I’m a big fan of simplicity. One of the reasons I took up running in college was the ease of getting started. Put on some shoes and run. Boom.

Or, depending on how you roll - skip the shoes and just run. 

Over the weekend I joined other fitness professionals for a three-day fitness summit hosted by Perform Better. One of the speakers, Rachel Cosgrove has been training clients, and women in particular for over 20 years. She's an expert at helping people get results, and in her talk spoke to a good reminder that we all easily forget.

Focus on the big rocks.

This reminder has been a big part of my studies with Precision Nutrition - the idea of mastering the basics of getting enough sleep, enough water, fun (ok that's mine) as part of your base. I see a lot of clients start in the weeds - should I do intermittent fasting? Go Paleo? Should I take BCAA's and fish oil and hair of the lemur 22 minutes after my workout? 

Should I eat my protein while riding a goat off into the sunset with a koala bear? 

Yes, you should - but invite me along because I love goats and koala bears. 

A strong focus on those minute details can cause information overload and decision fatigue - and before you know it, you're too exhausted from trying to understand what's you should be doing and just throw in the towel.

(Hold on to the towel. No throwing of the towel. If it's yellow, you may wave it at Steelers' games - but you must not throw it.)

Some of the big rocks in training include training with a purpose 3-5 times a week, warming up with a purpose, and working on areas of opportunity, such as performing a push up from the floor or a chin up. 

TRAIN WITH A PURPOSE

Over the weekend, we got t-shirts that said: “stop exercising and start training.” I love the quote and I think this could be a blog post in and of itself. When you sign up to work with a coach, the two of you have a goal in mind and the coach develops a plan to help you hit that goal. Whether you want to drop a pant size, gain lean muscle or perform a push up from the floor - your programming is the road map you need to follow. 

Exercising is getting out and moving, which is good for you, but is there a purpose behind it? Do you know if what you're doing is going to help you achieve your goal? 

(To read more on why you need a coach, check out this post)

WARM UP WITH A PURPOSE

No, chasing your dog does not count as a warm up, although you do want to get your body temperature up. Warming up with a purpose means warming up the muscles and movements you’re about to use in your workout. We don’t do toy soldiers because we want to know if you’d make the Rockettes, we do that to warm up your hamstrings before working your hips. 

GET ENOUGH SLEEP

Are you getting enough sleep? Most of us know we’re not. According to the Sleep Foundation, adults age 26-64 need 7-9 hours and adults over 65 need 7-8 hours. If you are averaging less than seven hours of sleep per week, we know that you want to work on your batwings (one client’s name for skin on the triceps) and belly fat, but one of the best places to start is to get more sleep. That means turning off the phones and iPads 30 minutes before bed (or turn on the Night Shift which reduces the blue lights) and put a priority on getting more, quality sleep.

GET ENOUGH WATER 

Recommendations from Precision Nutrition on water are that sedentary individuals drink at least two liters, athletes drink three litters, and athletes in hot weather climates drink at least four liters per day. Many of us would benefit from drinking more water. Especially those of us like myself who drink most of their water with…well…a lot of coffee in it…

Some of the other big rocks in nutrition include eating whole foods (single ingredient), eating slowly and mindfully, and following the formula of a serving of protein, vegetables, and healthy fats with each meal. 

Regardless of your goals, we live in a time of information overload. In fact, I saw this great quote from strength coach Ben Bruno the other day. 

Be careful of the weeds. Stick to the rocks. 

If you’ve ever listened to Buddhist teacher Tara Brach, you’ve likely heard her discuss the Buddha’s story of the second arrow.

The Buddha once asked a student "if a person is struck by an arrow, is it painful?" The student replied that it was. The Buddha then asked "if the person is struck by a second arrow, is that even more painful?" The student replied that it was. The teaching is that in life, we cannot always control the first arrow, however, our second arrow is our reaction to the first.

Sometimes the first arrow is someone putting a hat on you for a cookie - but you still tell yourself that you're doing great. And that the cookie will come eventually...

And if you're like me, you often shoot yourself with the second arrow. Over, and over, and over again. 

It's just how I roll. 

The first arrow is when something happens - whether it's something we do - hit the snooze button for 30 minutes instead of 10 (me, this morning), overeat at a party when we swore we wouldn’t, have five drinks instead of two; but it's also when something happens to us - treats us in a way that feels disrespectful. Brach describes the first arrow as the natural experiences that arise from the human animal that we are: fear, aggression, greed, craving. 

But the second arrow is our reaction to what happens. In the Buddhist teaching, we are reminded that with the second arrow comes choice. 

A few weeks ago I wrote a post talking about the phrase “I can’t get out of my own way.” The second part of that expression might be “and I can’t forgive myself for that.” I have talked openly about my struggles with depression - which is a first arrow for me. I'm not sure where or why I experience depression, but it's a complicated mix of genetics and life experience. So often the things we hate about ourselves are shaped by a plethora of forces - genetics - brain chemistry - experience - but as Brach reminds us, we didn’t choose any of this. 

