Weekend Warrior

After watching the inspirational football movie “Invincible” this weekend my father-in-law and I started talking sports. He was a college football player so he played sports at very high level in his younger years and after college switched to soccer. As a result of his high physical conditioning he was able to easily pick up a new sport without causing a lot of stress to his body. He's continued to play off and on over the years but at this point in time currently isn’t doing anything. He, like many of us, feels a bit overwhelmed by the busyness of daily life and the thought of adding another thing to do to his daily routine isn’t at the top of his priority list. We continued talking fitness and what he said to me really stood out. "I don't want to go push weights in the gym, that's not going to happen. I want to do something I enjoy." Read that last sentence again, "I don't want to go push weights in the gym, that's not going to happen. I want to do something I enjoy." Can you relate to this statement? What do you enjoy? This resonates with me for more reasons that just "doing what I enjoy" because I know what can happen when people only do what they enjoy.

Finding an activity that you love to do is the best thing you can do because, let‘s be honest, how long will you really stick with it if you don’t actually enjoy it? If you've found what you love to do and do it consistently, Great!! The reality for many people though is that they fall into what I like to call “the weekend warrior routine.” They abuse their body all week with lousy nutrition, poor hydration, little rest and no movement and then expect their bodies to perform at a high level on the weekend in the form of sports, strenuous yard work, etc. Though what is the result? Injury!!!

My dad was this guy until my brother and I were able to show him what he was doing to his body. Not only were we able to show him why he was hurting but also what was happening inside his body as a result of no exercise outside of playing hockey. We were also able to explain to him that your body does different things when you exercise at different intensities and so that he could see for himself we had him wear a heart rate monitor during hockey. Each shift as he came off the ice we monitored his heart rate. What we found was that his heart rate was VERY high when he came off the ice. What really caught our attention though was that when it came time to go back on the ice his heart rate hadn’t lowered all that much, which means his body wasn’t getting a chance to recover. So what was happening was that he was playing for over an hour at an intensity that should only be done for minutes. What does this mean? Every time he went to hockey he thought he was doing his body good, getting exercise doing what he loved. However, my dad was actually doing more harm than good because his body wasn't conditioned to be able to recover in time for his next shift. Does this mean that we can't do what we love because it can hurt our body? Absolutely not. What we need to do is take care ourselves the other 6 days in the week so that our bodies are properly conditioned and we won't hurt ourselves. That's what we got dad doing. He now cross-trains during the week so his body can physically handle playing hockey every weekend. The result ... more energy and less injury!!

For me personally I love playing any sport whenever I get a chance! In order to be able to so without any negative results during or after the fact, I do full-body cross training every week. As a result when I do any activities, whether it be sports, helping someone move, cleaning out a garage, cleaning the house or playing with my nieces and nephews, my body is easily able to adapt and I'm not sore for the rest of the week. That's a normal response from a healthy body. It has nothing to do with age or gender, it all depends on whether or not you move your body like it's created to.

Health and Fitness is a process. When you make small changes here and there they add up and in a short space of time you'll have made some great positive changes. If you currently don't do any type of exercise or even if you fall into the category of "Weekend Warrior" you are in the perfect position to make some great changes but remember - be careful not to do too much too fast! What tends to happen for many people is that they get motivated to start being more active again (which is great!) but do too much too soon when their body isn’t ready and they end up falling off track or getting hurt. Don’t let that be you! Now is the time to set some attainable goals and get your health back!! If you have any questions or need help making a plan let me know. Email me at createdtomove@gmail.com and I'll coach you.

How hard do I need to exercise?

Monitoring your exercise intensity is an important part of the exercise process because it plays an important role in what your results will look like. If you're like me you've been taught that in order to get a good workout you need to workout hard and sweat! Right? Wrong. Each type of exercise and the intensity you do it at plays an important part and serves a different purpose. For example endurance training vs. interval training. They are completely different ways of training and yet work so well together. If you're training for a marathon (endurance training) it'll be low speed for a long distance and therefore the way to train for it is with long, low speed runs. Interval training, on the other hand, is short, very high intensity bursts followed by long breaks. The reason intervals help with long distance runs is because you are forcing your body into an anaerobic state that causes a high buildup of lactic acid (muscle burn). By training with intervals when you get to that last 10km on your marathon you will have trained your body to push through muscle burn already and as a result you will be able to keep pushing physically.

Low, medium and high intensity exercise all have their place and one is not better than the other. During the average workout you will be working at moderate intensity meaning that it's tough but you're not sweating buckets and out of breath. There are several ways to determine how hard you are working out. They are the “Talk Test,” “Perceived Exertion Scale” and “Monitoring your Heart Rate.”

