One of the nice things about my daughter is that she makes a great personal trainer. Just the other night, as I was attempting to read her a bedtime story, she turned to me and said, “Why don’t I color instead, and you can do some exercises?” She wasn’t content until I agreed to do my long-forgotten abs routine right there on her bedroom floor. When my stomach muscles started burning and I paused for a moment to rest, she looked up from her coloring with a stern expression and said, “Why are you stopping?” I had been planning to quit, but not liking the feeling of being judged and found lacking by a four-year-old, I started right back up. I kept at it until she pronounced both of us done, put away her coloring, and gave me a kiss goodnight.
I remember a time when I was little and my mother put me in charge of her diet. It was my job, as the kid with no interest whatsoever in food, to serve her reasonable portions and put away the rest of the dinner before she could go back for seconds. At the time I thought it was fun, despite being an added chore to my day, sort of taking on the parent role for a few precious moments each day. But now I get it on a deeper level. Moms have this way of holding themselves even more accountable when looking at themselves through their children’s eyes. After all, we aren’t just caregivers, we’re role models. Sure, it may just be a few crunches you hadn’t planned to do that day, but even still, why quit if you don’t really have to? I’d like her to grow up thinking of exercise as a normal part of any day. And thinking that you don’t quit just because you start getting a little tired.
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Showing posts with label exercise. Show all posts
Monday, August 17, 2009
Thursday, June 04, 2009
Yoga Kids
I’ve been trying to get back into doing yoga regularly, much to the joy of my kids. I love how excited they get at the sight of me putting the Rodney Yee DVD into the player. They scurry around, kicking toys out of the way, clearing a space for the three of us, chanting “Yoga! Yoga!” Do other kids do this?
They’re actually ridiculously good yogis. The way they carefully adjust each pose until it matches mine, then put me to shame by folding themselves effortlessly in half without things like bones or joints seeming to get in the way. They get bored with the simple poses, and start throwing their own complications into it, standing on one foot while balancing a toy in one hand while waving their other arm around in circles (a la Cat in the Hat, before he falls off the ball).
At some point it always devolves into contact yoga, with me fighting to maintain a warrior II pose, with a kid hanging from each arm, or doing downward dog while the girls see how many times they can crawl beneath me before I change poses.
Sometimes after we’re done I feel extremely exercised, without feeling particularly relaxed, which isn’t really the point of yoga, and I’ll decide that next time I’ll wait until the kids are napping to do yoga. But when, a few days later, the girls are flipping through their vast DVD collection, trying to decide between an early Disney classic or modern Pixar favorite, and stumble across the yoga DVD and turn to me and say, “Mommy, can we do yoga instead?” how can I possibly say no?
They’re actually ridiculously good yogis. The way they carefully adjust each pose until it matches mine, then put me to shame by folding themselves effortlessly in half without things like bones or joints seeming to get in the way. They get bored with the simple poses, and start throwing their own complications into it, standing on one foot while balancing a toy in one hand while waving their other arm around in circles (a la Cat in the Hat, before he falls off the ball).
At some point it always devolves into contact yoga, with me fighting to maintain a warrior II pose, with a kid hanging from each arm, or doing downward dog while the girls see how many times they can crawl beneath me before I change poses.
Sometimes after we’re done I feel extremely exercised, without feeling particularly relaxed, which isn’t really the point of yoga, and I’ll decide that next time I’ll wait until the kids are napping to do yoga. But when, a few days later, the girls are flipping through their vast DVD collection, trying to decide between an early Disney classic or modern Pixar favorite, and stumble across the yoga DVD and turn to me and say, “Mommy, can we do yoga instead?” how can I possibly say no?
Thursday, April 30, 2009
Getting Back in Shape
My father has invested in an exercise machine called the ROM. While their price ($14k) might make you think ROM stands for “Ridiculously Overpriced Machine” it actually means “Range of Motion." The ROM claims to work your entire body in two 4-minute workouts. Now, if I hadn’t watched my father’s body slowly transform into the body he had 20 years ago, exclusively through the use of this machine, I’d be as skeptical as you are now.
My post-baby workout consisted of practicing yoga once or twice a week, occasional hikes with the dog, and that everyday stuff of toting around a 10 or 20 pound child while making 50 trips a day up and down the stairs in our house. I thought it was a pretty good workout. Until I was carrying 20 and 25 pound kids around, and regularly hurting my back doing it.
I decided to give the ROM a try. My dad’s house isn’t far from mine, so on my bi-weekly breaks I worked in a trip over there for a 4-minute workout. It’s hard to argue you just don’t have that kind of time in a day. You’re supposed to alternate between the upper body workout one day, which is like a rowing machine, and the lower body workout, which is like a stair-stepper, the next day. Since I was only working out twice a week, I worked up to doing both upper and lower body workouts every Tuesday and Thursday. This had the added benefit of making me feel too ill to eat for a good hour afterward, sort of a built-in diet.
I have to admit, even with this abbreviated version of the mini-workout, I’ve been very happy with the results. In just a few months I’d slimmed down while putting on muscle, most visibly in my upper arms and thighs. I can now haul my kids around without straining my back, and most of the post-pregnancy flab is gone. But most importantly, I'm the strongest I've ever been. As a little person who hates being seen as a weakling, it gives me immense satisfaction to be able to haul heavy things around without any help.
Every time I think of skipping my workout, I calculate exactly what I hope to accomplish in my 2-3 hour break, and have a hard time convincing myself I don't have 4-8 minutes to spare. And then I think of the roughhousing I'm able to do with my kids now that I'm strong enough not to hurt myself, and I find my car steering itself toward my dad's house.
My post-baby workout consisted of practicing yoga once or twice a week, occasional hikes with the dog, and that everyday stuff of toting around a 10 or 20 pound child while making 50 trips a day up and down the stairs in our house. I thought it was a pretty good workout. Until I was carrying 20 and 25 pound kids around, and regularly hurting my back doing it.
I decided to give the ROM a try. My dad’s house isn’t far from mine, so on my bi-weekly breaks I worked in a trip over there for a 4-minute workout. It’s hard to argue you just don’t have that kind of time in a day. You’re supposed to alternate between the upper body workout one day, which is like a rowing machine, and the lower body workout, which is like a stair-stepper, the next day. Since I was only working out twice a week, I worked up to doing both upper and lower body workouts every Tuesday and Thursday. This had the added benefit of making me feel too ill to eat for a good hour afterward, sort of a built-in diet.
I have to admit, even with this abbreviated version of the mini-workout, I’ve been very happy with the results. In just a few months I’d slimmed down while putting on muscle, most visibly in my upper arms and thighs. I can now haul my kids around without straining my back, and most of the post-pregnancy flab is gone. But most importantly, I'm the strongest I've ever been. As a little person who hates being seen as a weakling, it gives me immense satisfaction to be able to haul heavy things around without any help.
Every time I think of skipping my workout, I calculate exactly what I hope to accomplish in my 2-3 hour break, and have a hard time convincing myself I don't have 4-8 minutes to spare. And then I think of the roughhousing I'm able to do with my kids now that I'm strong enough not to hurt myself, and I find my car steering itself toward my dad's house.
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