Choose How Hard You Work

Good morning readers!

One of the things on my todo list after I get comfortable with this whole blogging thing is to immerse myself in youtube videos. Making a video takes a lot of work! But more on that later… However, this has prompted some preemptive thought on the types of things I will say in my videos.

While driving home from the beach last night I was thinking about what my workout would be for this morning. If you read my post from yesterday you may recall that I have given myself a break for the past few days due to overworked muscles and injury, so I really wanted to plan out an effective and therapeutic workout for this morning.

Now, like any other fitness-inclined individual, I wanted to come back with a bang. Generally when I feel like I want a really challenging full body workout that I’ll feel the next day, I search for the HARDEST video online, or I’ll combine some favorites in my own routine and really sweat it out.

I have always been guilty of this.

So, what to do when you want to work really hard and really feel it the next day? With body-weight workouts such as pilates the secret is not necessarily finding the most advanced moves and doing a million of them. How hard you feel the burn really depends on you. Or on me, since that’s who we are talking about. 🙂

Post workout soreness or just a really great well-rounded workout results from a combination of things, of course. I am in full support of weight training and dabble in it occasionally myself. However I tend to think that there is more to effectively tiring muscles than finding uncomfortable ways to pick up heavy objects without hurting yourself. Because honestly that’s what lifting is; Oh, way-too heavy object? Lets pick it up 10 times!

If you’re sensing some type of opinion forming here it’s only because my companion and lover does exactly this for about an hour every morning. In our bedroom.

Back to my topic of the morning..

Linking back slightly to what I touched on previously about ‘range of motion,’ there is a sweet spot in every routine and every move where the activated muscle group is really working. So accomplish this, and particularly in pilates, you must maintain a stable core and really put your mind to SQUEEZING and consciously activating the muscles. If you feel discomfort in surrounding muscles (frequently I feel discomfort in my hip flexors) this is generally due to flexibility issues and not enough core activation.

With the correct amount of core activation and by practicing moves that are consistent with your personal flexibility level, you will achieve the burn you are searching for!

I prefer not to give advice in general (suggestions and anecdotes are kind of my thing), but here I think it is ok just because this is something I have learned on my own through experience: Worry less about the ‘difficulty’ of the workout you are doing and instead learn to work as hard as you possibly can on the simplest moves. I promise, if you focus instead on completing 100 sit ups and more on your neck alignment and core activation you will be sweating after five!

Have a great workout!

❤ Tammy