Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Spring Fitness Chart

SUN MON TUE WED THU FRI SAT
SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP
morning morning morning morning morning morning morning
PLAY
practice
WORK
 
HOBBY
Systems
WORK
 
HOBBY
Systems
WORK
 
HOBBY
Systems
PASTIME
 
WORK
 
HOBBY
cooking
WORK
 
HOBBY
cooking
WORK
 
PLAY^
 
PLAY^
 
PLAY
practice
PLAY^
practice
PLAY^
 
PLAY^
scrimmage
PASTIME
 
PASTIME
 
5 5 5 4 5 2 2
evening evening evening evening evening evening evening
SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP SLEEP

Pretty well settled into this schedule, practice is when practice is and everything else fills in around that.

This is whole day fitness, so everything counts. I have a point system, of course I do, no activity (gray) is zero points, very low intensity activity (purple) is one point, low intensity activity (blue) is two points, and high intensity activity (orange) is three points, where the idea is to get at least two points for morning and afternoon. So that could be two purples, one plus one, or a gray and a blue, zero plus two, and sometimes that gets turned upside down on the weekend but whatever; then I add whatever evenings to that. So if I keep my mornings and afternoons consistent, it's the same high low as it ever was. Right now I have four high, one low, and two rest, if you follow what I'm doing there. (I turned Sunday upside down. Also I'm only counting the major beats, not the minor morning and evening beats when all I do is a tiny bit of balance work when I'm brushing my teeth.) I think before I was saying three high, two low, two rest, well, like I said, practice is when practice is, I think it's fair to swap a high for a low and keep two for rest. Anyway on the one hand it's the same as it ever was, but on the other hand it's not—the high low used to be on a base of zero morning and afternoon activity, now everything's up two. It doesn't feel like doing anything extra, I just changed some habits around and now that's just how I do. Except that it does feel like I've done something extra, like my core strength has noticeably improved. Just from getting up every thirty minutes, resetting my glutes and abs, and my upper back when I remember, and sitting back down—I'm not kidding, it's that simple, get up, reset, sit back down.

Here's the thing I'm thinking about: can I raise my base some more? My client Kris is pretty naturally active, twenty-five minute walks morning and afternoon plus moving boxes of books now and again; so her base is four, and then she runs and lifts weights two or three evenings a week on top of that. I mean, I'm not comparing. I'm just saying. There's no set rule, it's about finding your own level. And when you find a level, seeing whether you can raise your level. Or not.

Not is valid! Recovery is always a thing, recovery might be the thing you need to level up.

What I'm thinking about is adding in some teeny high intensity bursts, but anyway, one of the great things about having the friends that I do is, somebody will always think of something, like Trixxxie's ab challenge last fall. Problem's starting a burpee challenge soon for her 44th birthday, so it might just be that.