Make It Count

I cannot even express to you how many ideas cross my mind while I am mid-workout.  It's like the floodgates open and now I'm sitting down to type out my ideas and I feel like making a fart noise with my mouth because nothing else of interest is coming to me.  My blog is so awesome.  LOL

I titled this entry Make It Count because every workout is a two-step process for me.  #1 - Do It.  Get up, change into workout clothes and DO IT.  #2 - Make It Count.

As I started my workout today I have to admit I had a lot on my mind that was non-exercise related.  All I wanted to do was put in an hour's worth of exercise so I could mark it on my calendar and I could be done with it.  As my workout progressed, the negativity of my mindset began to leave and it made me remember how important it is to make it count.  Don't zone out.  Don't watch TV or surf on your phone while you are exercising.  Pay attention to my breath, my rhythm.  Make sure I have good form, pay attention to the workout itself.  I also like to make life interesting with the music I listen to ~ in a way change up an interval and pace based on the song I'm listening to.  Little things throughout the workout that keep things interesting and different every time.

Making it count is like making a deposit in a bank account but instead of a bank, it's your exercise account.  Corny analogy?  Perhaps, but I completely believe it.

I am nervous about tomorrow.  I'm going to see a dermatologist about a little bump on my nose but all day my mind has been running wild with worst-case-scenarios and ideas of how it could all go wrong.  Now that I have finished my workout for the day my endorphins are searing through my body and I feel like I could take on the world.

How do you bottle up endorphins?  Like a jar of air from the mountains.  I want a jar of endorphins that I can whip out when I need a quick fix to take away anxiety or worry and just FEEL GOOD.  I sure do love endorphins.  They rock my world, dude.

Keeping Good Form is HARD

I consider myself on the "dark" side of exercising right now.  I'm three days in to exercising for the first time in ....well too long to admit.  I am embarrassed and ashamed to admit it, so that will be for another post, another day.    Today I am talking about form.  Form is HARD!  Usually you hear about proper form to prevent injury.  Yes, that is important.  The form I am referring to is the constant checking of what muscles you are engaging for an entire workout.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm a crazy person for worrying about form all the time??  Perhaps I am.

Workouts are not easy to begin with, but checking your form every couple of minutes is a very under-appreciated task.  If you're going to exercise, you may as well do it as good as you possibly can, right?  At least, that's my motto.  Yet this creates a daunting task.  This means that I need to engage my core.  Squeeze those buns.  Stand up straight while not over extending.  I want my neck relaxed and in a good position.  Oh yeah, and keep my heart rate above 160 bpm while staying motivated with some good music.  .....and that is on one stage of interval program that is only going to last for another minute before it changes.  Then I readjust all over again!!

The whole spectrum changes as soon as you change your workout, too.  From lifting weights, to yoga...yoga is even harder.  There isn't momentum behind you in yoga, you are simply there.  You and your muscles and checking form constantly is the only way I feel like I'm putting that extra deposit in the bank to make sure my workout counts.

My hope, my goal.  Is that when I push through this "dark" side of exercising, it will be in a matter of a few weeks.  Where I won't have sore joints and knees from the shock of being physically active again.  Where my muscles hardly remember what they were put on this earth to do.  They will re-learn what it's like to be worked!! Where I have a bounce in my step and an excitement in my stomach to exercise again.

I crave it.

I can't wait for that moment when I have a rhythm to my running when my lungs can start to inhale deeper than they can right now.

And because I'm focusing on form in this post, I truly hope that my form improves with it.  The core form that will improve with my fitness level if I do it properly now.  It's like I'm laying foundation, and it needs to be a good strong one.