#008 - The phrase "No Pain, No Gain" is so over. You should enjoy moving your body. See: Parkour, Ice Skating, & cleaning your bathroom

Let's collectively retire the idea that your workouts should suck for them to "work".

and

Oct 23, 2023

Workout Wherever by Mazama Wellness is a location-independent fitness system that offers a dose of travel inspiration.

Our goal is for you to feel more confident and consistent in your workouts and access unlimited workout destinations with our portable equipment.

learn more at workoutwherever.com

This post is best viewed on the website or Substack app!

How to Structure a Warm Up

Today, I’ll share how I structure a warm up. Every workout should start with a warm up and this is an example of what a typical warm up looks like for me and my clients.

Warm ups are important because they prepare the body for the workout and reduce the likelihood of injury. They also get the mind in the right space and facilitate the mind/body connection that allows for a more effective workout.

Spinal Flexion/Extension

I start all my warm ups with a cat/cow. It’s a classic yoga movement that’s great for getting some healthy spinal movement and getting the back muscles working. Also, if you start every warm up with a cat/cow, it tells the brain that it’s workout time and helps the body fall in line. It’s like a mental trigger that signals what comes next - kind of a pavlovian response. That’s why I always start every workout with this movement.

Thoracic Rotation

After the cat/cow, we need some spinal rotation - something like a half kneeling rotation will do. This helps with thoracic rotation. This is the middle part of the spine and the ability to rotate here is important because it will keep you from getting stiff. If you have good thoracic rotation, then you move more naturally instead of like Frankenstein’s monster.

Shoulder Flexion

Next we move to the shoulders and hamstrings. I like a tall plank to downward dog to get the hamstrings lengthened and improve shoulder flexion. Shoulder flexion is the ability to put the arms straight overhead and this is one area that I see a lot of limited range of motion in people, so improving or maintaining this is important. Also, hamstrings get stiff and shortened from extended periods of sitting, so lengthening those muscles is a good idea as well.

Lateral Loading

Then we move on to a wide stance elbow to knee. This helps with loading the hips and legs and also moving in the frontal plane, meaning in a side to side motion. In everyday life, most people aren’t moving side to side much, so using this movement pattern regularly in workouts or warm ups is a good idea. Plus, the trunk rotation is again reinforced here, just like with the half kneeling rotations.

Balance/Stability

Lastly, I finish off with a tall elbow to knee. This is a good one for a little core and glute stimulus as well as some single leg stability and balance. This will help you maintain your balance during single leg exercises in your workout.

Takeaway

So the takeaway here is that you need a variety of movements like the ones mentioned in order to get the body ready for a workout. A warm up should only take about 10 or 15 minutes, but will be invaluable when it keeps you from getting injured and helps you get a better workout. This is just an example of a typical warm up that I use with my clients and you can always add some things that you want to work on specifically or tailor it to your needs. See below for a sample warm up template and leave any questions or comments below.

A Visual Supplement

too long; didn't read? - watch this video.

It doesn’t have to be a challenge.

I’m a big fan of enjoying things. In fact, even if things are hard or maybe there are difficult parts, overall you should strive to like the things you do. Whether it’s your career or hobbies or trips you take - enjoyment should be a primary goal. I even think this about exercise. Too often I hear the mantra of pain and suffering as a primary attribute of exercise. You must suffer to be doing it right or getting the benefit from it.

Personally, I don’t think this is the case. Even if they’re hard, you should enjoy your workouts and if you don’t, then you should probably find something you do enjoy because it won’t be sustainable otherwise. However, I think if you’re doing it right, most things can be enjoyable. In fact, I like cleaning the bathroom if I have the time and energy. There’s something calming and meditative about it.

“Wax on, wax off” - Mr. Miyagi

I think a large part of enjoying something is taking a moment to appreciate it or just fully feel it. Taking it all in and marveling at it - big picture. The wonders of life and the vastness of the universe and all that.

This is how I see the outdoor adventures that I’ve had. I don’t view things like climbing a mountain or cycling long distances as a challenge to complete, but rather as a time that you can look around and be like “wow” over and over. And when it’s done it isn't something to check off the list, but is satisfying in that you have the memories and the residual feelings from it.

