As I lay awake at 3:30 this morning taking inventory of my various aches and pains and regretting my snack choice from last night, I began writing this post in my head.  Since that wasn’t helping me get back to sleep and I couldn’t keep my mind on my breathing (a technique that is supposed to help you fall back asleep) I decided to get up and write this one for real.  

When we are young, we live our lives blissfully ignorant of what our bodies are telling us.  We ignore the telltale signs –  like the acne on our teenage faces that appears from consuming too many simple carbs.  For the most part, we can get away with our bad habits because we are young and resilient and heck, acne is a right of passage through those awkward teenage years, right?  We take our bodies for granted as we do a lot of things at that age – as a taken-for-granted parent of a teen, I can attest to that last part.  In our 20′s we are busy thinking about careers and marriage and starting families.  In our 30′s we are too busy dealing with everyone else to pay attention to our bodies.

Now, in my mid to late 40′s, my body is shouting at me. All right, all right, all ready.  I’m paying attention.  After years of disregarding what my body had to say, I’ve got to learn a new language – body language – and I’m not talking about whether having my arms crossed in front of my body when in a crowd indicates that I’m a closed person.  Although that may be the case, that’s not where I’m going with this.  Body language – what our bodies are trying to tell us about the state of our health and how the choices we make affect us.

So here is what my body’s taught me so far.

Right hip pain –  cause:  left hamstring weakness, what to do about it:  those fun hamstring curls we all love so much.  In the Ki Hara resistance stretching course work I’ve taken, we learned that pain in one area is often caused by tightness or weakness in a completely different area and that those imbalances are what cause our injuries.

Back side of right shoulder – cause:  idiocy.  Note to self – never demonstrate the improper way to do something while swinging a kettlebell!  Equally valuable, I also learned more about my body as this injury didn’t want to heal.  That has required a lot more study involving stress hormones, workout intensities, more fine tuning of my diet.  I’m still in the midst of figuring all of that out.

Front side of left shoulder – cause:  I have no idea.  What it has taught me, though, is to really think about keeping that shoulder sucked down into the socket as I move my arm up.  Maybe that’s reason enough for this one to have happened.

Headaches:  cause:  back to hormones and diet.  Dang it my body just doesn’t want me eating chocolate.

A few years ago, my husband read a book out loud to our kids entitled “The Music Lesson:  A Spiritual Search for Growth Through Music” by Victor L. Wooten.  One of the parts I remember him reading was when the main character had a headache, his mentor/teacher told him to smile.  A headache is a message from your body telling you that something you did or didn’t do is harming you.  You should smile because your body is getting you to pay attention so you can stop whatever it was that caused the headache, thus protecting yourself.  Plus, if you smile, your pain will lessen.

Unfortunately, it seems to me that the longer you ignore your body, the more things get out of whack, the more complicated it gets trying to figuring out what your body is telling you.

All joking aside, listening to your body can be a life or death decision.  My 43 year old cousin, Sara, died suddenly two weeks ago from heart problems.  In the months leading up to this she hadn’t had any obvious issues that would have lead her to think there was a problem.  She was active and trim.   Just before Memorial Day, she began having chest pain.  She put off visiting the doctor until after Memorial Day because she had too much on her plate to add a doctor’s visit.  The initial test showed nothing obvious, but they scheduled her for a visit with a specialist for a week later.  She never made it to that appointment.  The next day, she was dead.  I don’t know if anything could have been done to prevent this, but I’m pretty sure her body was trying to tell her something.

So hear is a little piece of advise:  listen to your body.  Spend time trying to figure yourself out.  Learn a new language – your body’s language.  Don’t let your busy life drown out the message your body is trying to get across.  Teach your kids to listen to their bodies so perhaps they can catch things before they get complicated.  Next time you have a headache or sore shoulder or knee pain… listen and smile!

