bearing blog

(Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6  7  8  9  10 11 and 12)

It's time now to consider different kinds of activities you might take on.  But before we move to specific sports, I want to suggest the principle that should guide your selection, as much as you can within the constraints you have.  This is the principle:

I don't just want you to "get some exercise."  I want you to become an athlete.  Fix in your mind the intention of becoming an athlete.  Choose your activity, and design your routine, with becoming an athlete as your goal.

What makes a person an athlete?

1.  An athlete incorporates her sport into her identity.   I'm a skier.  I'm a swimmer.  I run triathlons.  There are a thousand ways to answer questions about "who you are," or "what you do;" for an athlete, the sport appears as one of the first answers, right up there with job and family.

2.  An athlete specializes.  She may take part in lots of different activities, but one or two of them become "her" sport, the one in which she measures herself as an athlete.  She has moved beyond "Oh, I try to stay active" and has claimed one or two activities as her very own, even if she has fun trying lots of different things.  The specialties may change as she moves through the seasons of life, but there is always a concentration.

3.  An athlete sets performance goals.  She goes beyond vaguely trying or hoping to see "results," and instead has specific, measurable goals in mind that she is working towards.  At any given time she can name and describe them, whether they are physical ("I'm trying to break 50 seconds in the 50-yard crawl") or mental ("I'm trying to run for 20 minutes without letting a complaining or whiny thought surface in my mind!") 

4.  An athlete masters the fundamentals before moving up to the next level.  Even if she has a long-term goal in mind, she identifies the steps along the way and focuses on one level at a time, not getting ahead of herself.  She knows that overreaching can lead to discouragement or to injury.

5.  An athlete learns from experts.  She reads books and articles written about her sport, mining them for new workouts to try, ways to correct bad form, inspirations and motivations.  She finds out what community resources, teams, classes, and competitions are available to her and uses them as she can.  She uses what she learns to set her performance goals and to design a workout plan that will help her reach them.

6.  An athlete listens to her body.  She notices when she needs more rest, or when she needs to change her workout schedule for better balance.  She observes pains and twinges and stiffness, takes them seriously, finds out if she needs to rest the muscle or make it stronger.  She modifies her routines, adds strength and balance training if necessary, remembers to stretch.  She seeks medical attention when it's warranted, and learns self-care skills to manage chronic injuries or weaknesses.  She cares for her body with the aim of preserving and extending its athletic competence.

7.  An athlete trains all the time.  Some sports never change:  swimming indoors is the same night and day, winter and summer, and running just moves to an indoor track.  Other sports have definite seasons:  skiing, mountain biking.  In the off-season, an athlete keeps moving, choosing activities that preserve fitness until the weather changes again.  A skier runs and strengthens his lower body all summer long, or maybe cruises the bike paths on skate-skis; a cyclist enrolls in spinning classes and lifts weights all through the cold winter, or maybe buys a set of studded tires and plows through the slush.

8.  An athlete looks to the future.  Imagine the life you want to be leading at age sixty, sevety, eighty.  What can you do now to fit yourself for that reality?  Should you learn a "lifelong" sport now?  Should you make the most of your young years, enjoying a sport that's mostly for the young, and save the low-impact stuff for when you can't take the impact anymore?  Some combination?  Taking the long-term view helps in another way:  we remember that we don't have to plow ahead fast, but can take the time to master the fundamentals before moving on to higher levels of the sport.  There is always something new to learn, and a single sport can hold interest for many years when new goals are set one at a time.

I urge you to take up at least one activity that will help you claim the title "athlete."

You may be able to choose a sport that easily makes you feel like one.  If so, great!  But even if you are constrained to activities that don't feel "athletic," you can approach them with an athlete's attitude.  I will write more about applying the athlete's attitude to specific kinds of physical activities in the next post.

(Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6  7  8  9  10 and 11)

Let's talk about juggling. 

Juggling is the sort of thing that is learned in stages:  one object at a time.   First you learn to handle one bean bag, tossing it from hand to hand, feeling its weight.  Then two, passing the first from hand to hand while the other comes down from the top of the arc.  Eventually you can add more:  three, then four.  Once you can handle four bean bags, you're looking pretty impressive.

