Holiday Workouts

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Hello everyone,

Hope you’re all keeping well. You’ll have to forgive this week’s post. It used to be a lot longer, mind blowing and full of humourous quips, until something went wrong when I tried to upload it. So here is the abridged version with only the important stuff.

It’s around that time of year when we all pack up our cars and head out to the cottage for the week. Just because we’re taking a break from the city doesn’t mean we need to take a break from staying fit. In fact, there’s nothing better than getting a workout in at 6am on the cool sandy beach as the rising sun lights up the rippling waves. Toes sinking into the grainy sand, as you prepare to experience a refreshing and satisfying workout… this continued on for a while in th original article…

Don’t Need A Big Trunk
If you’re used to machines and free weights at the gym or in your home, this is a great opportunity for you to broaden your scope of exercise. Bodyweight workouts are a great way to work multiple muscles at once, develop your balance and coordination, get an aerobic component in to your strength program, and keep costs down. Best of all, you don’t need any equipment! Elastics, exercise balls and straps can greatly increase the variety in your bodyweight workouts, but they’re definietly not necessary.

On Vacation, Perfection Not Required
Unless you’re on a four week Alaskan Cruise, chances are you’re only gone for 1-2 weeks. This is a fairly short time in your training schedule, so we can afford to cut back on our duration while on vacation. Figure out an amount of time you know you’ll be able to commit to. 45 minutes? 30 minutes? 20 minutes? You may not get your minimum recommended aerobic exercise for the week; you may not have a perfectly balanced workout for all major muscle groups; but don’t worry, it’s only for a week! You’ll be back to your regular routine or Boot Camp before you know it!

Exercises
There is an unlimited number of exercises to choose from. I won’t bother trying to list exercises in this post, as there are hundreds of resources out there to choose from, a few of which are listed below. In addition to these online sites, you can always find exercise ideas in books (remember libraries?). If you don’t feel comfortable with a given exercise, or are not sure you’re doing it right, simply swap it with another exercise for the same major muscle group. If you don’t feel comfortable trying exercises without receiving proper instruction, you may want to consider seeking the services of a trainer to get you started.
Some online resources for bodyweight exercises:
www.bodyrock.tv
http://www.myfit.ca/exercisedatabase/search.asp?muscle=Home&equipment=yes
www.bodyweightculture.com
www.crossfit.com

Formats
This is where you can really spice up your workouts with variety, fun, and a little motivational competition. To give you an idea how many formats there can be, this Monday will be the 100th Boot Camp I plan for my MORFit participants. Every class has a different format. Some are typical formats you might find online, most are just ideas that came to me the night before. Nobody said you have to stick to the “2 sets of 15 reps” format. Or maybe someone did. Well, I’m telling you do don’t have to. Below are a few ideas you can use for your vacation (or your regular) workouts:

Ten’s – Pick 4-6 exercises. Do 10 reps of each exercise, then down to 9 reps, then 8, 7….. down to 1 rep of each. Try to complete the workout faster each time you go through the same exercises; or change your exercises every time.

Tabatas – Do as many reps as you can of an exercise in 20 seconds. Rest for 10 or 20 seconds. Repeat this same sequence 6-8 times for the same exercise. Complete 4-6 minutes of higher intensity cardio. Then move onto your second exercise, repeating the same sequence as before. Go through 4-6 exercises. You can write down your reps for each round, trying to get as many reps as you can in each 20 second bout.

Two to Tango – Determine a distance that takes approximately 1-2 minutes to complete (maybe a track, maybe running to the tree on the beach…). Your partner does an exercise for the length of time it takes you to run the complete distance. When you finish the run, your partner takes off while you go through the exercise. When they return, move onto the second exercise. Go through as many exercises as needed to fill the time you have for your workout.

Now you have no excuse not to workout at the cottage! I hope this article was helpful. I have no intention of giving you one workout that will keep you satisfied for one week. These are some of the tools you can use to start building your own workouts, should you be interested in doing so. Check out some of the sites I pointed to, there’s some great resources out there. Until the next post, I wish you all variety and enjoyment in your workouts, whether it’s in the company gym, or on a sandy beach.

-Stuart

Stress

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Our entire post today is dedicated to that unavoidable, unrelenting, silent but deadly, and all to often ignored…. stress. You have it, I have it, and that overly peppy neighbour who always has a smile on his face has it too. Stress is vital to our health and safety, yet has evolved to become the source of many medical ailments and diseases. Can we completely remove stress from our lives? I sure hope not, because that would mean never exercising! Can we manage stress so it is less detrimental in our daily lives? Yes.
Let’s explore stress together, and maybe we can come up with some solutions for taking back the control stress has whisped away from us over the years.

