I've been thinking about this one for a while now, but just saw this:
So You Want to Start Fitness Walking?
Now it's "fitness walking"? Whatever happened to "power walking"? Ah well, no matter. The question for this post: is walking really a fitness activity?
The last post, Be Consistent: Three Chances to Win, offered a plan for people who have trouble sticking with a fitness program. The plan was to "pick three (and only three) workouts you can choose from: an easy one, a challenging one, and a 'medium' one in between" and then be sure to do one of them six days a week. Since the easy one is excuse-proof, sticking with this plan is pretty easy. But as promised, here's a way you can spice it up.
A very common challenge people face in the quest for fitness is sticking with it, also known as being consistent. It's all to easy to set lofty goals, fail to meet them, and then give up. But it's also not helpful.
One option is to accept that "failures" are just steps on the road to success. In her book "Mindset: The New Psychology of Success", author Carolyn Dweck discusses a "fixed" mindset versus a "growth" mindset. People with the former tend to believe they have a fixed ability in life and trying to do more will lead to failure. People with the "growth" mindset believe they can do new things and that trying-and-failing is the natural path toward improving. (More on all this in a future post.)
One approach is to accept failures as being part of the process: no big deal. Another approach is to try to prevent failures from occurring to build momentum and confidence. So if you have trouble sticking with a fitness routine, read on.
(This article originally appeared in the 6 November 2012 edition of the StrongFast Planet newsletter.)
When most people think of training with Resistance Bands, they think of the rubber tubes with handles on the ends that are used by senior citizens and for some rehab work. That's what I thought a while back. But not any more.
For distinction, the above style of resistance tubing is often called a "sport cord." The resistance bands I'm talking about are like giant rubberbands and are sometimes called "superbands" (not to be confused with Queen, U2, or Brainium). Here, I'll just all them "bands."
A while back, I did a post that mentioned "wearables"--a term that usually refers to devices worn on the wrist to measure steps, heart rate, etc. But recently I got myself an early birthday present that's a different kind of "wearable": a weighted vest.
It's not for everyone, but it does have a variety of uses.
I was talking with someone recently who was concerned about his daughter doing squats in her workouts. He didn't want any advice--he "used to lift weights" and "knows all about squats"--so there wasn't much of a conversation.
But I know he's not alone in his concern about squatting. But is it a bad thing to do?
I was talking with a friend recently who mostly walks for exercise, and during inclement weather this means treadmill walking. She mentioned that she really doesn't enjoy it (although she's disciplined enough to do it anyway) and it got me thinking: should exercise be fun?
There are frequent references to finding something you enjoy doing to make sure you get enough exercise. But we can see how that works for most people (who don't get enough exercise).
