Fitness: what does it look like?

So I’m writing this on a day when I feel like crap.  I’ve got a massive headache, a cold sore and a very sore neck/shoulder, for no apparent reason.  Seems like a good time to think about where this whole thing is going, n’est-ce pas?

While we were standing outside the gym this morning, I read an article in the Star about whether it is possible to be fat AND fit.  While I don’t necessarily swallow the argument (“fully half of overweight adults and one-third of the obese had normal blood pressure, cholesterol, triglycerides and blood sugar” still means that half and two-thirds, respectively, had abnormal results).  I applaud the assertion that fitness doesn’t necessarily mean looking like a fitness model, and it isn’t necessarily about the numbers on the scale or a “healthy” BMI.  (A bit of a beef here: at my fighting fittest, I had a BMI just a few points shy of obese).  So, uh, what’s it about?….

Stumbling across articles and blogs about Daddy fitness has struck a chord with me.  Granted, I’m not a daddy (though I *am* about to be an auntie for the first time – WOO!) but it got me thinking about what fitness means.  For me, it’s all about function, which seems to manifest in two specific ways:

This may be the result of watching too many action and/or disaster movies, but a big part of what fitness looks like to me has to do with being able to handle a dangerous situation.  A short list of things I feel I ought to be able to do:

• carry/drag an unconscious adult out of danger
• carry a kid a mile or more, over uneven terrain
• pull my own body up with an underhand or overhand grip
• run a couple of miles at a decent clip
• sprint across the street
• pull, push, jump, twist, swing, climb, swim

Now, I’m not expecting to be in a house fire, mass panicked evacuation, zombie infestation, trapped elevator with hitmen in the lobby so the only exit is through the service hatch and up the cable, tornado, car flipped over underwater, earthquake, volcanic eruption, giant crocodile attack, or alien invasion any time soon.  But just in case, I’d like to be one of the people who can save themselves and help those around them rather than needing to be saved by emergency services.  I want to know that if Banger were unconscious or otherwise unable to move under her own power in a place that was dangerous, I’d be able to get her out of there without incapacitating myself at the same time.

The non-scary-dangerous-stuff side of the fitness picture is all about ability and, conversely, limitations.  There are things that I’d like to do now that I can’t, physically.  This means less fun, less being with people, less challenging stuff, less options, less opportunity, less feeling capable, more feeling can’table.  Not really where I want to stay.  What, you may ask, would I like this to look like?  I’m so glad you asked:

• “Week-long canoe trip?”  “Let’s go.”
• “West Coast trail?” “Let me get my pack.”
• “It’s Tuesday – wanna go rock climbing?” “Where should I meet you?”
• “Touch football?” “Hut!”
• “Walk colicky baby around for three hours to get him to sleep?” “Come see Auntie Tank”
• “Come to a grappling class with me!” “When can I pick you up?”
• “Cycling trip through Europe?” “When do we leave?”
• “Hey Tank, this girl didn’t show up for her fight; wanna step in?”  “Has anybody seen my mouthguard?”

Of course I’m not going to say yes to everything all the time, and obviously there are plenty of other factors at work there.  The thing is, I don’t want my level of fitness to be the determining factor in what I can and can’t do.  More options, more fun, more adventures, please!

What? I can’t hear you…

Last week was a tough week.  We made it to the gym every day we were scheduled, but it weren’t easy.

This morning at the gym, the fire alarm went off.  This is no “excuse me, but we’d like you to exit the building now, if you please” alarm; this was an ears-bleeding, Amityville style “GET OUT.”  Happily, neither Banger nor I was, say, at the bottom of a squat, but were instead about to start our supersets of OH shoulder press and Lat pulldown. 

We trudged out into the chilly, picking up a newspaper on the way, and stood around trying not to notice the sweat freezing to our bodies.  Within a few minutes the totally awesome morning office person arrived with robes for those that wanted them, and we stood around reading the paper until a security officer came by and told us we could go back inside.  It was warm inside, but also deafening.  The alarm hadn’t been turned off yet, and the weight room was locked.  The person with the key was at the other entrance to the facility, and couldn’t come back until the alarm was off and the doors were secured again.  We sat around for about another ten minutes until Banger informed me that her head was, in fact, about to explode, at which point we called it a day.  We showered, dressed, left.

I’m feeling ever so slightly ripped off that I got up at 5:35 and got to the gym on time and got a very, very short workout (warmup and squats).  On the other hand, I *did* get to read the comics.

What is this “process” of which you speak?

I’m really happy that Banger and I are undertaking this SoMuBeDo!! project together.  It gives us a concrete, meaningful way to support and encourage each other on a regular basis.  It makes it so much easier to get up in the morning knowing that she’ll be there waiting for me.  We can each watch to make sure the other’s using good form.  We can celebrate each other’s progress and achievement.  And, frankly, anything we do is better and more fun when we do it together (Dawwwww.  </gush>).