“The Talk Test” is exactly how it sounds- it's the ability to talk during your workout. The American College of Sport Medicine says “People who are able to comfortably converse during exercise are likely working out at an acceptable intensity.” If you can speak comfortably, you're probably somewhere around the low-middle range of your Target Heart Rate (THR) zone or a level 4-5 on the Perceived Exertion Scale. Experts generally suggest that you shouldn't be breathless during your workout unless it's during a short duration interval type workout and of course if you ever feel dizzy or lightheaded, you should slow down or stop your workout.

“Perceived Exertion Scale” goes hand in hand with the Talk Test. What it does is give you a scale to measure how intensely you're exercising. For most workouts you want to be at around Level 5-6. If you're doing interval training you want your intervals to be around 8-9 and your recovery to be around a 4-5. You won't want to hit level 10 for most workouts and for longer, low intensity workouts stay around a level 5 or lower.

Below are two scales to help you better understand what the different levels look like ...

Level 1: I'm watching TV and eating bonbons.
Level 2: I'm comfortable and could maintain this pace all day.
Level 3: I'm still comfortable, but am breathing a bit harder.
Level 4: I'm sweating a little, but feel good and can carry on a conversation effortlessly.
Level 5: I'm just above comfortable, am sweating more and can still talk easily.
Level 6: I can still talk, but am slightly breathless.
Level 7: I can still talk, but don't really want to. I'm sweating like a pig.
Level 8: I can grunt in response to your questions and can only keep this pace for a short time period.
Level 9: I am probably going to die.
Level 10: I am dead.

Another chart says ...

0 - No exertion at all
1 - Very light exertion
2 - Fairly light exertion
3 - Moderate exertion
4 - Somewhat hard exertion
5 -
6 - Hard exertion
7 -
8 - Very hard exertion
9 -
10 - Very very hard exertion (Maximum)

“Heart Rate” is my favorite way to measure how hard I'm working because it's very accurate. I used to run up a local mountain once a week at a pace that I thought was good for me and my fitness level. However, whenever I was finished I felt like I was going to keel over. Then I learned about heart rate monitors. After learning about heart rate I bought a monitor and on my first run I had to walk most of the time because my heart rate went too high too fast. As I continued running and staying “in zone” I improved so much faster and within 4 runs I could run all the way to the top without stopping faster than before and not only that but I felt good when I got to the top!! Since then I've always kept an eye on heart rate because while the other methods are good, they're not 100% accurate.

If you do have a heart monitor there are 4 basic zones to keep an eye on which are all based off your max heart rate (MHR).

1. Recovery Zone is 50% MHR or less
2. Fat Burning Zone is 50-65% MHR
3. Performance Enhancing Zone 65-85% MHR
4. Anaerobic Threshold 85-100% MHR

Exercising in zone is very important but also very simple so don't stress over it. Follow the guidelines above and if you have any questions talk to me at the office or email me at createdtomove@gmail.com

Plan For Success

Did you know that fitness trainers are just like everyone else? We have days where we don't eat the best food, we miss workouts once in a while and face struggles just like everyone else. The other day was one of those days for me. It was my Knox run day and to be honest, I did not want to go at all. The only reason I did go was because I had possible people coming to join me on the run. On the way there, in my head, I was already planning to leave if I didn't see anyone in the parking lot waiting to join me. However, when I got to Knox Mountain I figured I was there so I may as well run and I’m so glad I did because I felt awesome after the run!

It was a perfect day for it. Slightly cloudy, so the sun wasn't hot and beaming down on me. On my way up the hill I passed many walkers and other joggers, one of which was super friendly and asked if I was going to run all the way to the top, which I told him I was. On the way back I passed him again and he asked me my time. Such a small communication but it added joy to my run which helped me keep going. On the way down I had some smiles and thumbs up from passing cars which again were subtle joy boosters.

I've been working on my running form and have a pretty strong posture as I run. I am also self motivated most of the time so I don't need much encouragement to put out a great workout. Then halfway down the hill I realized something HUGE. As I came down I realized that both times that I had a couple words with that particular gentleman and each time I had an encouraging smile or thumbs up from passers by my posture improved, my speed increased and the run became much easier because I felt so much more joy!!

The lesson that I received was that community is sooo important for us. Not only did I go to the hill because I heard I had someone to join me but those small interactions and encouragements are what made the run as good as it was. None of that would have happened without the community being involved. If I had planned my own run in some secluded area it would have been ok but not nearly as enjoyable as it was for me last week.

I encourage each of you today to find family or friends that you can do activities with because it'll make exercise more joyful and keep you accountable and encouraged. Another thing you can do is join the Cafe Docs MOVEment by emailing thecafedocs@gmail.com for more information or by joining the Cafe Docs facebook page. It's available to everyone in Kelowna and provides workouts as well as a community board so that you can join activities around town with other people or if you want to start your own group activity somewhere we can post it on the calendar.

You're CreatedToMove so get out there and have some fun!!