The article suggests that nice people “try to please so that they can feel good about themselves” and kind people “take responsibility for their own self-care”.

The article addressed nice and kind people’s relationships with others.  As a personal trainer, I mainly focus on people’s relationship to themselves.  I see the same distinction between people who are nice to themselves and people who are kind to themselves.

People who are nice to themselves allow themselves to sleep in even after they’ve made a commitment to train 3X/week at 6am.  People who are nice to themselves sign up for a 8 week session and don’t show up again after the first class because they didn’t like how they felt about themselves (clumsy, awkward, fat…) in that first session.  People who are nice to themselves have 2 glasses of wine after a really shitty day.  Nice people have great intentions.  They come up with a severely restrictive plan to change their whole life and the first day they can’t follow it, they give up entirely and wait for the next wave of motivation (often in the form of self-hatred) to kick in.  Nice people set themselves up for failure and when they feel really badly about themselves they pick themselves up with a piece of cheesecake.

In a nutshell, people who are nice to themselves blow off their commitment to their own health the second they don’t feel like doing it.

I used to be nice to myself and I spent most of my energy feeling shitty and wishing that my life, my body, my energy level would magically be better.  Praise to be Allah, I learned that being nice to myself wasn’t going to get me there.

Being kind did.

Kind people act in their own best interests.  Kind people treat themselves as though they are their own loving parent – the type of parent who wants them to succeed.  A parent who wants them to be happy, responsible, successful and discovering their own potential.

Kind people get up on cold, rainy mornings because they committed to doing that and kind people honor their commitments to themselves.  Kind people have learned that while it’d be “nice” to have cheesecake everyday – an apple will make them feel better, and cheesecake is great on occasion.

Kind people have learned that sometimes you have to do things you don’t “feel like” doing in order to live a life worth living.  Kind people don’t rely on motivation to maintain a balanced life, they rely on commitment.  Kind people don’t beat themselves up after an indulgent weekend.  They enjoy themselves fully and on Monday morning, they get back to their well-balanced and sustainable routine.

Kind people see through the illusion of perfection and don’t fall for the black and white thinking that goes with it.  Kind people know they are going to get old and have decided they will do their best to live their years in a strong and healthy body.   Every day, kind people make choices that will support a healthy present and a happy future.  Habits are hard to break – kind people are gentle, aware and committed to themselves as they break unhealthy habits and create healthy ones.  They forgive their follies and don’t punish themselves by allowing their weaknesses to rule their lives.  Kind people know they won’t always feel like doing it – but at least 80% of the time, they’ll do it anyway.

Kind people don’t let themselves off the hook.  They let themselves succeed.

Be kind to yourselves people.

In health, Sandy

The last 200 years has been a crazy time for us humans.  We’ve been so hyperactive that we impetuously reinvented the entire fabric of our social world.  From steam engines to iPhones.  Isn’t that amazing?  I live in awe.

But… I don’t think we’re gonna keep up this pace.  I don’t think it’s possible – or healthy.  I think we need some time to step back and process everything that we’ve done.  I don’t know where all this drive came from – certainly not from the likes of me – but the few who have been doing the driving should stop.  And the many who have been going along for the ride should get out of the car.  Walk around.  Stretch.  Talk awhile.  Let’s take a deep collective breathe.  Then let’s get some lunch and start asking ourselves some tough questions.

Are you in agreement with what you see before you?  Are you happy with the expectations/limitations that surround your life?  Do you think there’s something fundamentally wrong with the way you are?  If so, who or what gave you that idea?  As a culture – what are our core beliefs?  How obligated are we to the past?  What have we been convincing each other to believe?  Can we trust ourselves or do we need society to set the boundaries?  To what extent?  If you had the power to live your life on your own terms, what would that look like?  Where does the power to do that come from?

