new days, new ways!

Ah, back in the "olden" days, when cell phones weren't even a concept yet, we had no caller ID and no one had heard of the World Wide Web yet, I was a gym rat.  Yep, I not only spent an inordinate amount of time pumping iron and leaping about in step aerobics classes, not to mention tackling THE GAUNTLET for up to 45 minutes (no easy feat folks), but I also worked in a health club.  It was a dream job, except of course for the horrible hourly wage and meager tips (about $5 per day if I was lucky), but I worked the juice bar at an old school club that was slow to dead during the day, watched MTV on a giant screen TV all day (back when they played MUSIC VIDEOS and there were a few white folks on there who were allowed to be dorky white folks) and ate free muffins and bagels.  It wasn't a bad setup.  I'd work from 6:30am to about 3pm, then have the club to myself during the slowest possible time.  I even got one of the personal trainers, a bodybuilder, to train me a few times per week for free, out of the goodness of his heart.  The trainers there taught me a lot, and they were also self-taught, no college degrees in exercise physiology, etc.  Nope, these folks knew their shit inside and out because it was their consuming passion, and I got to study with them every day.  One thing I learned that changed the way I trained forever was that the order in which you exercise makes all the difference in terms of results and energy.  For example; most workout classes and DVDs have you do cardio first, then toning or strength training.  That actually works backwards and leaves you feeling more tired than you need to be with fewer results and here is why; your body burns fuel in a specific and predictable order.  Carbs always go first, it's the easiest and most abundant fuel source, making it also the most efficient fuel source and the body always strives for 100% efficiency, as long as we stay out of its way.

Next comes protein use, which takes a lot of energy to convert into a usable fuel source so it's not terribly efficient but it certainly aids in rebuilding muscles.  Then finally, after tapping out the stores of carbs and protein, the body goes to town on the stored fats in the body.  So let's look at why it makes all the sense in the world to do strength and resistance training BEFORE cardio; since strength and resistance training are anaerobic forms of exercise they are usually also rather strenuous and require large amounts of fuel to keep you going.  We've probably all felt that wonderful but also challenging exhausted feeling after a good weight training or strength training session.  Having a full store of carbs to draw upon means you can do more, feel better and be ready to then use that protein store for rebuilding muscle tissue.  Ok, so then you finish, do a little stretching (I hope!) and move on to whatever your cardio of choice is, meaning something aerobic.  If your carb and protein stores are already tapped out thanks to the first half of your workout, voila! Rather than doing cardio for 20-30 minutes and still coasting on carbs with nary a fat store accessed, your body will turn to fat stores right off the bat because it needs some kind of fuel.  It's good old Greek logic, and when they taught me this simple truth, it changed my life! I was able to enjoy training more thanks to better energy throughout and easier recovery (another nice side effect of the right fuel for the right exercises) and the results I saw were incredible!! I could do far less pushing and see 10 times the results. Most exciting.

Buuuut, I find myself now a reformed gym rat, not wanting to spend hours at a gym, nor do I want another big treadmill or more equipment in my home.  I enjoy having a home that is, apparently anyway, machine and steel free.  I also find the whole concept of creating scar tissue in the muscles as a means of building muscle and burning calories to be a rather self abusive way to go about it.  Call me crazy, but I do.  I truly believe that you can be strong, flexible, energetic, lean, toned and have incredible endurance without old school exercises.  Now that being said, if you truly love that old school stuff then I also believe that changes things; intention is everything and as long as you love what you do the results will be far greater than if you are grudgingly going through the motions.  I can no longer find the same joy in being at the gym or living strapped to equipment, but I very much want to regain my strength, my lean body and my incredible energy.  My plan? A whole new ballgame.

What I am embarking on now is a combination of strength training, flexibility training and cardio that looks and feels very, very different.  I will do yoga FIRST, allowing my body to use those carb and protein stores as I move through vinyasas, power yoga and/or kundalini, and THEN I will move onto creative cardio like ecstatic or trance dance, maybe even some of the step aerobics I always loved. That never felt like work to me, I would smile, giggle and bounce through those classes like a giddy schoolgirl because I loved the choreography and the movement so much.  The fact that it created a cardio monster with strong legs and glutes was a nice side effect.  So that might be something I resurrect as well.  I also have this gorgeous 18 speed bike and once my love and I are in Portland (hopefully soon) where it is FAR safer to ride, that can and will be an alternate source of joyful cardio for me.

So the bottom line is, it's the same wisdom, the same approach to overall conditioning and fitness, just using different tools to get me from here to "there".   This will also make it a very enjoyable process.  I won't deny I got a major thrill out of my gym rat time; I grew to love the sound of clinking metal or the cardio machine room humming away and I oddly enjoyed my callouses and the smell of lubricant all over the gym.  Maybe someday it will call out to me again but I doubt it.

Today, I start with a great Kundalini set for the chakras, followed by some really exquisite and invigorating ecstatic dance (Shiva Rea, here I come!).  Should take roughly an hour at the most and will leave me feeling supple, energized and blissed out.  I never felt those things after my 2 hours at the gym.  I'm glad I had those experiences too, they formed who I am now and gave me great benefits then.  But I am even MORE glad that I am having these experiences now. ;)