Wall Sit – The last Exercise Challenge of 2022
Challenge: perform as many repetitions as possible while maintaining good form. Do this exercise for at least four days of the week. Keep track of your repetitions on your calendar or journal. Which day did you perform the greatest number of repetitions? Celebrate your improving strength and share your outcome with a friend or training partner.
In less than two weeks we will be flipping the last page of our 2022 calendars. And this is the time of year when the cold winds of winter blow and cause us to shutter to the interiors. To the warmth of the home-lands; to the inland of the heart-lands; to the solace of winter’s wonder-lands. It’s the magical time of year when I spend a little more time on my innermost world; and since the chilling temperatures drive us to seek warmth and safety among kith and kin, it is a fitting time to be drawn to the glowing embers of reflection and contemplation as another new year approaches. So it is in this spirit that I post this winter’s petition for the new year.
Gratitude…this is what comes to mind as I contemplate the blank, white pages of the new year approaching. The calendar behind me is overflowing with activities: work, play, joy, sorrow…there is much, too much, to hold and appreciate. Life is an abundant, on-going menagerie of experience. I wish only to become more proficient in allowing the fullness of life (the beautiful and the obnoxious) to move me (nudge me please, no shoving) towards a greater love of living; so that I may appreciate the gross and profane to be as necessary as the beautiful and profound. It is the yin and yang, the both/and paradox which I am learning to embrace without the need of certainty. It is gratitude I feel most deeply; and living this life without preconceived ideas about what it should look like lends more life for the living. This life is like one grand, ongoing research project…for my continued growth and evolution.
I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not.
R.G. Ingersoll
Love…this is the foundation which gives meaning to everything I feel and do in the hours of my days. If I had only one wish for the new year it would be that LOVE would reign front and center in the hearts and minds of those who walk the earth with me in 2023. Love is the language which created the universe. It is the mystery of life which is encoded into every cell, every atom of the cosmos. There is no need to translate our native tongue for the other; we must only learn the dialect of love and take it to all the places we go, whether we are home or abroad. We are not strangers or aliens to ourselves when we love, truly love one another.
True love always involves renunciation of one’s comfort.
Leo Tolstoy
The weakness of love, if there was a weakness, comes from our inability to express and communicate love clearly to our loved ones. It is our ineptness to express love in a manor or language that is recognizable to the beloved. If the oft quoted saying that ‘Love conquers all’ is true, then it can only be false because of human shortfall or failing. The way I see it is this: Love cannot ever lose because as long as the universe exists, Love is! Love is Being without end. And as every beloved knows without fail, true love is felt and known as such. True love conquers all because it does not expect or require reciprocity…true love is a burning bush that does not consume itself. True love is infinite and inextinguishable.
Love has a thousand varied notes to move the human heart.
George Crabbe
Oh, how I wish to ignite true love in my world in 2023! Oh, how I wish to be LOVE, true love, for all who come across my path in 2023. That is my one and only wish…that Love would heal the wounds…the wounds I have created, the wounds others have created…it matters not, who did what…Love being love is the only thing which matters. Yes! May Love be my rule and guide. With an undivided heart, loving into one life at a time. That’s all I hope for…and this will be my anthem for the new year! I will work it out at home, at work, in the gym, on the road, in the community center, in the choir, in the work details and endless appointments yet to fill my days. Yes, I want more of this Love…for all of us…let there be no end.
No Rope Skipping
Challenge: perform as many repetitions as possible while maintaining good form. Do this exercise for at least four days of the week. Keep track of your repetitions on your calendar or journal. Which day did you perform the greatest number of repetitions? Celebrate your improving strength and share your outcome with a friend or training partner.
Lying Hip Crossover
Challenge: perform as many repetitions as possible while maintaining good form. Do this exercise for at least four days of the week. Keep track of your repetitions on your calendar or journal. Which day did you perform the greatest number of repetitions? Celebrate your improving strength and share your outcome with a friend or training partner.
