I have been working with my coworker for a couple of years now. He’s tried every diet and every exercise habit you should, and should not, try.
A few times he tried to run .. and failed. He did the couch to 5k plan and, like most people, freaked out at week 5 day 3 and stopped.
He’s a contractor and lately has been working remotely from home until last week. When he came in we were playing ‘catch up’ on how things have been. He mentions that he’s been running and has found a bit of enjoyment out of it.
WHAT?
WHAT?
What did he do? He learned that running did not mean running. It instead meant to find *your* pace above a walk and go with it.
So, today he walks up to me and mentions that he’s mad that no one ever told him that running did not mean running (I’m sure I said it to him a few times, but he never listens to me!). Finally he’s found something that he can do, that’s exercise, and that’s not a voluntary form of torture.
Nice!
So … if you’re scratching your head on all of this, let me explain.
If you’re trying out running for the first time these are your Dos and Don’ts …
Don’t think you should walk out the door and run like a Nigerian. My sister did this .. she started the Couch to 5k program and on the first day, at every interval she bolted like someone was trying to rob her. Silly rabbit was sore for days. Go slow .. there is no need to rush. Remember your legs and body are not conditioned for running.
Don’t have any expectations and don’t be in a hurry. The goal and the key is no pressure. Remember that it just needs to be better than what you do now. That’s it.
Do give yourself recovery time after running. Again, your body is new to this. Even if you run slowly those muscles are getting a new workout and need time to repair.
Take it slow, keep an open mind, and give it time. Take the expectations, pressure, and pace away .. try it xx amount of times and see how it goes. One time is not enough to decide on much of anything, I promise.
Years ago I used to run and was OBSESSED with my pace. I was always racing EVERYONE, especially myself. Running turned into disappointment and torture at one time until I through those out the window and decided to find the fun. Now, it’s something I love.
Will my pace every be as fast as before? Probably not. Do I enjoy the miles more than I did? Absolutely.
Happy day and thanks for reading!
I have tons of playlists on Spotify, by BPMs, by moves (i.e. seated flats, standing climbs, etc). Feel free to follow me as I am constantly adding to my playlists 🙂
I have not posted a spin profile playlist in a while and so I thought I would share one 🙂
Right now I teach spinning / indoor cycling at two different gyms. At one gym for the month we are focusing on endurance / speedwork profiles and at the other we are working in strength. Needless to say my legs are ‘adjusting’ the going from one extreme to the other!
This was one I taught recently … the goals was to work on seated flat surge improvement while sustaining strong tempos through the rest of class.
The entire profile is an endurance profile, with cadences between 80-110. Knowing that we can briefly look at the details.
Let’s have a look…
 The goal of the profile is to work on the speed intervals during the seated flats. The seated flats are up to the riders whether it’s  small bump in pace or a full out spinning surge. When not in those songs the goal shifts to maintain that endurance pace and momentum. As the seated flats progress they will challenge the rider’s ability to keep pushing ahead.
I typically give options both in and out of the saddle with the intent to work with every personal goal in class. I also always finish with a seated flat as that last ‘blast’ to end class. Turbulence definitely does that …
The seated flats are Juicy Wiggle, Welcome to Africa, Black Betty, Born to Get Wild, and Turbulence.
This playlist is pretty upbeat and ‘pushy’ on tempo, which helps when you are tired! The music keeps you moving!
I hope this helps!
Thanks for reading!
I have tons of playlists on Spotify, by BPMs, by moves (i.e. seated flats, standing climbs, etc). Feel free to follow me as I am constantly adding to my playlists 🙂
It’s 2015. Technology is everywhere. You see people constantly on their phones, wasting their day away checking email, social sites, playing games, and everything in between. Technology occupies us but how can it help us?
For this post I’m going to stick with talking about fitness devices and activity trackers, specifically the Polar A300 Heart Rate Monitor Watch.
For transparency purposes, I will mention that I am a Polar Ambassador however the opinions and discussions in this article (and this blog) are my own. I write about these watches only because I think they are *amazing* and would love to help educate people on how to use them! 🙂
Ok .. let’s go!
I am one of those people .. I have to wear a watch. With the evolvement of technology I also like to know what my activity level is for the day… what I have, or have not, been doing. That is where the Polar A300 comes in handy.
On the Polar A300 there is a handy alarm feature that, yes, even includes a Snooze button!
In a typical day I wake up to my watch alarm buzzing me that it’s time to get on with another work day. I like having an alarm so convenient .. and I will admit to using it for anything I need a reminder for. Why not?!
The Polar A300 tracks daily activity, i.e. steps, and even gives you an estimate on about how many calories you’ve burned during the day.
