Gettin’ Fitter Diggin’ Dinner

By Jan Bono

"Exercise" doesn't always have to involve pounding out miles on a treadmill or slogging through squats and pushups at a crowded gym. There are sometimes tasty alternatives! So please welcome back contributor Jan Bono with more tales from her amazing 252-pound weight loss journey.--Crabby  

Living at the edge of the continent along the southwest Washington coast has its distinct advantages, not the least of which is the ability to get out there and “catch” your own seafood dinner.

Salmon, sturgeon, surf perch, oysters, crab, steamer clams and razor clams are all seasonally available here, and I’m not one to pass up the opportunity to enjoy them “so fresh, they’re still squirming in the skillet.”

But along with the hunt, there’s also the added element of utilizing various muscles (not to be confused with mussels, which are also plentiful here) that can often appreciate a new and/or different workout.

I’d been on my recumbent bike for almost two hours when the phone rang unexpectedly one morning a couple weeks ago.

“You’ve got your clam license, right?” my friend Eddie asked me.

“Right.”

“It’s two hours before low tide. How fast can you get over here?”

How Do You Make Chores Fun?

By Crabby McSlacker

It's not exactly a shocking confession: I am a foot-dragging, excuse-making, pathetic, whiny chore-hater.

So the title question "How Do You Make Chores Fun?" is not just a rhetorical question. I'd really like some advice!

And yeah, I have some tricks that I use that help a lot that I'll pass along, and I've gotten way less lazy and petulant than I used to be.  But I still dread most forms of manual or clerical labor and make a huge melodramatic production out of it when I'm forced to do any.

A brief search of the interwebs was not much help: I kept finding pretty much the same small handful of ideas I'd already "invented" myself.

So I'm hoping someone has some thoughts?

Rut-Buster Playground Workout

What could be more obnoxious than posting an outdoor playground workout when most of the playgrounds throughout the land are coated in treacherous ice and buried under 47 feet of snow?

Oh yeah, maybe posting La Jolla beach bike ride photos during a polar vortex.

Sorry about that. We've already established that I'm kind of an asshole.  But what's a thin-blooded weather-wimpy snow-bird blogger supposed to do when she gets bored with the gym?

Clueless Gym Behavior: Ask the Personal Trainers

Who is THIS moron? Oh wait...

Welcome to our first installment of  "Ask the Personal Trainers!"  We have four personal trainers lined up to answer your questions, and they're a diverse, knowledgeable, and amusing bunch.

Plus, since I can't keep my mouth shut, I'll weigh in too! Sure, I have absolutely no qualifications whatsoever.  But when has that ever stopped my from offering advice before?

This time, since we have introductions to make, there's only one question and it's mine.  This is because it's my blog and I'm a greedy control freak I wanted to start off with a general question that could reflect each trainer's overall fitness philosophies.   

However, we gotten some great reader questions! I haven't forgotten them, and some of these have already been submitted for next time.  (These involve rotator cuff problems, core work and post-hysterectomy recovery, and unmotivated clients, so stay tuned!)

What's today's question?

What is the most clueless thing you see people do in a gym, and what should they be doing instead?

But first, let's meet our trainers!

Make A Fortune in the Fitness Industry

Grab it while the grabbin's good!
Photo: Steve Wampler

So here’s my idea of how to be a fitness industry millionaire. And you know what? You’re welcome to use it for free! This is because (a) I’m too lazy to actually set up a fitness business, and (b) it’s kind of a stupid idea.


But just watch! Someday someone’s gonna do it and it will make a lot of money, and you’ll be totally mad that it wasn’t you.

So I can’t help noticing that despite my attempts to make fun of it, “Functional Fitness” continues to get more and more popular. Whether it’s CrossFit or one of those Boot Camps or whatever, everyone now seems to want their workouts to start incorporating more “real life,” functional movements.

So it’s all “goodbye fancy fitness club” and “see ya later, big-ass weight machines” and instead everyone is running off to meet in parks and playgrounds and stripped-down garages to work out with the bare minimum of equipment.

Yet oddly enough, sometimes these bare-bones functional fitness workouts end up being more expensive than the fancy gym, because they require people to instruct you and yell at you on an ongoing basis. (Those who are thrifty and do their own research and supply their own motivation can, of course, do it for cheap or free). But many folks are busy and stressed and are naturally willing to pay for some direction.

So you get buffed personal trainers and sculpted boot camp instructors doing what your our chain-smoking P.E. teachers in baggy sweats used to do: yelling at students to do a bunch of different exercises whether they feel like it or not.

“Run four 100–yard sprints! Now do 25 push-ups! Balance on that bosu ball while you...whoops! Well, just go ahead and wipe that up, it’s only blood. Now run up those stadium stairs! Jump rope for 4 minutes! Deadlift 150 pounds!"

