Gear Up! Links and Thinks

Part of the fun (and the expense!) with sports is the gear. No matter the sport, there is the gear.

Let’s start with the basics: the Asics! Those are my favorite athletic shoes, but I’ve also used Saucony and the occasional Nike Cross Trainers (okay, that’s what they wre called 20 years ago). For walking around the house, I use Reebok Runtone (not Walktone, or whatever it’s called. Why walk when you can run?) I have wide feet, so Asics, Saucony and the Runtones fit the foot. They are supple, yet have support, and offer great cusioning for my achy joints and spine. 

As for socks, I like the colors and stripes of Addidas ankle socks, but Hanes cotton “foot” the bill just fine. They’re cheap and white. What more do you need? The cool thing I’ve discovered since pulling my calf muscle (wouldn’t you pull yours, too, at the age of 41, while running around with a bunch of preschoolers in Tae Kwon Do class?): Compression socks! Some say they work, some say they work because you think they work, but no matter, they do give support (and who over 40 couldn’t use a little support now and then?) There are several great brands: I’ve tried the German company CEP Women’s Running Compression Socks, the CW-X Compression Support Socks, and it’s footless brother, the CW-X Compression Calf Sleeve, which is great if you need to train in bare feet, i.e. Tae Kwon Do! I recommend wearing compression socks with long workout pants. Serious athleto-nerds, though, don’t care if they look goofy in knee socks and shorts. Just ask my pal Mateo, an Ironman, who originally lent me his CW-Xs to try. I told him he was very kind to lend me his socks, he told me I was very brave to use his socks.

In a true sign of love, Mateo bought his wife, Deanna, the FitBit, a device that can track your steps and calories burned and even tracks your sleep. Luckily, she likes and uses it! There is now an armband version called Flex, and both devices synch to your computer or cell phone and keep track of everything for you to keep you motivated and on top of your habits and activity levels.

A former high school field hockey and lacrosse teammate of mine who is now a coach to professional and Olympic athletes, including triathletes, Siri Lindley, with her company Team Sirius, uses the Halo Trainer, a device that grips onto a stability ball for stability and core strength building. She also uses TRX, a functional training device that helps you use your own body weight also to build strength, mobility and core strength.

And no triathlete can call her/himself a triathlete if (s)he does not consume GU! My fave is Vanilla Bean Gu Energy Gel (it’s like eating gooey caramel laced with caffeine). Siri uses Gu’s Chomps Energy Chews, new to me, a crunchy version of Gu’s amino acid and electrolyte-filled gels. Something else new I’ve discovered but haven’t tried yet are electrolyte tablets. GU has them and there’s another company called Nuun which has created electrolyte enhanced drinking tabs.

For the past couple of years, I had thought the most badass workout pants were the Lucy “Perfect Core” pants (which help you keep your core and its surrounding flabbage tucked in), but I have just purchased and tested Lucy’s “Perfect Booty,” and these are uplifting, shall we say! So now both are my favorites:   Decent athletic pants are also produced by Athleta, but after the “perfects” of Lucy, there’s no going back for me. Lululemon thinks it’s the top of the line in pants and acts like it, but I’m not so sure. However, I do use exclusively Lululemon sports bras these days. They are soft, flexible, fitted, fantastically formed and durable! Mine have withstood multiple washings in the yellow, gritty hard Moscow water system and they’re still rockin’! The other Lululemon item I adore is the “Forme Jacket.” Just as it’s name, it’s form-fitted, sleek and practical, sporting holes in the sleeves for your thumbs to keep the hands warm and the sleeves from riding up your arms (I just saw today that Gap has copied this feature and the look of this jacket in their GapFit line. Couldn’t think up your own style, huh? But actually, I do like GapFit's fitted shorts. I use them for coverage when my shorter skirts decide to have their Marilyn Monroe moments. Anyway, older models of Lululemon’s Forme Jacket also sported a hair elastic on the zipper just in case. Nice touch, bring it back!

My fave Pilates class? YouTube! Actually, it’s eFit30 Pilates from Down Under which you can view on YouTube! Yes! 30-minute workouts for free, and no commute! You can’t beat it.  My favorite instructor is Angela, who instructs out of Perth, Australia. She is experienced and totally ripped, and explains each movement and inhale/exhale in a clear, simple way. Their own website is http://www.efit30.com.au/ Beneath that baby blubber layer is that washboard stomach, I swear!

