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Arete Warriors – spirit, mind, body strong
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The most important exercise we need to be doing.
My 83 year old dad has probably never been inside a weight room before. He’s walked on a treadmill because he’s had a stress test, but I am relatively certain he’s never climbed on to one with the intent of “working out”.
I remember once coming home years ago to visit and we went out together to check on some cows.
We were climbing up a steep hill, not on a trail. He was forging the way, stomping through about 6 inches of fresh snow, playing with his dogs the whole way up the mountain while I gasped for air behind him.
I was stepping in the footprints he’d made for me and I’m about 33 years younger than him. I was a personal trainer at the time. I could not understand how he was kicking my butt so badly!
On our last trip home I watched him chop (damp) wood in the heat. He worked hard with powerful, full-body, explosive chops, repeatedly.
My kids were impressed. When we returned home Izak texted me asking for video of grandad chopping wood so he could show his friends. ☺️
Let’s Prepare – the warm up
Unless you live on a ranch, the physical demands of most life styles these days is not sufficient exercise.
Most of us (women) need to go to the gym and lift heavy stuff. There’s just no substitute.
Lifting heavy is essential for our bone density, as well as maintaining our otherwise deteriorating muscle mass.
I would bet many of you have 5 or 10 lbs dumbbells at home. Even if you’re actually using them, that’s likely not enough.
Research shows the best gains are made when you lift a weight to near failure… meaning, you don’t stop the set (put the weight down) until you could only do 1-2 more reps with proper form.
Be honest. If I showed up in the middle of your set and said, “Keep going” you could probably do 30 more reps. 😉
If you’re willing to do that, go for it, but that takes more guts than muscle strength in my opinion. I’d rather pick a heavy enough weight that I KNOW when my set is done.
Plus, I’m not interested in seeing how LONG my workouts can be. There’s fun stuff to get to in life! We don’t need to be in there all day.
I use garage door openers and TV remotes to describe the difference in our activity levels today vs 50 years ago. As technology advances, we become more and more sedentary.
Find ways to put movement into your day. Go for walks. Sure, add a weighted vest if you want, but just get your 10,000 steps to start.
If you want to live longer, you should also do some high intensity interval training as well. Research shows a strong correlation between your VO2Max and how long you will live.
Here’s an example. Work really hard (get your heart rate up HIGH) for 4 minutes, then recover for 3-4 minutes. Do that 4 times. Here’s a workout video you could do at home.
Doing this type of training twice a week is sufficient.
Obviously mobility, balance and coordination are all good to add in too, but in the interest of keeping this minimal, lifting heavy, moving more, and 2 high intensity workouts/week are your 3 most important goals.
Let’s Work – the exercise
I’d be really curious to know how many of you are already doing the above suggested work. I’m guessing most of you already workout.
But, insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results.
If you’re satisfied with how you feel right now, then great. Keep doing what you’re doing. But sometimes, we get so used to feeling flat and low-energy, we forget how good we COULD feel.
Ever walked into a dimly lit room and wondered how your kid is able to read in so little light? Most likely, they started reading before the sun went down. It slowly got darker and darker and their eyes just adjusted accordingly.
This is how it works.
The vibrant, bright energy that used to shine within you will get dimmer by the day if you let it.
If you’re NOT currently doing the above, try it out. If you ARE, and you still aren’t getting the results you want, let’s take a hard, honest look at your nutrition.
Here’s what I wrote about nutrition and here’s one about leaning up a bit if that’s your goal.
As always, if there’s any way I can help you specifically (because each of us really is unique), I’m happy to answer any questions you may have.