This is where you are, busy person that you are, handling your four bean bags nicely, hardly ever dropping one.  And if you've never really managed to fit personal exercise in your life, I'm not asking you to add one more bean bag.  I'm asking you to juggle three bean bags and a bowling pin.

How are you going to do this?  Do you start by swapping one bean bag for one bowling pin? Give it a try if you like, but please, when everything winds up on the floor, I hope you won't tell yourself "Bowling pins are not for me."   No, the way to learn to do it is to become a beginner all over again:   set down ALL the bean bags and pick up just the one bowling pin.  Toss it back and forth, feel its weight, how the new size, shape, and weight changes the timing of your tosses.  It doesn't behave the same as the things you're used to handling, and you need to understand how it rotates, how it smacks into your palm.  Those bean bags aren't gone forver, they're just waiting:  Once you get good at tossing and catching that bowling pin all by  itself, then you can start adding the bean bags back, one at a time.

What are these bean bags?

• some of your kids' lessons and classes
• some of the work you put into meal preparation and cleanup (please,  do not sacrifice planning time—but be willing to plan simpler fare)
• some of the work your family puts into housekeeping and home projects
• some of your family's recreational activities
• daily Mass, weekly holy hour, and other scheduled devotions (I am not a spiritual director, BUT… see this fantastic post by Jen at Conversion Diary.  Remember, we have a minimum obligation for a reason… and mothers of families have got different duties from cloistered contempatives, however attractive their duty-set can sound sometimes.
• volunteer work and other obligations you've made to people outside your family

These are all bean bags that can be set aside, temporarily, to produce the time you need to learn to juggle the awkward, scary bowling pin of personal exercise.  Get good at the bowling pin, and you can start adding the beanbags back one at a time.  If you think about paring these activities less as "quitting" and more as "a temporary measure that is part of my plan to increase my weekly physical activity" perhaps it will be easier.  I suggest that you and your family set some date several months out—not a date to add things back in, but a date to re-evaluate whether to add something back in.

* * *

So… how much time do you need to scavenge?  There's a short answer.

Start with less.  Leave room for more.

There is a useful minimum, and at that minimum you should begin.  It is not "30 minutes of vigorous exercise, three times a week," no matter what the researchers say.  The minimum amount for beginners is "enough to feel like a real change. " It is enough for you to say, "I am regularly exercising.  It's not a LOT, not yet, but it is certainly regular."  It is the amount that sends a signal to yourself that you are taking a real step and are really the kind of person who gets regular exercise.  It is the beginning of working up to the new you.

Assuming that the single biggest hurdle preventing you from of getting regular exercise is finding the time and showing up for it, there are two basic ways to start small and work up to more:  ultra-short daily sessions, to be gradually lengthened; or normal-length sessions, to be gradually made more intense and possibly more frequent.  I suggest beginning with one or the other: 

(a) Five minutes a day  OR

(b) Two sessions (20-60 minutes) a week.

In one approach, you'll begin with very short blocks of time, taken every day, and gradually lengthen them.  Ultrashort sessions are workable in "easy-on, easy-off" scenarios, such as walking on a home treadmill (see shovelglove.com for another idea that's well outside the box).  I suspect this approach is best for people who begin with profound physical challenges and need to work up verrrrry slowly towards sustaining normal activity.  Five minutes every day can be slowly increased to six minutes, to ten, and so on (no more than ten percent increase per week).  Once you get up to a time block long enough to need to be "fit" into your schedule — somewhere between twenty and sixty minutes — you can begin increasing the intensity and decreasing the frequency, if you like.   You can even switch to the twice-a-week approach.

I took that approach, the twice-a-week approach.  This is where you start if you settle on a scenario that demands longer time blocks from the very beginning—enrolling in a thirty-minute exercise class, or using a gym you have to drive to, or deciding to ride your bike to work.  I suggest beginning with twice a week.  I can write more about this from experience, because this is how I started swimming.  I imagined that a swimmer should swim forty minutes, several times a week; so I started swimming forty minutes, twice a week.