I love the occupy movement.  The most common negative response I’ve heard goes something like: “what do they even want? they should just get a f’ing job.”  To be honest, I don’t know what they (or you) want, but I understand that it’s not what’s been put before them.  With all the din of the last century – all those leaf blowers, fax machines, and trucks driving in reverse – how can any of us really know what we want (please read: I’m-overwhelmed for more on that).  But I’ve had a lot of conversations lately and I hear people say – I don’t know what I want, but it’s not this.

It’s fine not to have the answers – it’s even better to ask the pertinent questions.  I want to believe that this is the year that we will collectively examine all of our assumptions – all our biases and beliefs.  I want 2012 to be the year of The Great Decluttering of our Minds.  The year of Metaphysical Fitness.  The year of Occupy Yourself.  Let’s start with an open curiosity into our own workings and desires then move lovingly forward from there.

Who’s in?

Sandy

Hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are feeling optimistic for the coming year!

Sandy

I’m writing you from my bed, hopped up on anti-inflammatories about 2 days after I did something that I highly encourage you not to do:  Don’t swing a 50 lb kettlebell while talking to someone on your left.  Or your right.  In fact – don’t swing a KB and talk at all.  Really – who does that?!

In any case, in the last 48 hours, I’ve been thinking a lot about back health and wanted to share a few things:

1. Did you know that if you live to 90 – you’ll have slept for 22 years?  (Yes, it’s been a long 2 days).  Sleeping positions affect back health. Of all the positions (back, side and stomach) sleeping on your stomach is ill-advised.  Not only is your neck forced to one side, it’s  impossible to maintain a neutral spine.  Back sleeping (with pillows under the knees) and side-sleeping (with pillows between the knees) are better.  Really – I think the best way to sleep would be standing up – completely supported by soft magical walls while having a massage.

2.  Lifting is fine.  Twisting is fine.  Lifting and twisting is not fine.  When I went to the chiropractor yesterday and told him what I’d done – he said, “oh yeah – the classic Lift and Twist.”  Back to basics. Before lifting a heavy object – be sure that you can manage the weight.  Ground your feet.  Bend your knees.  Use both hands. Relax your shoulders.  Engage your core.  Be mindful.  Lift.  Don’t twist while lifting. 

3.  When you injure your back, it may very well be that the back is not to blame.  It could be inflexibility of the hamstrings, hip flexors or glutes.  If movement is inhibited by inflexibility, the lumbar spine may compensate by flexing more than usual. The risk of injury is high if the lumbar spine is not accustomed to this movement or workload.  Morale of the story:  strengthen, stretch, repeat.

4.  Practice good posture when walking, going up stairs, driving, standing, lifting, carrying, sleeping, dancing, exercising, punching, eating, doing laundry. swinging kettlebells…

5.  If you are injured – use your injury to become more aware.

In health,

Sandy

If you are waiting for that glorious tomorrow when your life is organized, your car is out of the shop, your kids aren’t in some kind of need, your papers are done or your loved one doesn’t have cancer  – you are waiting in vain.  None of us will ever live a life free from stress.  And here’s the kicker – if you aren’t exercising you are increasing your stress.

A thousand studies have linked stress and depression to lack of physical activity.  And a thousand more studies have shown that physical activity leads to greater general health.  Believe them.  Exercise is not an option.  It’s not a luxury.  It’s not just for some people.  It’s for everyone.  It’s a biological imperative.  And your short sweet time on this planet just isn’t going to be as much fun if you don’t get your sweat on.

Fitness trainers know how hard it is to get in the gym and our job, in part, is to get you in there.  The #1 reason excuse we hear is:  “I don’t have enough time.”   Ahem…  Yes, you do.  I’ve yet to meet someone who doesn’t have enough time.  Maybe you don’t have enough motivation or knowledge or will-power or desire or interest – but you have enough time.  Many of the busiest and most successful people I’ve met have a strict exercise regimen – and they tell me that’s where they get the energy to fuel their ambitions.