Hiking to Everest base camp is an experience that is unrivaled in my life. I didn’t have to climb to the top of Everest in order to be impacted so completely by the experience. I got to hangout in the highest mountains in the world, where in the daytime the sky is a deep purple and at night you feel like you could reach up and scoop a handful of stars out of the sky. Where you're walking amongst Tibetan Buddhist monuments and being invited into peoples homes to taste the homemade moonshine that they distilled in their front yard. I could climb the crest of a hill and feel like I was on the edge of the world looking down on humanity. From up there it all somehow made sense - I don’t know how else to explain it. I felt removed from everything down below and the moments of clarity strung together into days and weeks.

These are feelings that I suspect most people that are there to conquer the mountain never feel. I saw this in the people that were there to summit Everest. These people had no chill. They seemed just as stressed on top of the world as I’m sure they were back in their law firms in New York City. Yvon Chouinard (founder of Patagonia) summed it up best,

“Climbing Everest is the ultimate and the opposite of that. Because you get these high-powered plastic surgeons and CEOs, and you know, they pay $80,000 and have Sherpas put the ladders in place and 8,000 feet of fixed ropes and you get to the camp and you don’t even have to lay out your sleeping bag. It’s already laid out with a chocolate mint on the top. The whole purpose of planning something like Everest is to effect some sort of spiritual and physical gain and if you compromise the process, you’re an asshole when you start out and you’re an asshole when you get back.”

I guess the point that I’m getting at is that you should enjoy the process. If you view things as challenges to overcome and nothing more, then you’ve missed out on the enjoyment that the process affords. Maybe the victory isn’t in completing the task or making it to the top of the mountain, but rather in the changes that take place inside you. This might be a pretty mediocre observation, but taking it full circle back to enjoying your workouts, don’t compromise the process. If you commit to enjoying them and don’t make it all about the end goal, then you’ll relish the things you do daily. You’ll take pleasure in your workouts and cleaning the bathroom and life generally. And in the end, what else is there.

Life is inherently pointless until we give it meaning, so maybe the purpose of life is to enjoy it, not in some hedonic way, but rather through a lens of appreciation of the minutia. I don’t know for sure and I suspect this is a pretty privileged position to take, but this is something that I’ve been trying to remind myself of amidst the stress of building a business and living in a new country. Sometimes I find myself too wrapped up in the end goal and not reveling in the process enough, so maybe this is more a reminder to myself than anything else.

It’s not the destination, it’s the journey… 🤮🙄

But seriously, it is.

Parkour!

I’m sure by now we're all familiar with the sport of parkour. It’s the one where people jump from rooftop to rooftop and down stairways and over walls. Sponsored by Red Bull and everyday getting more and more extreme. Leaving observers to wonder what self preservation part of the brain is not firing properly in these folks.

Musings aside, this sport has humble and more utilitarian beginnings. It was derived from the obstacle courses that were designed and implemented by French physical educator Georges Hébert and his exercise system known as "la méthode naturelle" (Natural Method). The story goes that he was in the French navy and on the island of Martinique, when a volcano erupted and he helped with the evacuation of the area. This experience led him to devise a system of exercise that he felt was most effective from a survival standpoint. It focused on running and jumping and climbing among other things and was designed to help people “be strong, to be helpful.”

This system was eventually adopted by the French military and the associated obstacle courses (le parcours) are now the standard for military training all over the world. Even children's playgrounds are a product of Hebert’s work.

I personally like the idea of being strong to be helpful and also the associated philosophy of altruism and collectivism that was a part of la méthod naturelle.

Hebert was also an advocate for women exercising at a time when it was more or less unheard of.

Nice Ice, Baby.

I have an extreme longing for skate-based athletics. I spent a lot of my earlier years gliding about in one way or another. It was my earliest form of meditation I guess you could say. Plus, I wheely like it. 😉

But it is all quite hilarious because now I live in Lisbon which has

slick cobblestones for roads & sidewalks
a comical amount of steep hills
about 95% warm and/or sunny weather (no snow)
not a single ice skating rink in the country - that I’ve found…

Alas, my longing persists. So, what I do is google beautiful places in the world that I would love to ice skate this winter if I could just make a world tour of it. Here are my findings…