 Twice a week is enough to shake up your weekly schedule, to make a real change, one that allows you to do different things on different days.  It's enough that one missed day doesn't equal "Oh man, I missed a whole week."  It is enough to get your attention.

Is it enough to turn you into that person you imagined you might become?  Did you think that she probably got to the gym three or four times a week?  If so, don't forget that; but save it for later.  Twice a week is not inferior to three times a week; it is the necessary step that comes before three times a week. 

Believe me, once you get past the initial thrill of something different, twice a week will feel difficult enough.  Not the actual exercise, most likely, but the arrangements, the schedule changes, the working out who has the kids when, the asking for help from a friend.  Perhaps real courage will be called for, to appear where you weren't before, feeling that you don't belong; that can be exhausting.  (I still remember how nervous I was the first few times I had to share a lane at the pool!  I always over exerted myself, thinking if I was too slow I'd annoy the other swimmers.)  Go easy on yourself.  Twice a week is a really good beginning.  And you can go on being a beginner for a long time.Stay there until twice a week feels easy.  Until you've had experience fitting it in through various obstacles and challenges, until you've had to use your backup plan (more on that later), until you've really learned and internalized that you can make a plan and stick to it.  You can stay there as long as you need to.  I stayed there for a year, a whole year at twice a week and no more.  That was the first year I never quit, the year I committed to only twice a week, the year I committed NOT to increase it to three.

When you begin at twice a week, you should set aside the whole block of time you hope for, even if you're not yet physically able to exert yourself for that long.  If you hope to run on the treadmill for thirty minutes, but you can only manage to run for two minutes, then begin by running for two minutes and walking for twenty-eight.  If you hope to swim for forty minutes (and it takes twenty to shower and change), then set aside that whole hour, even if you can only swim for twenty; spend the twenty extra minutes stretching, or sitting in the whirlpool, or practicing your breathing. You have months to work your way up to filling the whole time block with vigorous exertion.  If the time block is already set aside, you are free to use the whole in the way that is best for you exactly where you are.

Now a word about consistency.  Your a-number-one priority is not to complete a workout, but to show up for it.  If you start, but you quit early, you have still done the most important thing:  you have shown up.  Give yourself credit for arriving at the gym, getting changed, and getting started.  Give yourself credit for stepping onto the treadmill in your house and turning it on.  Did you plan thirty minutes?  If you finish ten minutes, you didn't do "ten minutes instead of thirty," you did ten minutes instead of nothing.  Fantastic!  Did you plan five minutes today?  If you stop after one minute, you didn't do "one minute instead of five," you did one minute instead of nothing.  You get a gold star! 

When the habit of consistently showing up is well and truly established, then you can raise your expectations of performance.  For now:  Schedule the time, and show up.  Put down the bean bags, promise yourself you'll revisit them later; pick up that bowling pin and toss it around a little.  See how it feels.  Give it time:  a few weeks for certain, maybe months.

But, of course, the time block is only part of the scenario.  In the next post I'll write about place and path. choosing a sport.  (Corrected 3/10/09)

(Parts 1 2 3 4 5 6  7  8  9 and 10)

I posted number 10, "Use your imagination," just yesterday, and really, I think if you haven't read it first, you should go read it, and maybe give yourself a couple of days of thinking about it before moving on to this post.  I personally spent about four months contemplating the image I describe in that post, before I went on to make some real plans concerning my physical fitness.  I hope it doesn't take you that long, but I do think it deserves your attention.

* * *

Now for the nitty gritty work.  There are four variables you need to nail down before you will have a jen-you-whine regular exercise program.

OK, really there are five.  Four, and you have a plan for an exercise program.  The fifth variable concerns whether you actually, you know, show up for it or not.

But here they are, the big four:

• T – Slots of time in which to exercise.  The slot must include time for transportation, changing clothes, etc.:  all the things that transform you from Your Normal Life into Exercise Woman and back.
• A –  One — yes, one — activity that's good for your body and that you should be able to do a few times a week for the next several months.  
• R – Your route, that is, the place where you will exercise, or the path along which you will travel to get there and back.  Also, how you get there and back, and the stuff you'll need to carry with you or wear.
• P – Provision made for the needs of all the people who depend on you while you're exercising. 