When it comes to many of life’s stresses we may not have a choice.  But we do have a choice about what goes into our bodies and what we do with them.  Don’t wait for motivation.  It never lasts.  Are you motivated to go to work everyday?  No. But you do it anyway.  Why?  Because you are convinced that you have to.  I’m trying to convince you (yes, YOU!) that you have to make it to the gym (or the court or the trail or whatever) at least 3 times a week.  Why?  Because the quality of your life depends on it.

Your life will be better if you get into the gym even on the days – especially on the days - when your life seems to be falling apart.

In health,

Sandy

I know, you’ve been telling yourself for a long time that you need to do something about your health and the day you decided to check out our program took a lot of courage.

And then you signed up and made a commitment.  Your first day was a lot harder than you thought it would be.  Shockingly hard.  It was a very painful wake-up call.  Congratulations.  Very seriously – congratulations for allowing yourself to be woken.

It doesn’t matter how you got here.  It matters what you are going to do now.  If you back out of your commitment you will be hurting yourself and I don’t think you need anymore hurt in your life.  So, please listen up.

1.  You aren’t going to turn your life around over night BUT you can make a commitment right now and if you do – in this moment – you will set the course for change.

2.  Forgive yourself.  You have done nothing wrong.  Everyone finds themselves wondering how the hell they got to where they are at least once in their lives.

3.  Your brain is going to get you into shape.  Your biggest challenge is your mind.  Your body WILL adapt.  It’s designed that way.

4.  Trust your coaches.  We aren’t perfect but we do have your best interests at heart and we are good at what we do.

5.  Communicate with us.  Tell us what’s too much.  Let us take you to your limit.  Let us help you succeed.

6.  Do. Not. Give. Up.

7.  Get your butt back to the gym.

With love,

Sandy

Smart.  Sufficient. Sustainable.  These are the three words that Eleni K (Hit to Fit Portland) and I chose as the mantra of Hit to Fit™.  They describe not only the program itself, but the way we choose to do business and the way in which we choose to live our lives.  Ever since we decided on these key words, every major decision needs to past the test.

SMART – Have I examined the alternatives enough so that I feel well-educated and confident in choosing this particular way forward.  With regards to Hit to Fit™ it means – are we continually educating ourselves?  Are we filtering through what’s hot and trendy and arriving at safe, proven and useful?  Are we using our knowledge of exercise science to offer our clients the biggest bang for their fitness buck?  Are we adapting and evolving to new information and situations?  Are we looking both at the details and the big picture?  Are we making decisions based on reality and optimism?

SUFFICIENT – Am I doing enough to meet my goals?  I’ve mentioned this in other blogs -  I’m talking about the concept of good enough.  I get a reaction when I talk about good enough goals – people often think I’m preaching mediocrity.  I’m not.  If you have Olympic dreams, you need to be good enough to make them happen.  If you go mountain biking every week, you need to be good enough not get injured.  Asking you to be good enough isn’t letting you off the hook — it’s asking you to examine what good enough means to you.   When I’m your coach, I could give a rat’s ass what it means to anyone else.  Good enough holds you accountable to your own life.  Only your judgement of your own life matters.

At Hit to Fit™, sufficiency means providing an option of exercises that gives most people a sufficient level of fitness to live their lives with strength, mobility and free of injury and also provides a sufficient level of fitness for them to pursue other physical activities with ease, confidence and skill.

SUSTAINABLE – Can this be sustained?  Can the level which you are working be sustained?  Can your spending be sustained?  Can you sustain this level of exercise?  Do your habits sustain your life?  Is it manageable?  Is it doable?  For how long?

Hit to Fit™ recognized that for a great many people their exercise habits were not sustainable.  I’ve seen and indulged in a fair share of fitness binging.  Fitness binging is the habit of doing sweet F all for extended periods and then thinking you can make it all up in a single focused and crazy commitment for 3 weeks.  This usually ends in injury or frustration or both.  Sustainability from a fitness perspective is the ability to exercise frequently enough to get the health benefits.  Is 30 minutes 3 times/week (from now until you die) sustainable?  I sure hope so or our business model isn’t!