Heard of P90x? Me too, but I have never tried it. Supposedly it’s for the already fit to get fitter, takes 90 days and you can do it at home. It uses a mix of cardio, strength training, plyometrics (jump training), yoga, and stretching (according to Wikipedia). So you try it and tell me what it’s like! I’ll get to it eventually, I hope!

Last but not least, I would like to add that my gripes and groans about personal flab, injuries and shortcomings are there to keep things humorous and fun with a touch of self-effacement to counter any boasting about physical fitness (who, me?). Staying healthy is one of my goals in life, after past brushes with serious ill health and injuries. If one falls sick, it’s imperative to keep the dream alive of becoming fit once again. Check out Melanie Bowen’s blog entries on the importance of maintaining fitness through illness, in particular cancer. We always think of fitness for healthy people, but what about those undergoing chemo therapy or other potentially weakening and depressing therapies and illnesses? The answer is that fitness is for them, too! 

Again, keeping track of your workouts will motivate you to KEEP working out. Even though I only write mine down in pencil on paper, tracking my workouts has really helped motivate me, someone who can make up any excuse in the world in order to not have to go for a jog. I’m better about jogging now, though, than I was in my 20s, when I was super lazy. Now I’m old and achy and know it will just get worse if I sit on my Hintern.

Two more websites for reference:

American Council on Exercise: www.acefitenss.org

American College of Sports Medicine: www.acsm.org

This concludes the Decadethlon Series (for now!) At the very latest, I’ll check back in a decade to add my stats from another decade of workouts (I hope I’m so lucky!) Watch for my next MomVoyage blog entries on Food, Nutrition, Cooking and Travel! Hopefully these will be accompanied by photographs. So stay tuned and keep moving!

PS-I am just adding a few more links:
For some intense, short Abs workouts try efit30's 15-minute Abs Workout by a peppy Australian named Jess. For Body Sculpting Cardio workouts, look for efit30's dynamic duo, Tony and Fiona and their Total Body Workout series! Hello, sore muscles!
Another great pair of trainers, a married couple who have created their own website are Kelli and Daniel from FitnessBlender.com. Check out their large selection of free videos for Abs & Obliques (10 minutes!), HIIT Cardio & Abs (60 minutes of rigorous body weight work on day one and 24 hours of sore muscles on day two!), Natural Brazilian Buttock Lift, it's all there! (HIIT stands for High Intensity Interval Training.) All you need to do is turn on that Internet and get moving - right at home! This is great for Moms like me who are "stuck" in the house most of the day!

Decadethlon – Lesssons Learned: Underperforming vs. Overtraining, The Ultimate Orange Crush, and How Chocolate, Fashion Magazines and TV Contribute to a Healthy Workout Schedule

So what are some of the lessons learned from over a decade of tracking workouts?

Underperforming (ie- relaxing on the couch, napping, breathing deeply with your eyes closed dreaming about your next piece of chocolate or other vice) is actually healthy. Instead of depriving oneself of these things, reward yourself with rest, you work hard, so rest hard and with resolve. Relaxing without guilt is something I will probably never learn, but I do try.

Overtraining (ie- genus gymus ratus) can get you killed, or at least injured. Let me tell you a little story called “The Ultimate Orange Crush.” This past fall I was working intensely toward my Orange Belt in Tae Kwon Do as well as performing three routines (including one with a stick!) at a tournament in front of 250 people, judges and the whole nine yards. I did nothing but practice for this, kicking punching, twirling my stick and basically looking like a Mom Gone Mad on the playground with my wooden stick. I should have MIXED IT UP, like gone swimming, run on the treadmill, sat on the bike, taken naps instead of done the dishes and walking around the house in a sleep-deprived stupor. No, no, I just had my eye on the Orange prize. My arms were more toned than ever, I won bronze, silver and gold (gold for the stick routine!) and earned my Orange Belt. But my intensity brought on foot tendonitis, an old college injury back to haunt me. I had to stop walking. Walking! My injury was kept rife thanks to the holiday season and hours on my feet in the kitchen. I had to miss this year’s Triathlon. I was crushed. I still am. The tendonitis nags me. I still can’t wear heels, run or even use the bike. No yoga, even. (Luckily, some light pilates is okay.) Moral of the story: Mix it up. Mixing it up keeps you balanced and interested, like anything else in life. There is a fine line between chaos and civilization. Similarly, there is an ever-diminishing line as one ages between benefitting from an activity and doing harm to yourself. I will probably never really follow the Everything in Moderation rule, but I do try.

