GETTING PHYSICAL ACTIVITY ON THE MENTAL HEALTH/WELLNESS RADAR
I received an invitation to attend a workshop addressing the mental health of K-12 students tri-sponsored by the local school district, county public health department, and a university teaching preparation program (all located in a prominent west coast city).
The beautiful flyer described the breakout sessions—bullying and cyberbullying, suicide prevention, lgbtq students, depression, tobacco prevention, adolescent development—but NOTHING about physical activity.
Respecting the complexity of mental health, regular physical activity can catalyze emotional well-being (and positively impact each of the workshop topics). From producing endorphins, burning anxiety, enhancing a sense of satisfaction, self-esteem, and positive body image, to sharpening clarity and analytical reasoning, physical activity can uniquely and profoundly optimize mental/emotional function.
One very brief phone call revealed it simply didn’t occur to the organizing committee to include it! Yikes! After a bit of ponder, here is one explanation and its take away.
In general, this region has provided decades of deficient school-based physical activity programming. Of course, there are pockets where it’s amazing, but more so it’s lousy (state policy doesn’t help). The majority of the workshop organizers are products of the local school district, thus were subjected to poor quality physical activity programming. Fast forward several years and knowing these folks, they are overweight and struggle to get ANY exercise, much less sustain a habit. Early positive physical activity experiences set the stage for a lifelong habit, and the sad converse, early poor experiences dissuade subsequent participation by choking motivation. The message is, we can’t afford to provide less than QUALITY school-based physical activity programming.
(In general) This region is now replete with (several generations of) adults who have under-developed physical activity portfolios (‘Iron Footprints’), lack the motivation to sustain regular exercise, and all-together just don’t ‘get’ physical activity, literally or figuratively. Net/net, as the response I received indicates, it’s simply not on their radar.
While recognizing as adults we are all responsible for our own wellbeing, and there isn’t anything that will correct the ills of early experiences, it’s well in our hands to make sure we don’t lose any more generations. Advocate for, and make sure your school’s activity programming is quality. If it’s not on the radar get it there.
THE OTHER 15 HOURS OF THE DAY…
Did you get your daily workout done? Excellent! Now what other physical activity have you done today?
Going to the gym contributes to your active lifestyle, but alone doesn’t mean you live actively.
Just a reminder that a physically active lifestyle means physical activity is a feature of it. Said otherwise, past the hour you spend at the gym and eight hours you spend sleeping (ok, six), make it priority to be active throughout the other 15 hours of the day.
One, it’s a quality of life thing. Exercise uniquely and profoundly makes you better—stronger, sharper, calmer, more reasonable, more analytical—whether it’s 10 minutes of walking before (and after) a conference call or 60 minutes of body pump class.
Two, it’s a resilient motivation thing. The more activity you accumulate, the more you will want to accumulate from the well-being it evokes. The sustaining power strengthens each time you add to it.
What you do during the day past sleeping and getting to the gym dictates your wellness as much as…sleeping and getting to the gym. Kind of like credit card rewards where you get two airline miles for each one dollar you spend, prioritizing activity during the other 15 hours pays off!
WE ARE FAT…BUT IT’S CORRECTABLE!
It’s official: the world is fat, fatness is now a greater health challenge than hunger, and playing the lead role is none other than the US. Statistically, we are the fattest nation of our fat world. Great. Not a world ranking we want.
Step one to addressing a problem is admitting it exists. While I can’t speak for all 300,000,000+ of us, it works in our favor that the problem isn’t lost on many. So, step two is taking steps to correct it…pun intended.
In the scheme of wellness-degrading conditions, obesity/overweight is a very correctable problem. If each of us took a 10-minute walk right now, in 10 minutes we would be on our way to changing our health-related fate, and world ranking.
Yep, that’s how correctable this fatness thing is. Who’s in? 10 minutes of walking a day if you are just getting started, and then 10,000 steps every day once you have built your stamina.
Remember, with just ONE 10-minute bout we change our wellness trajectory – c’mon, and change yours right now!
‘BATHING SUIT SEASON’ – RECLAIM THE EXCITEMENT
Yep, its here. We have hit Memorial Day, which means – the 2014 Bathing Suit Season has officially begun.
Remember as a kid how exciting it was to put your bathing suit on? Mostly, because it meant fun activities were to follow. Swimming, of course, but also running through the sprinkler, slip-n-sliding, playing on a beach, going boating…
Then something changed. Over time, the excitement about what you were about to do turned into anxiety about how you looked. Yikes!
Well, there is no better time than today to reclaim its excitement. Bring on bathing suit season but as it was when you were a kid. Make peace with the enemy, by actually using it for what it’s meant for. You still have to wait an hour after you eat before swimming…
REPURPOSE YOUR COOL DOWN
Recent research suggests a post-exercise cool down has scant effect on preventing muscle soreness. The take away message — don’t bother cooling down — is outrageous if not sacrilegious to many of us, after all, common sense correctly tells us to not end exercise abruptly. But of the take away to this emerging science, lets peel a layer or two since its premise is faulty for being shallow.
For one, the (temporary) soreness that can accompany exercise ought to be welcomed since micro tears to muscles that actually catalyze tissue strengthening induce it. Net/net, embrace soreness for the muscular gain it is signaling!
Further, a cool down offers benefit that transcends physiological consideration. A few minutes of walking after cardio or weights gets the attention of your motivation by recognizing the achievement of completing your workout, or relishing any personal benchmarks or the satisfaction of having done a new activity.
Considering exercise’s unique and profound impact on our wellbeing, each completed workout bears celebration as a stand-alone, and for how celebration sustains our motivation to do the same tomorrow, and many tomorrows after.