Three words – what do they mean to you?

In health,

Sandy

the pound of the pavement with scraped knees and bloody noses

falling again and again on her way to find balance.

irresistibly, the Earth pulls her under until

the day she mastered a twitch of small fibers

she moved just so and her body rebounded – she rewired.

want to learn balance?  just close your eyes.

Having developed a functional fitness program and being a functional fitness trainer, I can forget that my understanding of what functional fitness trainers do is not fully understood by civilians.  It occurred to me this morning that the bridge still needs building.

So, here’s a short essay defining functional fitness and outlining a brief history of fitness over the last, let’s say, 50,000 years.  (*Full disclosure: any information presented henceforth should be considered my best-guessed fact rather than established fact.)

FUNCTIONAL FITNESS DEFINED:  The goal of functional fitness training is that the participant becomes more and more able to perform simple, complex and common and necessary movements with confidence, strength and ease.  Training in functional fitness requires multi-joint movements and compound exercises where muscles are firing efficiently relative to the imposed movement.  Being functionally fit is measured by the client’s own yardstick.  The training is process orientated and is not primarily driven by specific and measurable results.

HISTORY OF FITNESS

50,000 BC  – 5,000 BC (around the advent of agriculture) – People killed animals to eat.  They were often at war. They made shelter and other useful stuff by hand, lived out in the elements, were hungry and faced constant threat from predators.  Sport, where it existed, was in the realm of hunting and war games. People had to be physically fit to survive.  Where they functionally fit?  Baby – they could have written the book on it!  Paleo Diet?  Our mates here invented it!

Wow - look at that deep squat!

Agricultural times – increase of leisure time and sport but the large majority were still very physically involved in their own survival.  They built their own homes, crafted tools, toiled the fields.  Sport continued to be based around fighting and hunting and also done for the sake of it.  There is no doubt (in my mind) that sport was a supplement to survival.  People were still functionally fit.

Ancient Greece – sport became more affiliated with the affluent as the rich weren’t toiling as hard but still wanted to rock the Toga.  Ideal physical form for men was considered to be strong, lean, powerful and skilled.  Looking at the images of the Gods – you’d think they were athletes.  Poor people still worked for a living and beat each other up.  The “Gymnasium” (Greek word for “Place to be naked” – I kid you not) propped up and young gentlemen performed naked exercises, naked bathing, and naked studying.  Oh – those were the days!!

Middle Ages – Poor people still beat each other up.  Boys starting to wear clothes to the gymnasium.  Sport was big but again revolved more around fighting skills for men.  Laborers were everywhere.  The rich were getting kind of doughy but they were both admired and feared, so they didn’t care.  A dichotomy began to appear among people – most were functionally fit but the rich might not have been.  Leisure was coveted which led to…

The Industrial Revolution – Sport became more codified and separated from everyday life and so did physical movement in general.  Machines started doing the physical work that people used to do.  Physically fit bodies were on the decline.  Poor people still beat other up and were now getting paid for it.  If you look at an image of a poor person in industrial America in the 1940′s – they’ll be skin and bones.  Compared that to today where a poor person could just as easily be obese (a result of machines making “food product” for super cheap).