What is nice is that one of the watch face views has a progress bar under it, showing you how far you are along in your steps for the day. If you want to know what it will take to get to one hundred percent for the day you can quickly take a look at your status and it will show you a few options! Many times I’ve seen that I just need 10 minutes of walking and it’s been encouraging enough that I’ve gotten up and knocked that walk out just to finish the day off right!
The Polar A300 not only monitors your activity but it can also tell you when you’ve been inactive for too long. It always manages to let me know at the perfect moment!
I will admit that I’m almost yin and yang with my daily activity.
Being a group fitness instructor I am very active when I teach, keeping the watch very happy with all my movements. When I’m at home, it’s a different story. I’ll be enjoying my down time at home and all of a sudden I have been sitting on my butt for way too long…. next thing you know the watch will buzz me letting me know that it’s time to move!
I’ve had it both happen to me at home and work (a bunch of times!) and I’ve noticed that it’s always at the perfect time, when I’m in some sort of relaxing, awful, zoned out funk. It will buzz me and I’ll instantly get up and do something, whether it be walk, do a few jumping jacks, or just something to get the blood flowing again. You can turn them off if you want but I personally enjoy the nudge, reminding me that it’s not good to be so idle for so long!
When you set up your training targets on Polar Flow it makes it quick and easy to start your workouts when it’s time to hit the gym!
I like to set up training targets on my Polar A300Â for the workouts I expect to do during the week, so I can hold myself accountable for making my weekly goals.
On this day I was scheduled to teach Bodypump. What great is that when the watch is synced, I’ll click on the start button and it asks me if I want to start my Bodypump workout. That’s so nice!
Since the watch can talk to the mobile app (Android or iOS) through Bluetooth, getting the data off the watch is easy!
For me, I simply start the sync process as I’m changing to leave the gym. The data is automatically sent from my watch to my android and it will even beep when it’s finished.
Then, when I’m walking out of the gym I like to pull up the Polar Flow mobile app to see a fancy breakdown of the workout! It’s one thing to track your heart rate but I use heart rate tracking as a tool to see how I’m working out, in which zones, and if I’m training smart with every workout.
Within seconds you can switch your watch band out for a different color that you have!
Later on this night I had plans to head out .. and decided that maybe the watch color would not look great with what I was wearing… but I don’t want to miss out on a complete picture of my day in activity.
The Polar A300 is great because you can quickly and easily change out the band.
What?
Yes!
About 30 seconds later my watch was now a color that looked much better with my outfit!
The good news is that by the end of that day I could call it a success! Using technology to help me in my daily life the Polar A300 kept me healthy and motivated!
The watch made sure I did not oversleep, it buzzed me twice to make sure that I was not sitting for too long, it was ready to go when I needed to teach Bodypump, it motivated me to take that extra walk in order to get to 100% of my daily goal, and it even changed colors in order to match with my evening outfit! 🙂
I love this watch and it’s definitely a case where technology helps us to live smarter, healthier lives. If we can use this to our advantage and make good choices one day at a time I feel much better about our chance for better health today, tomorrow, and in years to come.
The first couple of days were miserable .. at one point I wanted to move my laptop into the bathroom to save myself the walking. The bonus in this? I easily hit my daily quota in steps walking back and forth again, and again, and again, and …
Things I’ve Learned …
Don’t drink massive amounts of water before you are going to be in a situation where you cannot go to the bathroom. Thankfully I ‘thought’ about this and tapered before I had to teach classes at the gym. That would have been miserable!
When you drink water more consistently that ice water really keeps your body temperature lower. I switched to luke warm water pretty quick
After a couple of days I started to drink it more consistently on my own (I was having an app buzz me every hour to drink water) .. it definitely feels both that my body needs it and wants it
Things I’ve Noticed …
For some reason my system feels cleaner, head to toe. I really don’t know how to explain it but I feel like I’m flushing myself out constantly.
I’m not as hungry as often as I thought I was … that is in part because we sometimes mix up signals of hunger and thirst and well, I’m definitely never thirsty! 🙂
My skin feels better .. I noticed today that some of my dark circles seem a bit better (and it’s not because I’m getting enough sleep at night because that is one of my issues..)
I am more alert during the work day, which is great because right now my job is slooooow
Are they related? I don’t know but they are different, and positive.
I’ll post another update on this soon but I’m pretty sure that 30 days will end up being a permanent change!
Happy day and thanks for reading!
I have tons of playlists on Spotify, by BPMs, by moves (i.e. seated flats, standing climbs, etc). Feel free to follow me as I am constantly adding to my playlists 🙂
Things I’ve Learned …
Finding Fitness 