I didn't choose depression. In fact, I hate the way my depression makes me feel. Lazy, unproductive, sad, unfocused. I hate it. That hate is my second arrow. Hate is my reaction to how I feel. And it's often self-hate.

The fitness industry is as much about human behavior as the science of periodization, fat loss, and hypertrophy. And nowhere have I seen more self-blame and self-flagellation than in fitness. We set goals, for getting to the gym, for changing our eating habits, for more self-care, and those goals can often become clouded by those first arrows - a compulsion to overeat that we don't understand, fear that comes from a place that we can't reach.

We can't control what happens to us. Did you know that there's even research out there suggesting that we are predisposed to be morning or night people? Me neither, but I'm looking into it. Have you ever tried to make yourself a morning workout person and just couldn't make it happen? Instead of going with the grain however, you beat yourself up for not going to be earlier, not waking up sooner, and being too lazy to get to the gym. You hate yourself for not being a morning person. 

I’m not saying we don’t need some accountability. But what else can we make room for if we stop the pattern of self-blame? If we replace the phrases “I suck at life, I suck at adulting, I hate myself for not trying harder” with something more positive? After I published this original post at work, a client reached out and offered this great phrase "thank you for the learning experience." 

What if you substitute that approach for the self-flagellation? What other positive feelings might creep in? I don't know because I still spend 90% of the time with the second arrow. But like so many other habits, change is an evolving process and it begins with awareness.

We cannot control the action - but we have some choice about the reaction. 

When I first moved to Boston, I joined a slow pitch softball team called Wild Things. Or Wild. Or something like that. 

I was at third base in one of my first games and made a sexy diving stop on a sharply hit ground ball. I almost surprised myself with my reflexes, and stood up only to here my teammates yelling at me. 

“Try harder!”

My face betrayed my indignation before the shortstop wandered over and explained that was the inside joke for when you couldn’t possibly have tried any harder. 

Irony. Or something.

As I’ve moved into the realms of personal training and coaching, we don’t often talk about effort. The goal for so many folks is to just get started and build consistency that’s it’s easy to forget about what happens when you do start exercising or going to the gym on a regular basis.

But once you do build that routine, the next question becomes:

How hard are you working? 

The Borg Scale (No, not like Victory Borge) is also known as the Rate of Perceived Exertion Scale and is a way of measuring physical activity intensity level. On the Borg scale, the measurement is from 6-20. They skip 1-5 because, apparently, try harder? (Actually, the skip the first five numbers for scientific reasons - I think).

It’s not uncommon to hear from a friend or a client that he or she is working out, and just not seeing results. On my Facebook page, I just started a “Be Stronger Challenge” and the goal is two-fold: if you don’t have a workout routine, develop one. If you are sedentary, then start moving. 

This is a one on the Borg Scale. Even though there is no one. 

But the second piece is that if you are moving, walking, or doing steady state cardio, start paying attention to how you feel during the physical activity. According to the CDC “a high correlation exists between a person’s perceived exertion rating times 10 and the actual heart rate during physical activity; so a person’s exertion rating may provide a fairly good estimate of the actual heart rate during activity (Borg, 1998).

If your RPE is 12, which on the Borg scale is working hard, and you multiply that number by 10, then your heart rate is like 120 beats per minute. (That's why we skipped the first five numbers). Researchers have found that measuring your own effort is a quick and effective way to judge intensity. (Click if you want to read more about the Borg Scale).

For a person with a higher fitness level, walking the dog may feel like a 9, which on the Borg scale is the equivalent of very light. For someone who is overweight and has been sedentary, walking the dog for 20 minutes may be a 15 on the Borg scale (hard). What matters most is measuring your own feeling of effort and exertion, and not how it compares to other people’s.

Don’t underestimate that last piece. Evaluate your own feeling of exertion - not how your friend feels. But also be honest - if you are out walking, measure your effort. (Heart rate monitors can be useful for this, but the ones that measure on your wrist can be very inaccurate.)

If you want to see results - which for many is fat loss - the exercise needs to be, according to the CDC, 150 minutes of moderate-intensity aerobic activity - which means brisk walks. If you are already doing that - the next challenge is to move towards 75 minutes of vigorous-intensity aerobic activity. If you come to Spurling Fitness, you are going to strength train - and then you are going to push a sled, slam some ropes, or throw some medicine balls. We're going to get your heart rate up and push it a little more. 

The bottom line is that while it is important to get up and move and start doing something, it's equally important to begin paying attention to your effort. 

So, in the words of my Wild teammates, sometimes you may have to try harder. 

But make sure to have fun while you do it. 

This is a 15 on the Borg Scale.