I love my job as a personal trainer! I don’t think I’ve ever actually said that to anyone lately; nor have I written about it in my blog. But I do feel oddly compelled today to extol the virtues of my current employment as a personal trainer. Working on my own, in my own studio (home-based) at the age of 61 is an adventure my younger self would never considered possible or enjoyable. In my youth, I had no designs or plans for myself as a ‘working’ adult. Perhaps this is a result from having my children at age 20. But most likely it is due to the fact that I never veered strongly toward any one interest or career path. But regardless of my lack of planning or career drive, I have found my happy place in my current role. The ever changing activities I perform in my day-to-day duties as a full time personal trainer are strangely fulfilling.
What does my typical workday look like? While no two days are alike, here’s a sample of any one workday (Monday through Friday).
-5:00am: Wake up; coffee; respond to and/or clear emails; check social media; check weather, review the day’s schedule and appointments.
-6:00am: Eat something light (toast with almond butter or yogurt parfait); run on treadmill or go outside to train for upcoming 10K or 1/2 marathon.
-7:30am: Shower, dress, write exercise routines for client’s training sessions.
-8:30am: In the gym: Wipe surfaces, mats, dumbbells, and equipment; take care of indoor/outdoor chores (pets and plants).
-9:00am-Noon: Client appointments (some days the appointments start at 7:00am!)
-Noon-1:00pm: Whip up a quick meal from whatever is calling to me in the refrigerator or pantry; pick up mail at post office.
-1:30pm-3:30pm: Client appointments (or group training class1-time a week at the community center).
-4:00pm: Prepare dinner, begin evening chores, practice new exercise routines and/or choreographies.
-5:00pm: Prepare to teach Zumba Gold evening class (2-times a week) at community center.
-7:00pm: Home again! Finish outstanding chores; reply to any new email correspondence; bookkeeping; etc.
-7:30pm: Time to read, relax and sip bedtime tea.
-8:30pm: Under the covers; soon I’ll be sound asleep and dreaming about tomorrow’s adventures!
Some day’s of course, have the added bonus appointments (board meetings, doctor appointments, friend meetups, administrative office work for spouse’s business), which can crowd my already busy calendar to distraction! But mostly, I am happily engaged with multiple people throughout any given day…advising, instructing, coaching, demonstrating, cajoling, teasing, admonishing…whatever the day brings my way, I try not to have rigid, preconceived notions of what it should hold or become.
I have found that the happiest people are those who do the most for others.
Booker T. Washington
I have learned to embrace lightly the gift of each day with open hands and heart. My role as trainer has taught me that every day brings its own challenges, for myself and my clients. Mostly though, I am in awe of the honor I have to work with so many folks who return happily for their weekly or
bi-weekly training sessions. My life’s work at this moment in time keeps me engaged socially and physically with so many folks who live in my community. Even though my current phase of life as a personal trainer is fulfilling, rewarding and frequently physically challenging, I have to thank my clients who continue to spur me towards becoming my best self. This is, of course, is a reciprocal relationship. For all my striving to become, is to their advantage as I am constantly seeking to provide them with the best training for each of their individual fitness goals and needs. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather do for myself or my community right now than what I am doing each and every day. I am grateful to help so many, one member at a time, become their strongest most healthy selves too.
If I’m an advocate for anything, it’s to move. As far as you can, as much as you can. Across the ocean, or simply across the river. Walk in someone else’s shoes or at least eat their food. It’s a plus for everybody.
Anthony Bourdain
While every work day as a personal trainer requires stamina, focus, passion and a deep desire to impart and influence exercise and healthful activities to my many clients, it is my greatest challenge to manage my own healthy work/play balance. After more than ten years in the business, I have discovered, the hard way, that I must not neglect my own needs for exercise and wellbeing. Admittedly, this is the challenge I will be happily chasing and embracing for all the days ahead in which I have the blessing to work!
What do you think? Would you like to become a personal trainer? Ask me how…I’d love to hear from you!
Mountain Climbers
Challenge: perform as many repetitions as possible while maintaining good form. Do this exercise for at least four days of the week. Keep track of your repetitions on your calendar or journal. Which day did you perform the greatest number of repetitions? Celebrate your improving strength and share your outcome with a friend or training partner.
Think...Feel...Be....BodyWise! 