Working out is Hard Work! Getting to the gym or doing a workout is not always, in fact usually, is not easy to do. And in order to remain healthy in general, epsecially when you live in an urban environment, you have to eat well, sleep well, balance the rest of your life like work and family and the annoying admin that adulthood brings on, and overall be totally organized and emotionally stable. So basically, it’s impossible. But I’m not (always) a pessimist. You have to convince yourself it’s fun, and there are several strategies to achieve this:

Adding Chocolate, Fashion Magazines and TV to your Routine can greatly enhance your performance. How? By making it fun! Simple. Read your book, flip through fashion mags on the treadmill, get your TV or iPad fix on the recline-a-bike, absolutely listen to music that pumps up your jam. You’ll have fun and feel good after the workout. Double good! Then eat that piece (or in my case, pieces) of chocolate.

Eat! A friend of mine said, “It’s all about the calories,” and she may be right. Still, I’d recommend eating a balance (there’s that B word again) of protein, carbs and fat balanced diet (my favorite being almonds and chocolate), drinking liquids and “exersizing almost daily,” to quote my doctor. Don’t be afraid of food, but know what the right food is for you. And enjoy it! Food is truly a joy of life, and seems to take a lifetime to understand how much of it and what kinds one needs, but that’s part of the fun. You can get really technical with Body Mass Indices, etc. Lots of resources online can help with this. Or you can just make sure you balance every meal: protein for your muscles, fat to feel satiated and carbs because who doesn’t love carbs?!

Remember: Just Track it! Have I improved over a decade plus of working out? Well, maybe a little, but the point is more perhaps that I am working out at all, and keeping track of the workouts is helping me continue to do them. So, log your workouts! It’s satisfying to review the log, while you munch on that chocolate bar (with almonds, always!) Remember you need to convince yourself it’s fun. Set yourself goals. My goal is to keep the number of workouts to 20 days per month (or higher, but that’s getting over-zealous of me again), whatever those might consist of.

And do try some soccer, Tae Kwon Do, or ballet, something new you didn’t think you were good at or could even do. You might just find a new addiction, and some new friends along the way.

Now if I could only find a way to log my kids’ time spent on the iPad (new app idea?)…..

While this concludes the Decadethlon series, I thought I’d add another blog entry next time on Gear, because that makes it fun, too: a new pair of sneakers, some fun tracking gadget, or tummy-hugging yoga pants. And music, of course! So watch for those Links and Thinks in the next episode.

Decadethlon – What Goes Down Must Come Up

Preface: As I said before, I’m a pencil-and-paper kind of person, still, and, for me, figuring out how to import excel charts into the blogosphere and make them look right is like sculpting ice with a feather. Will work on this. Maybe a better feather?

After an all-time annual low in numbers of workouts in 2002, my track record, so to speak, improved by 2004 to workout rate of about two out of three days. In fact, to date, it has been my “most fit year” in number of days worked out, despite a move from Paris back to Washington, DC, and bunion surgery to both feet (that’s what commuting in dress shoes in the Paris metro will do to you!) Thanks to the foot surgery, I discovered the magic of pilates: you can be flat on your back and still get a workout in! I let the Tour de France and Lance Armstrong (obviously pre-drug admission) inspire me during the weeks after my surgery. With still sore feet, I moved with my husband to Moscow in September. US Embassy Moscow had a more extensive gym, indoor pool and indoor basketball court. Indoor is the key word here, as it seems most of the year it’s winter in Moscow. I made use of the indoor facilities and agreed (only once or twice) to run with my husband outside during good weather. Days Worked Out: 231 out of 366 (a leap year) or 63%. Best month: September, 29 out of 30 days, or a whopping 97%! And that only 6 weeks after bunion surgery. (When you can’t walk, then watching and mimicking pilates videos is pretty much all you can do besides eat all day, anyway.) Thank you, Pilates! Worst months: May and December, tying the score at 14 out of 31 days, or 45%. Not so bad.

The year 2005 saw 217 out of 365 days of workouts, my third best year in terms of days worked out, despite the fact that I spent most of that year pregnant.  Conclusion: Pregnancy is good for staying fit! I also worked, a lot. I billed myself out as a photographer, shooting portraits and events and hit the elliptical machine, good for no-impact workouts. A “Yoga for Pregnancy” video was my new best friend. I had my husband film me – the 45 extra pounds of protruding belly, double chin, and all - on the elliptical machine the December night before my scheduled c-section, so there’s proof! I was more in fear of the IV going into my hand than the c-section into my abdomen. The last few exhausting days of that year were spent learning how to nurse a wonderful, wrinkly, squawking chicken-legged newborn. Days Worked Out: 217 out of 365, or 59%. Best month: July, 26 out of 31 days, or 59%. Worst month: December. 6 out of 31 days, or 19%.