(Yes, I could have suggested you "do your PART" or "take a PRATfall" or "get out of the TRAP", or swapped "activity" for "sport" or "location" for "place" and gotten ALPS or SLAP.  I don't care.  If you don't like my TARP, come up with your own DMA.)

( That's "damn mnemonic acronym.")

Time slot.  Activity.  Route.  People's needs.

These four things are not, it turns out, independent.  You cannot really work on them individually:  you can't, for example, decide first when you're going to exercise, and THEN figure out what kind of exercise you're going to do, and so forth.  Well, you could do that, but you would be unintentionally limiting yourself along the way.    

Instead you need to imagine whole scenarios at once, and figure out what you'd have to do to get there. 

•  Perhaps you'll be a twice-a-week swimmer… in a pool… then you need to join a gym… and if you join a gym, there's a child care there, and that takes care of the people… well, now you know what you need, you just have to go and find out how much it costs, and consider whether you could afford it.  
•   Or perhaps you will be a runner… outside or at home?  Well, if at home, you might need a treadmill… but then your ten-year-old could be in charge of the younger kids… if you leave the house you would really feel more comfortable with a baby-sitter.  Which makes more sense to pay for?  The treadmill or the babysitter?  What about yoga?  Hm, there's a parent-and-child class available!  But it's offered at a particular place and at a particular time.  So if you choose that, the time and place are decided for you.
•    What about yoga?  Hm, there's a parent-and-child class available!  But it's offered at a particular place and at a particular time.  So if you choose that, the time and place are decided for you.

You see what I mean?  

So the Big Four aren't a four-step guide to figuring it out.  There are many ways you might become the person you imagine becoming.  Each possible scenario, though, has to account for the time, the activity, the route, and the people who depend on you.  If you haven't figured that out, the scenario isn't complete.

Perhaps, as you weigh your options, you'll want a separate piece of paper for each one.  The name of the possibility across the top:  "Scenario:  Swimming while the kids are in swimming lessons."  Then down the left side of the page, T. A. R. P.  "Time:  once a week when the class is scheduled.  Activity:  swimming laps.  Route:  the community center, and I really have to change and shower at home to maximize my pool time.  People:  the kids are in the lesson, so I know they're okay."  At the bottom of the page you can leave room for notes about pros and cons, cost, phone numbers to call to ask questions, things like that.

I'm going to write in more detail about each of the Big Four.  But here are some notes first.

1.  I'm going to suggest that you start by doing less, much less, than you think you're capable of (or especially less than you think you "should" do) and leave room in your psyche, if not your schedule, to add more.  Your mantra should be:  I have the rest of my life to become the person I wish I could be.  Right now I am working on the basics.  When I have mastered the basics, then I can do more, if that seems right.

2.  Nevertheless, you should endeavor to send a signal to yourself that you are, in fact, serious about change.  Have you failed to keep up with your hoped-for goals in the past?  Are other people openly skeptical that this time is going to be any different?  If so, it's all the more important that this time really BE different.  If you've tried a dozen times to stick to a home workout program, maybe this is the time to try leaving the house.  If you've always tried to exercise three times a week and never managed to keep up with it for longer than a month or two, maybe this is the time to set a goal of one or two times per week.    What can you do that will tell yourself, This is the beginning of my becoming an athlete?  Maybe it's just going slowly, telling yourself you're going to master things one at a time.  Maybe it's a new pair of shoes.  Maybe it's a schedule, or signing up for a class, or making an agreement to meet a friend for an exercise appointment.  You know best.  Send that signal.

3.  The number one goal is to build the habit.  The first habit is to decide what to do, and then to show up for it.  Showing up is at least half the battle, maybe more.  So do yourself a favor.  Make it easy for you to show up.

4.  You might need more than one scenario to take you through a whole year, depending on the climate, kids' class schedules, et cetera.   Here in Minneapolis, urban bicycling in June is not exactly the same sport that it is in January (just ask my husband, who bike commutes year round).  But bear in mind your past history:   have seasonal changes triggered seasonal quitting?  If so, plan something to prevent this.

5.  Don't forget the fifth variable making TARP in to TARPS:  S for "will I actually show up for this?"