed me to get back in touch with that former triathaloning self. I started with walking—an exercise I still love. I added yoga and light weight training. Slowly but surely, I started to feel better physically and emotionally. Now, I walk for an hour a few times a week, do pilates at least once a week, and I’m currently attempting to reintroduce weight training after that fell out of my routine. On days I exercise, I feel less achey—and also like my body is my friend again, not something that revolted against me. I feel, too, that I am strong—I hadn’t realized how upsetting it was to my sense of self to think of myself as weak. Now, I am not just someone with a disabling condition, I am someone who can keep up with her son on the playground, who can squat down and lift his four-year-old body, who doesn’t have to fear the idea of trudging around a theme park all day.
I have greater exercise ambitions, too: I plan to conquer a ten-mile hike in the next few months, and an even longer one by the end of the year, with the eventual goal of walking 100 miles or so on Europe’s El Camino Santiago. I have no thoughts of trying for another triathlon, but thanks in part to regular, light exercise, I’m doing much more than just getting through the day now.
If you have a story about exercising during or after illness, we’d love to hear it!
Christine Junge is a writer living in San Jose, CA. She’s currently working on a novel, and blogs about parenting with a chronic illness/disability at ThanksForNothingBody.substack.com
I had one of those doctor’s comments the other day that always gets my back up. You know, it began with “at your age.” My age?
Apparently at my age weight and weight loss isn’t as important as maintaining muscle. And as you age, when you lose weight, it’s more likely that it’s muscle that you’re losing.
“You might be relieved to hear that the creeping weight gain of middle age – a pound or two (0.5 to 1 kilogram) a year starting in your 20s, on average – eventually grinds to a halt. By the time you’re in your 50s, you’ll typically start slowly shedding weight. Don’t celebrate yet, though. There’s a good chance that the weight you’re losing is muscle – precisely what you need to hang onto to stay metabolically healthy and independent into old age. “
You need to be sure you get enough strength training in and make sure you’re eating enough protein.
Okay, my doctor might be on to something but still the “at your age” comment rubbed me the wrong way. Lol.
I’ve written lots about this in the past. Maybe I could have shown him some of my posts!
Yesterday was a big stressful work day–you don’t need to know the details. It was also a big stressful family day–again, no details needed.
But amid all the work and family stuff, it was also both personal training day and Zwift race day. In time, that’s one hour at 7 am and nearly two hours at 7 pm (race plus warm up and cool down).
The morning involved leg presses and walking lunges, shoulder presses and chest flies, and a bunch of other lifting too. The evening was a warm-up on the bike, followed by a TTT, which was two laps of Tick Tock. (I love Team Time Trials. See why at the end!)
So today I am a little bit sleepy and a little bit sore (but not in a bad way, more like I can tell I used my muscles way.)
Do I need a rest?
What does Strava say?
So Strava says yes.
And I feel like yes.
So today is definitely a rest day.
Here’s what a TTT looks like. This is the five of us starting off, all together but not yet in a nice line.
And I did choose this second image because I was happy with my watts climbing out of the tunnel! I don’t like hills but I enjoy short punchy climbs.
Right and if you’re interested in racing on Zwift, TTTs are a great place to start.
What a day in the world of fitness-focused social media. Two new phrases passed my way. Two new impossible-to-achieve body types. First, being thin without a thin butt, that is, avoiding Ozempic butt. Second, the ballerina body.
Talking about the pressure gyms are facing to move to strength training instead of cardio as their main focus, Brooke Masters writes, “Weight-loss drugs will exacerbate the pressure. As the drugs gain acceptance, fewer people are likely to rely on exercise as their primary weight loss tool and the drugs’ side effects, nausea and intestinal distress, can make high-impact cardio activities uncomfortable. However, GLP-1 users still need the gym. Studies suggest that the drugs cause significant muscle loss along with fat, leading to problems with balance and mobility as well as saggy skin sometimes dubbed “Ozempic butt”. Strength training seems to be the answer not just for GLP-1 users but everyone else. A growing body of medical literature suggests strength training cuts mortality, particularly for women, while also helping to prevent osteoporosis and relieving the symptoms of depression. “It’s gone from being health and fitness to health and wellness, which is a lot more holistic” says Eleanor Scott, a partner on PwC’s leisure strategy team.”
(Two quick comments from the peanut gallery over here. I think any method of rapid weight loss, indeed any method of weight loss without strength training, has this problem. And I think, in general the move to strength training makes sense for gyms because the pandemic taught me that while I can run and bike at home, I really like having a bench, a squat rack, and lots of heavy weights and benches at the gym. Also, we’re learning how much strength training matters for older people.)
And then the She’s a Beast blog introduced to me to the ballerina body as an ideal, which is just about as silly and unreachable as it sounds. See What is so wrong with wanting a ‘ballerina body’?
Casey Johnston writes,”It feels important to note that not every body aesthetic is unrealistic or expressive of patriarchal oppression. But, “ballerina body,” I mean…… come on. And this is not even to say that ballerinas are per se unhealthy! (Though the industry certainly has its issues). Ballet dancers do lift weights! But the body of a ballet dancer, just as with the elusive “swimmer’s body” for men, is inversely selective to what we perceive from the outside: They are ballet dancers because they have a particular body; they don’t develop a particular body from being ballet dancers. It has so little to do with training and so much to do with genetics that it’s nothing but an illusion, in terms of attainability.”
Over a month ago my friend and colleague Freda offered to be my gym accountability buddy. She asked if I was a morning person. I think I forgot to answer “no”!
I agreed to meeting at 6:15 am Tuesdays and Wednesdays at our office gym. It’s marvelously compact, clean and, at that time of day, sparsely populated.
No, I haven’t magically “become a morning person”. I have, when needed, done 5:30 am triathlon workouts in college. Ew! I’ve had physical training for the military at 6 am. Ya. Done with that. No voluntary boot camp classes for this retired Captain. I get paid to be yelled at, not the other way around!
I am trying to say “yes” more to new things to get out of a serious rut/funk that I have been settling into.
Couple things though. It’s year end at work. That’s writing and delivering performance assessments. My work involves supporting teams to place as much business as possible before the end of the calendar year. Hectic!
Plus that one little thing, buying and moving into a house. VERY HECTIC.
I decided that I would stick to my workouts, even on my days off work for moving. I needed to know that in the middle of all the chaos I had something I could 100% do.
My face at 6 am inside my car. It’s dark outside. I’m puffy. I’m seriously wondering if I’m awake enough to drive the 2 km to the gym. But I’m doing it!
It worked wonders for my anxiety. Knowing there was one thing I absolutely could do was a touchstone to my day, my week…my last month really. Knowing I can make plans, follow through and see gains proves to my anxiety I actually can do many things and handle busy time quite well, thank you very much!
So for me the tired adage of “when you are too busy to workout you definitely should workout” is true. Does that work for you?