The pay-off is, exercisers get much better at the very movements used in real life. Because you never know when you’re going to fall face down on the floor and need to push yourself back up 25 times in a row, or break out into a set of burpees, or avoid a fast-moving rope coming at your feet... 400 times in quick succession.

Sadly, though, as much as we want our moves to be functional, we’re not quite there yet, are we? We don’t tend to swing big iron weights with built-in handles around all that often--yet it might be handy to be able to schlep an armchair up the stairs when you move to a new place, or haul 80 lb bags of mulch when it's time to spruce up our yards.

Are you starting to see where this is all headed?

Yep, as a “Super- Functional Fitness Trainer,” you can train, motivate, and empower your clients to perform astounding feats of fitness! All you need to do is create special protocols and “challenges” for them and invest in a little bit of equipment.

This mobile, adjustable weight-training device improves balance
and recruits pretty much every muscle in your body!

Who in the class can take the biggest pile of raked up leaves from one side of a big yard to the pickup truck waiting out front?

Who can beat the "club record" for carrying three forty pound kitty litter containers and four cases of sparkling mineral water up to a 3rd floor walk-up apartment?

Who can haul the largest number of humans the furthest while sharpening reflexes and improving balance in busy urban thoroughfares?

It's just like spinning class, but with sunshine!
Photo: PaulS_

Your clients will be so excited to climb into your mobile fitness van and don their special matching workout outfits, knowing that each day they will be delivered to a whole new "real life" gym to play in for 2, 4, 8, even 12 hours at a time!

These clients are getting a first-class functional
workout, and wow are they psyched!
Photo: Caro's Lines

And, well, if you just happen to run another company besides your fitness business that supplies temporary workers who are fit and strong and skilled in moving, hauling, delivery, yardwork, and other valuable labor? That's just the can-do American entrepeneurial spirit! Your “fitness” clients don’t really need to know you’re getting paid at both ends do they? They'll just be looking forward to the next Super-Functional fitness challenge you can devise for them.

Dig in, this is gonna be FUN!!!!
Photo: AdamCohn

So seriously, is it just me? Or does anyone else find that it's much more appealing to think about exercising when an instructor tells us to rather than when that request comes from an employer or a spouse?

Fear of Functional Fitness

No, Please No! Anything but That!
Photo credit: kevindooley

In a recent post I poked a bit of fun at the whole notion of "Functional Fitness." But you know how in second grade, little boys often go out our their way to tease and taunt the little girls they find intriguing? And that's because they have confused, conflicting feelings and they're too immature to deal with it?

Well, that's pretty much the story with Crabby McSlacker and Functional Fitness.

Yes, it's true. I'm perhaps flirting with the notion of adding a bit of functional fitness to my workout. Because while I Hate Change, I do know variety is good, and it's counterproductive to keep doing the same things all the time, blah blah blah. However, if I do decide to get more Functional, you can be assured it will be gradually and grudgingly.


And believe me, I still have have some doubts and questions. Can anybody help?

First Off, A Review: What is Functional Fitness Again?

For those of you who don't want to click back to the last functional fitness post, I'll just repeat what they said at WebMD: the idea is "building a body capable of doing real-life activities in real-life positions, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an idealized posture created by a gym machine." And you're generally supposed to use compound movements rather than working individual muscles.

Since I'm the last health blogger on the planet to think about getting more Functional, you probably are all way ahead of me on this anyway. But, for a little more info, here's an msnbc article on functional fitness. You can also just google and get about a trillion hits.


Why Am I Finally Considering Functional Fitness After Stubbornly Ignoring This Trend for Years?

1. It's getting more and more mainstream and I keep reading about it one everyone else's blog and I feel left out.

2. I'm getting really, really, bored with my current workout.

3. Annoying Old People keep hogging my usual gym machines and I need alternative ways to exercise the same muscles. (When winter's over and it's time to move back to Provincetown MA, I won't have to contend with Annoying Old People anymore! Instead I'll be fighting with Annoying Circuit Queens).

4. Functional Fitness seems to involve toys, like jump-ropes, balls, bells, cones, and inflatable things. This sounds like a nice change from massive pieces of gym equipment and allows for a more portable workout.

5. Theoretically, I will be less likely to injure myself doing ordinary activities. As someone who once severely aggravated a back injury by bending down to tie my shoes, this might be a smart idea.

6.People who do lots of functional fitness exercises seem pretty kick-ass.

7. And speaking of kick-ass feats of functional fitness, did you guys catch that Whobody passed her SWAT test? Here are some of the requirements: "a mile and a half run in 12:18 or under.... Sprint 100 yards and drag a 160lb dummy with a weighted vest on in 28 seconds..." Editorial note: Accck!