2006 was another once-in-three-or-four-days years. I even recorded five and seven workouts for the months of January and February, respectively, despite healing from the fresh c-section slice and going on virtually no sleep, while also entertaining loads of visiting friends and relatives who wanted to see the baby. At six weeks old our newborn flew with us to wintery Moscow, where we returned to a freezing apartment, all three of us wearing ski caps indoors.  Unbelievably, neither the nights of little sleep nor the whistling Moscow winds kept me from dragging myself to the gym every few days, in between breastfeedings and naps. Instead, a workout meant a bit of freedom and independence for me, both rare commodities for mothers with newborns. In the summer, we moved back to Washington, DC to take a 6-week fast-track Japanese course in preparation for our impending move to Tokyo. Now I juggled nursing with Japanese flash cards. My “45% days worked out” in July dropped to the 20% range for the rest of the year as we moved to Tokyo with our 8 month old and got used to our surroundings in this exotic and exciting East Asian city. Days Worked Out: 116 out of 365, or 32%. Best month: December, 18 out of 31 days, or 58%. Worst month: January, 5 out of 31 days, or 16%.

The year 2007 in Tokyo I recorded an annual average of 47% of days worked out (171 out of 365 days), which translates to about an average year for the decade, not great, not bad. I finished up nursing after the first half of the year, took up soccer in the summer and became resonably fit for a glorious but brief six months before becoming pregnant again. Best month: September. 19 out of 30 days, or 63%. Worst month: August, 9 out of 31 days, or 29%.

Next up: The Year’s Five-Second Stretch, no, I mean The Second Five-Year Stretch, and the decade’s table (if I can figure out how to do it!)

Decadethlon – Just Track It!

I bet you don’t know anyone who has recorded their every workout for the past decade. Well, now you do. And watch out, this might take you a decade to read. (Which is why I’ve divided “Decadethlon” into a series of digestable chapters, like a good, small chocolate before before a workout.)

My German engineering genes have kept me on task for 10+ years in a row, recording my workouts on a daily basis. Let us not call this “Anally Retentive Behavior.” Let us call it “Discipline and Dedication” (that makes me feel better). I may have skipped weeks at a time and certainly days at a time, but the reasons for either skipping workouts or doing them have turned out to be interesting to track, and here’s why:

I learned that if you record it, you want to record more, hence you do more, whether it’s in the realm of workouts, chocolate consumption, or social scheduling. My husband says, if you record it, you get better at it. He is referring, of course, to recording expenses and watching the budget. After 15 years of recording our every US Dollar, Deutsche Mark, French Franc, Swiss Franc, Croatian Kuna, European Euro, English Pound, Singaporean Dollar, Russian Ruble and Japanese Yen spent, I can say with confidence, that, at least in this case, he was right. Looking back, we can even learn a bit about our history and the world, and a bit about ourselves, for better or for worse, when we keep track of ourselves.

Over the past decade, I have tried various workout styles and sports, in order of appearance, more or less, they are: outdoor and treadmill jogging, indoor cylcling, frisbee, weight lifting, swimming, aerobics, yoga, pilates, spinning, ellyptical machining, American football-throwing, soccer and Tae Kwon Do. I have Yoga, swimming and some good German chocolate to thank for my recovery from two major surgeries to my abdomen after a ruptured appendix in 1996.

My workouts - consisting of a minimum of 20 minutes and a maximum of 2 hours of some activity  - have ebbed and flowed during the course of any given year, depending on what was happening in my life. It’s very telling to look back and see to what extent events such as moving, pregnancies, surgeries and giving birth had on my workout routine, and, if I can remember or have it recorded in my calendar, how my health and productivity were affected (income, social life, expenditures.) It also helps to have a significant other who shares one’s interest in working out and makes as much or more of an effort to stay in shape and battle the bulge.

Below is a table showing this year’s data thus far, as an example of how I’ve kept track of  workouts and percentages:

  

2012	Days worked out	Days in Month
January	21	31	68%
February	13	29	45%
March	18	31	58%
April	11	30	37%
May	11	31	35%
June	16	30	53%
July	13	31	42%
August	25	31	81%
September	25	30	83%
October	25	31	81%
November	0	30	0%
December	0	31	0%
Total	178	366	49%

Tune in next week for the next installment, “The Origins of the Decadethlon”!