Fitness Friday: Workout Smarter Not Harder (Okay, Sometimes Harder)

In an effort to keep the post numbahs rollin, I thought I'd come up with a topic I can consistently post about. Recently some of my coworkers asked for advice on how to stay fit, and I thought that maybe some more useful information about fitness and a fit lifestyle would make for better blog postings than just tallying what I did for the week. The best advice I can give anyone looking to get in shape is to be consistent. It really doesn't matter what you do, if you dread your workouts you're probably not going to stick with them. I get bored with my exercise routines very quickly. I have never been able to complete a full 90-day rotation of anything.* It's more like I'll plan out a loose formula and follow it as long as it still interests me. Then I'll scour the internets for whatever is new and hot and switch up my routine according to what peaks my interest. For example, currently I'm doing 1/2 hour workouts in the morning and 1/2 hour on lunch. Here's what my routine looks like now:

S - rest or gentle yoga
M - weights/steady state cardio
T - weights/interval cardio
W - yoga/HIIT cardio
Th - weights/steady state cardio
F - weights/interval cardio
S - long interval cardio (60min or more)

The next piece of advice I can give is to be realistic about what you can accomplish given your current state of fitness, time available to exercise, etc. I don't mind getting up early, I've been an early morning exerciser for years, but many people have trouble with that. Deciding that you're going to get up every day at 4:30am and workout for an hour to P90X when you've got a couch-potato background is not only a recipe for failure, it's likely a recipe for serious injury.  The last bit of advice I'd offer is to be relaxed. Life happens. I have a plan for what I'd like to accomplish in any given week, but the truth is that life often gets in the way. I brought my gym bag to work every day this week. Guess how many days I actually made it to the gym? Two. Between having half of our office gone (R&R, TDY, and sickness), an unexpected working lunch, Friday's training session, and some unexpected research cases, well, there just wasn't any time. But, that's okay. I'll get back into the groove next week when some of our officer's will be back from leave, and we'll have more people to share the workload. Or I could get up a little earlier and lengthen my morning workouts. Or I could push my afternoon sessions to after work hours. There's always an alternative.

Fitness is my hobby, so I'm always interested in what people are saying/theories that the experts are pushing. There's so little that we understand about how the human body works, whether it be how our food intake affects our overall health or what part of the brain controls certain functions (like the willpower to get up early to workout, or not eat those yummy looking fried bananas your LES are always bringing into work). I recently read an articles about Finding the Right Exercise For Your Shape and Knowing Your Body Type. I find these types of articles to be fascinating because I have certainly found that there is no "one size fits all" when it comes to exercise. Some people react very well to heavy weights and little cardio. Others seem to need butt-loads of cardio and very light weights to get the aesthetic they're looking for. Unfortunately, I think one needs to try out a bunch of different styles of exercise in order to find what fits best for them. I think body-type based exercise plans are very useful for helping point you on the right path, but I would always take their advice with a grain of salt. After all, the next bunch of studies and articles with contradictory information is just around the corner!

*And, no, my love affair with Ultimate Yogi didn't last any longer than any of the others *sigh* I still love the program, but I totally yoga'd myself out.