The Real Definition of “Workout”: More Than The Act Itself.

For our second topic… what is a workout?

The act of working out is part of it, of course.  During the act of performing exercises, youare breaking down your muscles and taxing your body’s energy systems.  Since you are breaking down the body, your work isn’t done here!  There are actions that should be taken to aid the body in its recovery.  Body recovery is the period of rebuilding for next the workout.  If you don’t allow recovery, you are constantly breaking down without providing your body an opportunity to build up new strength.

Would you spend hours slaving away in the kitchen, plating a beautiful meal and setting the table, only to walk out the door, find another kitchen, and begin immediately preparing another meal?  Never, that would be kind of insane.  You are going to sit down and eat the meal you prepared, maybe taking the time to savor each delicious bite.  And then, you are going to digest and incorporate the nutrients into your body.  If energy is being re-routed because you are stressed, exercising, or experiencing strong, upsetting emotions when the body is trying to digest, then you might experience indigestion of some sort.  Itis important to devote full presence to recovery and “digestion” after aworkout.  That is why savasana is so lovely after a yoga practice (or an iGO fusion class).  Youare enjoying the meal and digesting.  Butrecovery is more than just lying on your back for 10 minutes after a workout(my 12 year old soccer team calls it “starfish pose”, and we all flop into it after a tough game or practice!) 

Nutrition is key.  You should be providing your body with calories pre and post workout.  What you eat should vary depending on time of day, and type of exercise.  In the morning, I recommend some protein, especially if you are off to a hot yogac lass within an hour or two.  Every person is different, but dizziness and fainting experienced in hot yoga may bea result of not eating enough of the right thing beforehand.  Generally, endurance runners will need more carbohydrates.  However I am not going too deep into specifics, because nutrition should be hyperly individualized, and should vary depending on the exercise that you do.  Another point about individualization I wantto make is that your diet should be supportive to your body and activity level.  Diets are all about depravity.  Cut out carbs, cut out starches, or salt, orfat, or whatever other fad diet is out there. Your body NEEDS all of those things. My personal story is mine, andI will share it not because it can be replicated necessarily (there may be similar experiences), but because it shows how deprivation can be counter-productive.  I spent a few years being a bit obsessive about my diet and my weight and experienced greatly fluctuating weight and energy levels during this time. Besides biking for transportation, yoga was my predominant form of “exercise.”  Yoga will lower one’s metabolism (makes sense right, you are slowing downnn), as will depriving your body from the calories it needs.  Yoga also has other impacts, like stress reduction and generally increased happiness, which can have an indirect, positive effect on weight loss.  There are so many variables, so find YOUR balance.  I found a more steady state when I brought some meat and fat back into my diet, atebalanced meals and snacks (the fruit-only snacks I relied on led to a sugar spike and crash), and wove in aerobic and strength training into my week.  Not “perfect”, but everything is always changing, so I just try and stay present with what my body is telling me.  Sorry if I just made the nutrition topic abit murkier by shedding some light on it.
                  
                     “The more I learn, the more I realize, I don'tknow” - Albert Einstein.   
 
Word, Mr. Einstein.

Sleep. Arguably, 7-8 hours. Do it.  This guide offers some fascinating information about sleep, http://science.education.nih.gov/supplements/nih3/sleep/guide/info-sleep.htm.  There is a chart in this article that gives the average amount of sleep different animals get each day!

Mental health is part of your workout.  It will help you stay on track and avoid getting discouraged.  Find ways to de-stress and understand your moods and emotions, giving them space to exist.  If you can succeed at that, it will help you let go of guilt if you don’t follow your workout plans exactly.  Improving your mental health may also improve your body’s ability to recover by influencing your parasympathetic systems.  This gets a complex and one could write a book on it (not me), but I will mention some things to consider.  You want to find ways that you enjoy tobalance your sympathetic and parasympathetic nervous systems.  Sympathetic systems contribute to your fight or flight response and explosive movements.  If a person doesn’t have theability to rest and recuperate (i.e. their body doesn’t have the ability tocalm down) they will eventually break down because the body is going 150% allthe time.  When this person trains, theywill be overtraining because they haven’t rested.  By strengthening your aerobic capacity, your body has the ability to recover, rebuild, and reproduce strong actions.  There are other ways to do this besides distance endurance work.  It is the parasympathetic nervous system (chill and ill) that we want to activate for recovery.  If you are going 150% all the time you need to find a balance to restore some parasympathetic tone.  One simple way is to breathe into your back.  You can place your hands at different places on your back and try to direct your breathe there.  Obviously, I am going to say yoga can be great for this. Aerobic interval training will help strengthen your ability to recover as well, as aerobic fitness lends itself to helping reduce sympathetic tone.  Find something that resonates with YOU.