Repurpose your cool down by using it to bask in your achievement, and then welcome the soreness that’s about to make your quads sing.
FRIDAY FOOTPRINT FLASH – THE HEART OF THE MATTER
FOR your heart, running is the same as walking is the same as cycling is the same as basketball, is the same as…a gazillion other forms of activity.
IN your heart, different forms of activity are rank ordered according to what feeds your physical activity soul.
In a perfect world, your engagement in FOR is a neat and tidy expression of IN. A romanticist might dreamingly say it’s a natural force that draws our energy toward a particular activity form… But a humanist—the kind with two kids, a dog, and a demanding job—might say riiiight, meaning wrong, for IN is ultimately where the realities of time and place intersect, meaning yours is 5pm spin, or 7pm yoga, or 6am boot camp, or your mapped out 5-mile run.
Considering slammed schedules leaving few slivers open to exercise and the gym opportunistic for how it offers hourly programming, the ‘chosen’ form of engagement is the class scheduled during the sliver you can attend. Net/net, your exercise expression is more defined by the gym’s fitness class scheduler than impelled by intuitive force, so until the kids are grown, or the job settles (ha!) you may have to sacrifice the IN for the just-get-it-done of the FOR.
Ahh, so be it. Consistently doing the FOR will ensure that when you get to do the IN it will, I dare say, be to your heart’s content.
FRIDAY FOOTPRINT FLASH – It’s the simple things
Headline: Obesity rates are lower for cities in which more residents walk or bike to work than cities whose residents use less active transport.
While this is no surprise to anyone hip to obesity’s relationship with exercise (but the more correlation-strengthening data the merrier), it reinforces the notion that physical activity-preventing obesity doesn’t have to be fancy — or require a gym membership or special machines or special clothes/equipment (less a bike of course)…
Not to say that active transport is without challenge—safe routes, change of clothes, the elements, etc—and it may simply be impractical in certain situations, but as evidenced by the data, it seems the challenges can be overcome.
Active transport aids to combat obesity, but its big picture benefit is even more significant. Since healthy behavior begets healthy behavior, walking to work can catalyze a string of additional health-enhancing lifestyle modifications. The important take away is each step you take to, literally, walk to work entices other health-enhancing steps to follow.
KEEP THAT ‘MO
Momentum – a hard concept to throw a net around, yet understandable at the same time. A sudden spark, and you are a step faster, a shade brighter, a notch more focused. Energy comes from a different dimension—moving is effortless—time stands still yet passes quickly. Most important, you just KNOW the shot is going to go in, you are going to make the catch, or your workout is going to be awesome…
Yea, it’s great until it isn’t, until the gremlins invade and turn that step faster into sluggishness and steely focus into haze. Where is the ‘mo then, huh!
Being human means we come with a multi-pack of emotions and some modulation along the ‘mo spectrum is…only human. But when it comes to activity engagement it doesn’t have to mean the wild swings of polarity we sometimes experience because using Iron Footprint we access THE very thing it feeds on – achievement.
Kind of like a movement-sensor light that is never really off, tracking your achievement streams a steady pulse of energy to your ‘mo source. That means as well as knowing how to switch it on, you can also be assured it’s never turned off. Happy tracking
FRIDAY FITNESS FLASH – Family togetherness at the gym
FRIDAY FITNESS FLASH – Family togetherness at the gym
With schools on spring break and it being a holiday weekend, this week’s highlight was seeing families exercising together at the gym.
‘Moving families’ is in its own category of how parents can help kids develop regular exercise habits, even when perceived indifference makes it seem they don’t pay attention to what is said or done. The influential power of ‘talk the talk and walk the walk’ is even sharper when the talk occurs while matching strides on side-by-side treadmills.
Other than the style of headphones worn, there was scant difference between the exercise of the kids compared to their parents – I suppose it’s only a matter of time before the kids claim their parent’s ‘Beats’…
CARDIO CIRCUIT TRAINING CHALLENGE
Spice up your cardio workout with a simple circuit routine that doubles as a fitness event. Yep,
cardio sessions that build heart health AND feature competition and novelty to stoke your intensity-pushing and motivation-driving adrenaline.
First, decide how many components you want for your circuit challenge, and then, select the machines. The common choices include treadmills, stationary bikes, rowing machines, hand bikes, elipticals, and stair steppers/stair mills. If you are new to doing this sort of activity, you may want to begin by doing a ‘biathlon’ using the two cardio machines with which you are most familiar. (Add more/different machines to your repertoire to be able to use them for your next circuit challenge AND grow your Iron Footprint!)
Second, set your measurement metrics. Decide between setting the duration of time you will spend on each piece of equipment—and track the distance you cover, OR the distance you will cover—and track the time it takes to cover the distance).
For example, you could spend 10 minutes each on the treadmill and stationary bike and track the distance you cover. Or, you could time yourself for how long it takes you to walk/run 2 miles on the treadmill and then cycle 5 miles.
Keep track of your measurements – as FitBESTS – so you can track your improvement over time.
Keep in mind you can do ‘traditional’ events such as a timed 1-mile run, or ‘nontraditional’ events such as walking backwards for distance at a 20-degree incline. You can also include non-machine cardio exercises such as jumping rope and step-ups.
As your cardio capacity improves (along with your machine repertoire), you can add more components to keep creating unique challenges.
The way I see it, your gym membership allows you to use ALL the equipment, so make the most of your monthly credit card ding – here’s to biathlons, triathlons, quad-athlons, octathlons, heptathlons, decathlons…and any other ‘ons’ you can conjure!
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