What To Do In Winter? Get Fit! (pt2)
There are lots of things that gardeners do in the winter months, but one that rarely gets mentioned is getting fit. In this three-part series I explain how I stay in shape during the winter months.
In the first installment of this article I discussed the importance of staying strong, and then went into the details of my regular exercise routine as an example of a way to achieve that goal. Before continuing with that exposition, I want to briefly discuss the need to maintain muscle mass in later life.
Use it or lose it
As a general rule, people start losing from 3%-5% of their muscle mass every decade after the age of 30. That doesn’t sound like much, but it adds up over time. The result is less strength, greater risk of injury, a decreased capacity to burn calories (lean muscle tissue burns calories) , and of course, our clothes just don’t hang the way we’d like them to! Thankfully, there is a way to stave off that inevitable decline: progressive resistance training (PRT), and it offers many benefits. That’s what the “Hard day /Easy Day” routine mentioned in my previous article is all about. Please bear in mind that for any of these exercises, the weights and number of repetitions is based on what I can do right now. When I started years ago I was doing less of everything - so these should be dialed up or down based on individual fitness, and, ideally, in consultation with a knowledgeable health professional.
I should also mention that I do all of these things in my home. All my gear cost less than 1 year’s membership at most gyms and takes up very little room. I do these workouts in the morning, before breakfast, and they take about 30 minutes. When I am done, I am out of breath and am in a complete sweat. All of these exercises are done one right after the other. The order is deliberate, and allows me to catch my breath by following really hard things with no so hard things.
Hard Days
On Mondays and Wednesdays I do intense workouts where I do everything to failure (hard day), and I try to do movements that mimic the things I will be doing in the garden (like squatting and lifting), to train my body to be good at those things. I start with the warmups mentioned last week, and then I do the following as another kind of warmup:
5 Pushups (if you can’t do them from your toes, do them from your knees).
5 Australian pull-ups (APU). Most people can do these by hanging from a table, or by stretching a bar between two chairs. I am abnormally tall, so I made a device from 2x3s that cost about $20 to slap together.
By starting with these compound exercises with low reps/weights, I activate many major muscle groups without exhausting them, and get my heart pumping. With each exercise, I focus on breathing. With the pushup, I inhale on the way down, and exhale on the way up. With the APU, I inhale on the way down and exhale on the way up. With the deadlift I exhale on the way up, and exhale on the way down. Breathing in this manner allows deeper breaths, and thus, better athletic performance. I then move to some core exercise to give those muscle groups and minute to recover. You will see this pattern repeating throughout the workout (intense compound exercise, then not so intense core exercise). Focusing on the breathing has a meditative effect. I find it so important that I don’t even listen to music (despite my love of Rocky training montage music) because it messes up the rhythm of my breathing.
Now I do some core exercises:
Plank for a 32 count. I breathe in for a 4 count, then out for a four count (in 2,3,4 - out 2,3,4), until I get to a count of 32. Sometimes I go higher if I am feeling really energetic, but the 32 count is the minimum.
Superman for a 32 count. Inhaling and exhaling in four-counts in rhythm with the contraction of the abdominal muscles (up 2,3,4 - down 2,3,4, etc.).
Now I do a compound exercise:
Pushups to failure. I do as many as I can, with the best form I can manage, while breathing in the manner explained earlier. When I can’t do any more, I go on my knees and squeeze out a few more until I am unable to do those anymore.
Now I do another core exercise.
15 Hanging leg raises. I do 15 of these, but when I started I could only do 10. I inhale on the way down, and inhale on the way up - usually maintaining a four-beat rhythm. I have a bar attached to the beams in my storage room where I can hang even with my ridiculous height. For most people there are cheap bars that can be set up in doorways. If these are not an option there are other good abdominal exercises like Reverse Crunches and Mountain Climbers, or just a simple knee raise.
Now I do a compound exercise:
APU to Max. The APU is an easier version of the hanging pullup or chin-up. With that being said, they are still very hard, and overdoing it can cause tennis elbow or golfers elbow, or both (trust me, I know this 1st hand). This is not an exercise to “play through the pain”. I say “to max”, but I usually do about one or two repetitions less than what I think is my maximum, and if I feel any pain at all I drop the repetitions in half for a week, and then see how it feels after resting over the weekend. Its is also possible to modify the intensity of the exercise by having the knees bent 90 degrees, which is easier than having the legs straight. If the APU is impossible, start with a low weight (e.g. 5lbs) bent-over dumbbell row, and slowly work your way up to being able to do about 25 reps, then use 10 lbs, then 15lbs, then 20lbs. If you can do 25 reps with 25 lbs you are probably ready to do APUs :)
Now I do another core exercise:
Dead Hang for 45 count (breathing in 2,3,4 - out 2,3,4…). For beginners, a 5 or ten count might be a good place to start. I can hold it for over a minute, and used to max out at a 90 count, but after 45 seconds I find that my hands go numb, and it’s also boring - so I just go to 45 now. This exercise will give you a commanding handshake, but it’s also good for posture, mobility, flexibility, and stretching some of the major muscle groups that will be used in the next exercise!
Now I do a compound exercise:
Dead lift to Max. I pick a weight that allows me to barely get to eight repetitions. When I can do 12 repetitions, I add 5lbs on each side and work my way back up to 12 repetitions. Right now I’m doing it with 140 lbs. Some weeks I feel strong, so I go for more weight or more reps, and some weeks I feel weak, or lazy, or tired, so I do less. I use a barbell for deadlifts because it makes sense for the amount of weight that I am lifting - but dumbbells, or a kettlebell, or even a medicine ball can be used. Maybe just start with two 5lb weights, and work your way up from there. It’s called progressive resistance training because its progressive! I think when I stated a few years ago I was just doing higher reps with two 20 lb dumbbells. It was still an intense workout!
Finally, I do an “isolation exercise” - the standing dumbbell curl. I do these because my physio guy said they are a good way to prevent future tennis and golfers elbow injuries. I also just like doing curls! Always have! I use 20lb dumbbells, and do as many as I can. I can curl more weight, but after doing the deadlifts and the APUs, the biceps have already been worked hard, so I just do the lighter weights to build stamina.
This part of the workout may seem counter to many routines that emphasize multiple sets rather than the “single set to failure” approach that I like to use - but there is ample evidence that suggests that the single set approach can get similar results, and since it is faster - why not!
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There’s lots of fitness gurus and muscle-heads who poopoo the deadlift due to certain health risks that they say it poses for weightlifters. In general, these are guys talking about extreme weights. At lower weights it’s a safe exercise. Think about it. A 10 lb deadlift is like picking a baby up off the floor. It is safe to pick up a baby! A 2 year old weighs from 20 to 30 lbs. What parent cannot pick up a two year old. At some point, kids get too heavy for some people, and not so heavy for others, so it’s all a question of using good judgement. The deadlift is a great compound exercise so long as you don’t try to lift too much. Progress slowly and you will be fine. Try to be Arnold Schwarzenegger, and you will get hurt!