Hate Strength Training?

By Crabby McSlacker

Strength training, alas, is still considered a crucial ingredient in the ever-changing recipe for a fit and healthy life.  Omitting this key ingredient is like trying to make meringue with no egg whites--the results may be disappointingly gloppier than you were intending.

But it's not just about looking more buffed or losing weight more easily. There are plenty of important health benefits from strength training that I'm too lazy to list. But trust me, strength training is good for you in ways that cardio is not! You need both.

Of course I realize that many people love weights and hate cardio. To me this is hilarious, like someone saying "no, I'll have to skip that cupcake-tasting party this evening, I've been really looking forward to cleaning up all the accumulated dog shit in our neighborhood."

There's no accounting for taste.

Me, I loathe strength training. Yet I've been doing it pretty damn regularly for over 25 years.

From this you may conclude:

(1) I've figured out a couple of tricks to make it less horrible. And,

(2) I obviously need a few more tricks, or "loathe" wouldn't be the first word to come to mind when I think about lifting weights.

So I'll share of a few of my sneaky motivational tips and maybe some of you have some better ideas?

WTF Is Your Problem?

 

Do you ever feel like the different parts of yourself aren't lining up properly?

In this case, I don't mean anatomically, I mean psychologically. As in: the "smart" part of you is going "I really need to do this Thing, I'll get right on that tomorrow! (ie., exercise/quit smoking/schedule a colonoscopy). And the other part of you, the part that is stupider but is actually in charge of what you end up doing is all "Ha! Like THAT's ever gonna happen!"

Of course, there's always the helpful motivational slogan popularized by Nike, "Just Do It, Asshole." Hmm. I may be remembering that slightly wrong.

But what if you'd really really really really really really rather Just Not Do It?

I've been struggling with a bad case of of the WTFIYP's myself. I asking myself what my problem is... but it's not the right question. It doesn't actually matter what the problem is. It matters what the solution is. What will get me moving again?

So I'm trying a new approach that's really an old approach that I've talked about a million times in different ways. But what the hell, I wasn't doing it, and maybe you're not either.

Since this is a blog called Cranky Fitness, you can probably guess what it is I've been avoiding.

That's right, blogging. (The Fitness thing is less of a problem).

But it occurs to me that the solution I wasn't using before and am now is equally applicable to exercise avoidance, and many other sorts of avoidances as well.

When Life Gets Weird

via maxpixel

By Crabby McSlacker

So it looks like it's going to be another summer of Not Blogging Much, which I guess is better than Not Blogging at All.  Because, yeah, life's getting awfully weird and distracting of late. 

But how about I at least make time for a quick update, an epiphany, and a question for y'all?

High Tech Tuesday!

Photo download via xray delta one

By Crabby McSlacker

Should we be worried about the impact of so much easily accessible technology on our fragile human brains?

There is much hand-wringing on the subject, and even a little research out there.  Are portable machines turning our minds into mush, screwing with our relationships, infantalizing us, and disconnecting us from reality? Not to mention causing us to walk in front of buses and plunge off piers into large bodies of water?

Maybe! But that's not today's post.

Today I'm just doing a quick lazy show-and-tell about a couple of recent technological finds. One of them I even invented myself!

Unsettled

photo:  x-ray delta one

By Crabby McSlacker 

So life has taken a few possibly ominous turns lately.

And while I've been googling the heck out of various health-related issues for my own edification, I'm not really feeling up for taking that research and trying to write anything useful about it.

Oh, and the whole upcoming Fourth of July holiday... not something I'm really itching to blog about. For obvious reasons, I'm not feeling all that patriotic this year. Instead, I hope it's ok if I go a little more stream-of-consciousness with this post.

Maybe I'm a little depressed? Very weird for me. Anxiety is usually more my thing. And sure, there's plenty of that too. But this other feeling, this heaviness, this sense of "not-rightness" ... I gotta say, I don't much care for it. Maybe I'm just not using the right skincare products?

photo swiped from a random ebay ad