We are nearly half way through our current strength building and fat burning workout plan.  I hope you have noticed a difference in your strength.  I know I have, and I have watched all of you gaining confidence in using the bigger bells.  I may not always comment, but you can be sure I notice when you start doing the Turkish Get-Up with the next size up.  Those of you whose schedules have allowed for more consistency in your workouts have probably made greater strides, but I hope all of you are finding these workouts challenging and rewarding.  So on this Memorial Weekend, I hope you can get out and enjoy the great weather we are having and do something active.  After all, the reason we want to get stronger is to get more out of life!  Speaking of which, check out the new testimonials to see how Forza! is making a difference in the lives of two Northfielders.

I’m offering a spring special deal.  A 6 week, 60 minute a week TRX class for $60. This is like getting one TRX class for free!  The class will be on Thursdays from 5:30 to 6:30, starting April 29th and going through June 3rd .  Participation is limited, so call or email to reserve your spot.  Summer will be here before you know it.  Start on that beach body now!

I recently (okay, it’s been a few weeks now) read an article in the Health Journal Section of the Wall Street Journal about the latest fitness rage – core strength regimens.  The author, Kevin Helliker, describes his experience in working with a personal trainer to develop his core strength.  He had been running, swimming and lifting free weights, but had not done anything for his core – the muscles of his torso from under his arm pits to his knees  (the part of his body that has to be stable in order to safely and efficiently perform any of the other activities he had been doing).  ”Many sports-medicine specialists expect core-strength exercises to become the third leg of public-health recommendations in regard to workouts.  Just as cardiovascular exercise is promoted for heart health and resistance training for strong bones, experts expect core-strengthening movements to gain public-health favor for avoiding muscular-skeletal pain and injury, particularly of the neck, back and hips.” Mr. Helliker worked with his personal trainer twice a week for three months and after that time, his running speed increased, he lost body fat, he was pain free in his shoulders and neck and his posture improved.  I, too, have experienced the benefits of core strength training.  I have seen improvements in so many of the people I have worked with these last two years.  One of the reasons I was so attracted to kettlebells in the first place was that I was building core strength without having to do sit-ups (one of my least favorites activities).  We do do activities in class that specifically target these core muscles, but everytime we swing a bell or use the TRX, we are strengthening our core muscles.  We get our cardio, resistance training and core work in on everything we do.  Can’t get much more efficient than that!

Working on deadlifts

Recently, I’ve added a Steady Strength Class to Forza!’s schedule.  It is a class designed for those just learning kettlebells and those who want to take things a bit more slowly.  After two classes, the participants mentioned to me that it would be great to be able to do this twice a week, so now it is on the schedule for both Mondays at 1:30 PM and on Wednesdays at 11:00 AM.  For those of you who have been wanting to start exercising or those who want to start adding weight-bearing activities to your regular exercise program, this class is a great start.

I have always thought it is so easy to get out of shape and so hard to get back into shape.  Over the last almost three years since I began learning about kettlebells I have realized that this is simply not true.  I have seen strength gains occur very quickly, I just needed to know where to look or rather how to look for them.  A few weeks ago, I began working one-on-one with a woman who is in her early 70′s.  I have known this person for a long time and I had been noticing that over the past year, she seemed to be shrinking- like a lot of older women do.  When I met with her yesterday after working with her for just two weeks, she was eye level with me again.  I’m not saying she grew in those two weeks, or that she was miraculously stronger, but she was feeling stronger and thus holding herself taller.  Being willing to push your body, to make it work, even a little, will give you a very powerful feeling.

Our bodies need exercise – it’s our minds that protest.  If we are willing to tune out the negative thoughts about exercise or at least turn them down enough to push ourselves even a little, our bodies will give back in so many ways; we become stronger, healthier, more confident, even our brains functions better – no kidding!  There was an article in the New York Times recently about a study out of Canada.  One hundred and fifty-five women between the ages of 65 and 75 were put into two groups.  One group trained with dumbbells and weight machines, the other did balance and toning exercises.  After a year, the weight bearing exercisers saw a 10-12% improvement on tests on the brain processes responsible for planning and executing tasks.  Those in the balance and toning group showed a slight decrease.  Isn’t that something!  So, be good to your body, be good to your brain – do weight bearing activities like we do at Forza!