8. Because cardio and strength training often happen at the same time, you can get more done in a shorter workout.

9. The final inducement? A friend of the Lobster is a personal trainer whom we visited when we were in San Diego. He knows his stuff, and he's all about functional fitness. He was very persuasive! This also means that the Lobster is interested in functional fitness now, and the Crab has a workout partner to play with. Said personal trainer gave us a starter workout to try.


Why Am I Still So Reluctant?

Here are some of my hesitations and concerns:

1. It's Not Obvious What You Should Do:

With traditional strength training, once you've gone through an orientation at the gym on the machines, you're pretty much set for the rest of your life. You move the pin to higher weights when you get stronger; you move the pins back down when you've been slacking. As to cardio? Put on your shoes and head out the door for a run! Or climb on a machine and start pedaling/pumping/trudging.

But "Functional Fitness" is all about mixing things up; there are endless variations of things you can do. Oddly enough, if you can't afford a personal trainer, all these options may flee from your tiny brain when it's just you and the cones and the kettlebells or whatever.

Alternatively, you can do Crossfit or Monkey Bar Gym or some other organized Functional Fitness Workout delivery system. This is great for people who don't have authority issues and who are enthusiastic, flexible, non-complainers. Um, do I need to point out that I am not one of those people? I don't like someone else telling me what to do if I don't feel like doing it. But I'm afraid I'm too lazy to research and design my own workout. Once we get bored with our "starter workout," will I be motivated enough to move forward on my own?


2. It's Also Harder to Figure Out How to Do It Right

This is another reason so many functional fitness folks seem to start with classes or personal trainers. Form is important; plus the equipment is not as adjustable as a machine in terms of targeting your particular body. You have to make adjustments for your size and strength by doing different versions of the exercises, or by doing a lot more or a lot less.

3. Functional fitness is supposed to make your muscles stronger, not bigger.

I keep reading this "reassuring" information as though I'm supposed to be happy about it. Functional strength training is NOT body building!

Just one problem: unlike most women, and many men, I want bigger muscles! Call me weird, but I like a "buffed" look, whether on men or women. I'm in no danger of ever, ever, approaching that exaggerated body-building-champ non-human look. But I worry that if I substitute running around flinging kettlebells and using my body's momentum, rather than slowly and miserably hefting conventional weights, I'll lose what little definition I've managed to gain.

Also, frankly, I'm strong enough for my regular life doing the old-fashioned kind of weight training. I can carry groceries in from the car and put my luggage in the overhead bin. If I need to move a large piece of furniture up and down many flights of stairs? I'm gonna hire a freakin' moving company!

4. The "Toys" are more expensive than you'd think! We went to a sporting good store and found out what ONE GODDAMN KETTLEBELL cost. We're seriously looking at the big plastic 14lb container of Kitty Litter with the handy handle and thinking... hmmmm...


But I'm Still Kinda Psyched to Try Something Different

I'm under no illusions that I'll totally embrace this functional fitness thing and abandon my traditional routine entirely. However, I'm willing to try swapping out one or two of my old workouts a week.

Because even I'm getting tired of hearing myself whine about the dreaded gym. It's definitely time to freshen things up a bit.

So the Lobster and I have tried a few functional workouts. There seems to be more of an inertia problem than when we stick to the tried and true: we keep finding excuses to pick a different day to do our Functional Fitness workout. But then when we do actually get out there and do it--it's, um, kinda fun!

Anyone else contemplating a change in your routine? Or got any advice on getting more "functional?"

Really Functional Fitness

photo credit: laughingmonk

Don't you love the idea of Functional Fitness? According to Web MD, Functional Fitness means "building a body capable of doing real-life activities in real-life positions, not just lifting a certain amount of weight in an idealized posture created by a gym machine."

Functional fitness is supposed to be better than the usual, dysfunctional fitness we've grown accustomed to, because it uses compound movements rather than working individual muscles. The muscles then learn how to work together in harmony instead of being all aloof and snooty with each other. (And if you listen really, really closely after you're done, you may even hear the song "Kumbaya" emanating from your muscle fibers.)

Doesn't Functional Fitness seems like a great idea? Trendy, sure, but it's also down-to-earth at the same time. Instead of using huge cumbersome weight machines designed to isolate muscles, functional fitness is more likely to call for expensive personal trainers to show you what the hell you're supposed to do simple equipment like free weights, wobble boards, stability balls, elastic bands, or kettlebells. Or better yet, you can use nothing but your own body weight, with exercises like push ups or pull-ups.

Totally makes sense, right, to exercise your body in ways that are natural and practical, rather than artificial and frivolous?


But... just how functional are these moves for your life?