One of the hardest things for me to do is slow down.  As discussed earlier, it’s what makes boxing feel out of reach right now.  This is my challenge: to do this whole project slowly, consciously, and deliberately.  I mean that in the micro sense – one of the things Banger watches for is my tendency to hurry up my reps (faster isn’t better?) while I watch for her using her upper body to help her legs along (quads need love too!).  I also mean it in the macro sense – sticking to the schedule, adding weight gradually and when I plan to (i.e. not in the middle of a workout), making changes slowly so they’ll stick. 

So now that I’ve told you what we’re doing, I’m going to talk about what I’m not doing yet, and a little bit of the why.

Like many people I know, I have A Complicated Relationship with food.  Food can be everything from drug of choice (“if I eat this box of crackers I’ll be able to go to sleep”) to comfort (“this is what my grandmother would make us for dinner”) to self esteem (“I deserve a treat”) to boredom (“I’ve got 45 minutes to kill, might as well have a snack”), et cetera, et cetera.  Oh yeah – it can also fuel your body and give it the energy and nutrients it needs to chug along happily.

When I was in fighting shape, I was eating well.  I ate mostly lean protein and complex carbohydrates.  Snacking wasn’t something that happened a lot, and when it did, it was likely a piece of fruit or a handful of almonds.  I was drinking lots of water.  I wasn’t eating a lot of baked goods or high-fat dairy.  I remember this feeling good.  I was fueling my body: a smoothly-running machine that could do these awesome things.  I’m not going to make this blog a place to tearfully confess my long list of dietary sins; suffice it to say that my eating habits in the long slide since that time haven’t been so great. 

So why am I not hitching my wagon to the training diet star right this very second?  The short answer is that I want to be successful.  I’ve tried several times over the last few years to move back to the diet I was eating when I was fighting fit, and each time I’ve lasted for a few days –  maybe as long as a week or two – before the feelings of deprivation and depression got the upper hand and I took down a McDonalds.

SoMuBeDo!! is about making changes that will make me fitter, stronger, more capable, and ultimately happier, and it’s about making those changes in ways that are nurturing, not punitive.  I know I can eat well and be happy – I’ve done it – but I’m not quite ready for the major diet changes yet.  Granted, I’m making sure that I’m not shoving fast food into my yap three or more times a day, but I’m not focused on food right now.  I know that exercising without paying attention to nutrition will yield much slower and less noticeable results than a combined diet and exercise program – some say that it doesn’t work at all.  And right this very minute, I’m okay with that.

The more I’ve thought about it, the more I’ve come to realize that I need the solid base of a strong, capable body to prop up my defenses against the crazy-ass games my brain plays when it comes to food.  The better my body feels (I’m not talking optics, here, I’m talking functional strength and ability) the more likely I am to want to give it good fuel. 

Every time I’ve left the gym in the last two weeks, I’ve bounced out feeling strong and capable and ready to face the day.  That feels good.  I’d forgotten how good.  I’m aiming for a few more weeks to remember, and then I’ll start making some diet changes.  Those changes, when they come, are going to be slow and steady, conscious choices that are made for the right reasons, because they’re going to take me where I want to be.

Cold, hard iron

As promised, today I’m going to talk about what we – I and my wonderful partner, hereby dubbed Banger – are doing in the working out department.

Every second day, the alarm blares on at 5:40am.  I drag my carcass bound out of bed and throw on the clothes I’ll wear to work later, chuck my workout gear into my knapsack (unless I’ve been unusually organized and done so the night before) and make two smoothies.  The smoothies go into a thermal bag with an icepack and we’re all out the door at 6:10ish.  Banger meets me at 6:30 at the entrance to Ryerson’s gym and we descend into the workout batcave.

Our workout starts with a 7-minute warmup on the exercise bikes, just enough to wake us up and get our blood moving, and then we’re off to the weight room.  We have two workout routines, and alternate between them (so we’re doing a given workout once every 4 days).  Both are full-body workouts, but they’re short enough to get in in the morning, and they work the muscles in different ways.  We’re actually using routine 2 of this workout.  (Notation is reps x sets x weightforTank/weightforBanger, and if you want a visual aid for an exercise, go here or here.)  Here’s what our tour de iron looks like:

Day 1:

• Squats – 2 sets of 12 reps, 45lbs for me (Tank), 12lbs for Banger (2 x 12 x 45T/12B)
• Standing overhead shoulder press – 2 x 12 x 25T/20B
• Lat pulldown – 2 x 12 x 44T/B
• Back extensions – 15 x 3 * 
• Calf raises – 1 x 15 x 125T/B

Day 2:

• Sumo deadlift – 2 x 12 x 95T/65B
• One-arm dumbbell row – 2 x 12 x 20T/17.5B
• Pushups – 2 x as many as we can do
• Situps/ab crunches – 2 x 15
• Calf raise – 1 x 15 x 125T/B

After either workout we spend ten minutes or so stretching.  If we’re adding cardio (like we did on Tuesday morning) this would be the time for it: after weights but before stretching.  Back to the locker room for showers and dressing, out the door of the gym by 8:10am (each with our smoothie) for me to make it to work by 8:30am, an Bob’s your uncle.