Poor man in the 1940's

Panhandler in the US

Modern Times (late 1960′s – today) Gymnasiums began to include women and everyone has to wear clothes.  Then my best guess as to what happened next is this: men wanted bigger chests so they started to train their pecs hard.  But then their biceps looked weird, so they started to train those hard.  And then their backs looked funny – so they started to train them too.  They ignored their legs and rear ends – because who the hell looks at them anyway?  On and on they trained… one muscle at a time.  Some of them shaved off all their body hair, poured oil on themselves and then showed off each muscle in turn.  Bodybuilding was born and every man wanted to be one.  This was the Nautilus revolution and the birth of the modern gym.  BAM!  We got ourselves a fitness industry.  Machines were designed to isolate and strengthen muscles.  Meanwhile, the women chanted in unison: “I must, I must, I must increase my bust”.  And they invented aerobics.  And everyone wanted to look the same.  Perfect!  But was anyone functionally fit?  Only the athletes.  The rest of us schleps are pushing paper and shopping carts and when we do exercise, we are strengthening our muscles without really moving very much.  A great many of us are stressed, obese, self-conscious and depressed.

Functional Fitness asks: what are these muscles for?

The present moment and beyond.  Functional Fitness has returned.  We see it in bootcamps, CrossFit, all fitness books and magazines, Hit to Fit, The Biggest Loser, Paleo Diets and fitness conferences everywhere.  It looks like jumping, pulling, running, tossing, balancing, stretching, and gadgets like TRX’s, BOSU balls, medicine balls, boxing, and battle ropes assist us.  I believe the functional fitness movement at its highest aspiration is training people to find their strength, enjoy their bodies and sustain long lives in healthy and capable bodies.  We may not currently need to stay fit for our physical survival – but we do need to be fit to feel good.  I’d even say, to feel human.  Functional Fitness isn’t new.  It’s primordial.  And it’s back – coming to a gym or park near you.

In health,

Sandy

When it comes to fitness there really are no shortcuts.  Believe me, if there were – I’d have found them.  You may already know that I’m not the type to jump out of bed to hit the road/trail/gym/yoga studio/etc..  I really don’t care much for “exercise” but I have needs and desires (playing frisbee with friends, snowboarding, wanting to see my great grand kids, sleeping well, feeling vibrant and creative, keeping up with my family and rocking the summer dress) that require that I be strong and fit.  So, I’ve made it my life’s work to seek out the most efficient ways to train so I, and those of my ilk, can live happy, healthy and strong lives with… ok, I’ll say it – minimal amount of exercise.  Here’s what I’ve learned:

Hard and focused training for a half an hour three times/week can establish a very solid base of fitness.

Notice I said, ‘can’ and not ‘will’.  You have to use that time extremely well to milk it for all it’s worth.  To get the most out of your half hour you need to train the gamut:  strength, power, speed, agility, quickness, coordination, flexibility, balance, control, posture, and cardio.  And so, Hit to Fit was born, taking the above into account and answering the question – what is the most sustainable, time-efficient, practical and interesting training method which will maximize health benefits and athletic skills?

Most of you reading this are well aware of how the program is structured so I won’t get into that – but here’s a few tips of how you can approach your training with us to reap the greatest rewards.

Show up ready to work hard.

Consistency is the key.  Come 2-3 times/week.  Every week.  Though you may have reached your short term fitness goals, you’ll lose your gains damn fast if you stop training.

Focus on executing each and every movement with the greatest amount of speed, power and skill possible without compromising your postural alignment.  CONTROL BEFORE POWER.   POWER BEFORE SPEED.

Quality over quantity when it comes to movement.  I think I just said that, but it’s worth repeating.

Quality over quantity when it comes to movement.  I think I just said that, but it’s worth repeating.

It’s only a half hour – put everything you’ve got into it.  If you can talk through your workout – you aren’t working hard enough to get all the benefits.  To get maximum results you need to focus on your movements, your breath, and your alignment.  Your best effort requires 100% of your attention.

Read this post: One Approach to Hit to Fit Training

Listen to and communicate with your coaches.

Take the initiative to become educated.  If there’s an exercise that you don’t get – stay after and talk with your coach about it.  Google it.

30 minutes 3X/week.  We do the planning for you.  No scheduled class times.  It’s affordable.  All you need to do is show up and work hard.  NO EXCUSES BABY!

In health,

Sandy