Be Prepared!
Kelly at Fitness Fixation, who is a fan of functional fitness, once wrote an amusing post explaining how incredibly useful many of these exercises can be in real life. She lists typical scenarios in which they come in very handy. For example, on pull-ups:

"In your secret agent job, you end up doing battle with the evil villain on a flying helicopter... the villain pushes you out of the copter...you grab onto those bottom landing thingies and manage to pull yourself back up into the craft while dangling above the Golden Gate Bridge. Thank god for those pull ups, or you’d never have the upper body strength to do that!"

(Other scenarios start with "A clown car drives up..." "A gigantic boa constrictor drops out of the foliage and lands on your shoulders...").

So yeah--some of these functional exercises aren't all that similar to real life needs. For example, I can't remember the last time I was required to balance myself on a big round inflatable object. Call me crazy, but when I need to reach somewhere high, like to change a light bulb, I climb up on a chair or a ladder, not a stability ball.

Exercises for Real Life
What would be more practical? Well, how about some exercises that more closely resemble real life challenges?

1. The Toddler Toss.
"Busy Moms" are often held up as a prime example of people who can benefit from functional exercise. And lifting their offspring is a frequently-cited example of the kind of activity they need to build muscle for. But how does working with a puny medicine ball prepare you for a real life squirming, constantly-growing child?

Equipment required: One wriggly toddler; one or two parents; assorted barbells, soup cans, or other heavy weights; duct tape, scissors.

Step One: First you take the toddler, the weights, the duct tape and you wrap...

Oh wait, sorry, the phone's ringing...

Crabby, a word, if you please?

Whoops! That was the Cranky Fitness Legal Department. Um, perhaps we'll move right along and cover this exercise some other time.

2. The Pickle Jar Twist
Has this ever happened to you? You spend hours at the gym, working with their fancy-ass equipment. And yet once home in your own kitchen, you discover you can't open a jar of pickles or organic grape juice* or pasta sauce without either injuring yourself or sheepishly handing it over to your Significant Other for assistance.

*(The grape juice jar is a real life example. I actually once sprained my wrist trying to open one. To this day, I still re-injure the same wrist sometimes. Curse you, fancy unopenable organic grape juice!)

The problem: wrist and forearm muscles aren't very sexy, so there are no special machines for them. But aren't these the sort of muscles we actually need to use?

Until gyms start offering fake plastic-coated, neon colored jars to open, and spandex-clad fitness instructors to demonstrate the proper form, you may need to buy a bunch of extra pickle jars for home. First screw 'em closed lightly, then open again; then work up until you can screw 'em shut medium tight, etc. Keep practicing until you can open even the most tightly screwed on stubborn jar lid. Then seek additional opportunities whenever and wherever you can find them to loosen and tighten sticky faucets, valves, lids, etc.

Worried that your boyfriend/husband will feel less useful not being the go-to guy on jar lids anymore? Here's one way you might introduce the topic:

"Honey, I just read on a fitness blog that I really should practice screwing more often. I'm supposed to find opportunities to screw whenever and wherever I can. Can you support me in that?"

Oh shoot, is that the phone ringing again?

3. The Bus Stop Sprint
Interval training helps with this task, sure. But the last time you needed to catch a bus, were you on a treadmill wearing workout attire, carrying nothing with you but a tiny iPod?

Of course not! To simulate real life conditions, take your work clothes to the gym, put on those high heels, skirt, trenchcoat, etc; grab a weighted briefcase, lunch bag, gym tote, and umbrella, hop on the treadmill and sprint!

For additional authenticity: drop your cell phone mid-sprint, and have a partner throw a little trash in front of your feet for you to dodge. It would help, too, if you could practice with diesel exhaust fumes blowing in your face, but this may present some logistical issues.

4. The Public Toilet Squat
Step One: Go to an overcrowded mall, a gas station, or anywhere that facilities are not scrupulously maintained.

Step Two: Innocently pick a stall and open the door.

Step Three: Gahhh!!! No Way. You don't really need to go that bad.

Step Four: Damn. Yes you do.

Step Five: Make appropriate clothing adjustments and assume squatting position. No need to worry about where your knees are in relation to your toes; just worry about where your ass is in relation to the toilet. For the sake of others coming after you, please do not pee all over the seat.

(Yep, this is a high-class blog. We even have an earlier post on the indignities of public restrooms).

5. Maybe Not as "Practical"
Here are some videos of folks doing "real" functional fitness. Not nearly as challenging as flinging heavily weighted toddlers into the air, but perhaps less likely to get us sued.

Note: For those of you who are interested in strength training but don't know where to start, we're hoping to have a slightly more informative post coming up Friday on Beginning Strength training. So stay tuned!

Do you folks prefer "functional" exercises to the other kind? What are some of your favorites?