Too Much of A Good Thing
Stress can be generally described as any strain on our bodies, whether it be physical, mental, or emotional in nature. When we experience stress, our adrenal glands release the hormone cortisol into our bloodstream. Cortisol is our “natural” energy drink. It increases our reaction time, alertness, cognitive abilities, and strength to a certain degree. When we find ourselves in dangerous situations, cortisol increases our “fight or flight” response. Sounds great doesn’t it? Bring on the cortisol! As with most things, too much of a good thing can be detrimental. To quote Brendan Brazier, Ironman Triathlete and vegan, “Stress is like fire: When controlled and used for a purpose, it serves us well. Left unbridled, it can consume us.” (Brazier, The Thrive Diet, 2007).
We live in a world that breeds stress; quick unhealthy diets, long work days, polluted environment, relationship troubles, responsibilities that wouldn’t fit into a 36 hour day… We have a lot working against us. All these stresses, though not life threatening on their own, do contribute to an ongoing release of cortisol from the adrenals.

The Silent Killer
Our bodies can only handle a certain amount of cortisol before it needs to recover from the stress hormone. If this recovery does not take place, and our bodies are subjected to ongoing release of cortisol, we predispose ourselves to a host of problems. Initially, we will experience fatigue, mental clutter/fog, and sleep disturbances. If the level and frequency of stress is high enough, we can get into more complications. Our bodies interpret stress as a reaction to a threatening situation, and our bodies can shift to a survival mode. We start to store and conserve fats, and rely more on carbohydrates as energy. The more carbohydrates we burn through, the more we will crave these foods. A combination of the survival mode and cravings can lead to weight gain. Hormonal imbalances leading to nutrient imbalances can cause digestive problems, hampered hydration, and poor recovery after workouts. Further down the line, stress can lead to even more serious diseases and implications, including depression, types II diabetes, fibromyalgia, and so on.
The ironic thing about sustained stress, is that each of these complications just lead to more stress. If you’re too tired to be productive during the day, yet can’t sleep at night to get rid of the fatigue; you’ll just be more stressed that you can’t find the energy to get things done.

Nutritional Stress
Stress from the foods we eat deserves it’s own section. It is believed that the majority of stress experiened by North Americans is caused by nutritional stress. Processed foods, unbalanced macronutrients (fats vs proteins vs carbohydrates), hydration, and a lack of wholesome foods causes UNPARALLELED stress on our bodies. Food is supposed to provide us the energy we need for all our other daily activities. A lot of the foods we buy actually tax our bodies of energy in the digestion process, robbing us from some of that valuable energy. I can’t possibly cover everything on nutritional stress in this article. But I will provide you with two resources. The first is a book called the Thrive Diet, written by Brendan Brazier (quoted earlier). I am neither recommending or suggesting you follow the thrive diet, but there is a lot of good information on nutritional and other stresses. Secondly, I will be posting an article on nutrional recommendations in a couple weeks. There will be a bunch of ideas you can adopt into your diet to minimize the nutritional stress on your body.

Balancing Stress
As mentioned before, some stress is beneficial. We stress our muscles every time we go through a MORFit Boot Camp. But we stop the stress, recover, and come out stronger and more fit than we were before. If you went through three boot camps every day for 4 months, the stress would be too much. We wouldn’t recover, fatigue would set in, and possibly injury. Stress also strengthens our immune system in the same way. If stress lasts too long, the immune system is overloaded, and we are at increased risk of illness and immune system ailments.
Below are a couple strategies you can use to try and manage the effects of stress in your life:
1) Be aware of stress symptoms (fatigue, mind clutter, unmotivated, performance decline, weight gain, weight loss, sleep disturbance, mood swings, decreased sex drive)
2) Educate yourself on what you’re eating, and start making healthy substitutions
3) Balance work, recreation, and other responsibilities. Do you really need to put in the overtime? Is there something more productive you can be doing instead of watching “The Last Ten Pounds”? Will I be more relaxed if I take the kids to the park and leave the dishes till tomorrow?
4) GET YOUR SLEEP!!! 4-6 hours is not enough for the vast majority of us, yet this is a very common amount of sleep for many of us. Getting good quality sleep every night can do wonders for stress levels, positively affecting everything else.
5) Choose your battles. Some of us are more high strung than others. Turning every little squabble into a warzone may get you your way more often, but it will come back at you in stress. Cortisol makes no exceptions for type A’s. A good question to ask yourself in these situations, “Will this really matter 6 months from now?”.

If you have any other suggestions, please leave a comment. Every little bit helps. I wish you all a stress-limited week. Check out Brazier’s book when you get the chance!

-Stuart