Next post will either be ruminations on process or what fitness looks like to me.  Cheers!

* We’re actually doing a version of these on a swiss ball, with no rest in between sets, as both of us have a history of low back trouble, and the swiss ball exercise is a little more scalable than the bench thingy (technical term, I’m sure).  Basically, you flop face first over the ball, with your feet against a wall for traction, planting your pelvis against the ball.  Point your arms over your head and then lift them off the ground, rearing (slow, controlled rearing) your upper body off the ball, then back down to your starting position.  Repeat the movement with arms out to the side (think “what a way to spend Easter” – now with twice as much jeezuz!), then with arms pulling back by your hips like a mermaid figurehead.  Palms stay forward the whole time.  Make this easier by moving the ball higher up your body (towards your sternum) or harder by moving it farther down your legs.  Or, if all of that didn’t make any sense, there’s a picture here.

So what’re you doing about it?

Here’s the thing.  I love boxing.  Luuuurve.  Boxing changed the way I move through the world; it made me fit, strong, and confident.  It taught me how to take up space in the world unabashedly. It showed me that my short, thick body could be a force in and of itself; that a strong, functional, capable body is a beautiful body.  And it’s a hell of a lot of fun. 

Ready?  Here comes the problem part.

My body can’t keep up with my brain in boxing right now.  Having achieved a certain level of skill, my brain can’t turn that level off to let my body work out at a rate appropriate to my current fitness level (poor).  Once I start moving around, my body loosens up and I think “This isn’t so hard.  I can go harder!” And then the next day I can’t get up off the toilet, do up my buttons, or put on my socks. Stating the case mildly, this is demoralizing as well as embarrassing.  What can I do to be kind to all my 2000 achey breaky parts and still bring SoMuBeDo!! into effect?

I’ve been playing fastpitch softball twice a week, one league competitive, the other recreational, but as we all know, baseball isn’t necessarily the sport requiring the most leanness (exhibits A, B, and C) and the season is about to end.  I used to play hockey, but there are barriers there: scheduling, transportation, registration costs, stinky equipment in my itty bitty apartment.  Jogging sends my low back and knees to the picket line, especially when I’m carrying this much excess weight.  Cycling is better, but weather- and traffic- dependent.  What to do?

Enter Mistress Krista and The Best Women’s Weight Training Site Ever Anywhere In The History Of The Universe (TBWWTSEAITHOTU being an awkward acronym, she called it Stumptuous).  I’ve known MK for several years through boxing, gym building, and cavewoman workouts, and she’s my good friend and former sparring partner Machine‘s OMGBFF.  She even set up a training program for me — back when I was in fighting form — to get me from capable to freakin’ ferocious (shortly before I let everything go.  Embarrassment and remorse!).  In any case, she’s one of the smartest people I know, so I’m borrowing some of her smart for now. 

How am I borrowing her smart?  I’ll tell you next post.

Who are you, and what is this about, anyway?

See the picture at the top of this page?  That’s me, the one on the right (no, not the far right peeking into the frame – that’s the ref) about to win my second amateur boxing match in decisive fashion.  This picture was taken December 17, 2005.  I was 25 and in the best shape of my life, beginning to do well at a new sport, and just out of a very unhealthy relationship.  They called me “Tank” at the gym, because I was hard to push around and I just kept rolling forward.  A friend’s blog at the time referred to me as “our mighty 165 pound bruiser.”  In short, things, they were a-lookin up. 

Four months later I broke a bone in my foot a week before my third fight.  (We didn’t know that it was broken, so I fought anyway.)  It was just a compression fracture, but it meant 8-10 weeks of no bouncing or running – nothing that involved impact.  Shortly thereafter, my gym changed locations and organizational set up (in which I was heavily involved).  I started a new relationship in fall 2006 (yay!) which brought up some things that needed to be dealt with (boo!). I was doing some major soul searching career-wise, blah, blah, stress, yakkity yakkity depression, yadda yadda taking on new responsibilities; I stopped working out, though I’ve kept a toe in at the boxing gym by coaching on an occasional basis.

Two years (ish) down the road:  I’m in school part time and working full time, with some career goals in sight.  I’m in a loving relationship with a truly wonderful person, but we don’t always nurture each other in the healthiest of ways (Say it With Mashed Potatoes!).  I’ve had a nagging digestive issue for about a year.  My low back and my arches hurt.  None of my clothes fit.   I have reached the average weight of the Canadian men’s eight rowing team at only 5’6″ tall.  Tank is starting to have a completely different meaning.  Something Must Be Done. (I think that’ll be my name for this whole project, actually – SoMuBeDo.  Has a nice ring to it, doncha think?)

So, y’know, hi!  This blog is part of SoMuBeDo.  I’m aiming for one post a week – more would be dandy – as another way to shore up my commitment to what I’m doing, which I’ll ‘splain in my next post.  Until next time, gentle reader.