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exercise

How Often Should I Workout?

April 6, 2021 by Kathryn Alexander Leave a Comment

People ask me this question often and want the one right answer. 

There is no one right answer, but our bodies do well with frequent movement. It would be optimal to move every day. 

But how you move every day is important too. You don’t need to go all-out hard every day, and going too easy every day won’t help you as much either. When you are lifting hard, heavy, or doing HIIT training (links) you’ll want to add some lower intensity days. If you are healthy and conditioned, doing all lower intensity days will decondition you.

So how many days should you exercise? It’s not rocket science, but there are lots of right answers to this question and none the same from person to person. Read on to learn about what is best for you right now.

Factors to Consider


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Let’s start here: 

  • What are your goals? 

  • Do you have a deadline for your goals?

  • What is your schedule like?

What Are Your Goals?

Do you have an event to prepare for, like an athletic competition or a wedding? Does this event require you to compete physically, or do you just want to look great? If you don’t have an event to prepare for, are your goals related to health? You might have short term health goals like reaching a certain percent of body fat, or a certain amount on your bench press. Or, you can have truly long term goals like maintaining your conditioning and balance all your life. 

I encourage you to think hard about what you want, both short term and long term. “I want to be healthy” is GREAT, but pretty vague. I want to be healthy all my life too. I want to be hiking to remote natural hot springs, moving the furniture when I want, doing my own lawn work, maintaining healthy blood pressure and body composition. Think specifically about what you really want to do next year, and when you are old. 


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Do You Have a Deadline for Your Goals?

Like your short term and long time goals, consider if you have timelines for these. If you have an event, do you have to peak to be at your best physically? Do you want to feel good in your own skin at a reunion or beach vacation? If you have a short term goal coming up quickly and you intend to meet it, you’ll have to prioritize exercise more. 

You can have short and long term goals. In fact, I recommend it. They keep you moving, and keep that sense of relevance. It’s easy to put off working toward a 10-year goal until tomorrow, but not as easy to put off working toward a beach vacation next month. 

What is Your Schedule Like?

I do want you to prioritize your health at all times, but it’s important to understand that sometimes life demands a lot of your energy elsewhere. Post -injury, -surgery, -childbirth, during some school or work programs, and caring for a sick loved one, might chronically stress and drain you. In these situations, you do what you can. Your goal is to take care of your body to the extent that you can now, so you are healthy when you can push it later.

Scheduling 5 sessions a week in your busiest time in life, then missing them and feeling guilty leads to a depression spiral. Instead, be honest about what you can do. Do you have a pocket of time on Saturday mornings, and 15 minutes after the kids go to bed? In that case, you can schedule in a full training session on Saturday and quick movements a couple other days a week. Even ten minute walks once a day add up. 

How Many Days Should You Workout?

The final answer is that you should consider how many days you need to workout given the proximity to your goals. Be reasonable about how much you can do. You can’t do 3 months of work in a week, so give yourself plenty of time but work hard. Likewise, keep your long term health in mind and exercise even if it’s 1 day a week. 

Remember every season of you life will be different. You will be able to give more physically in some stages of life than others. If you do the best with what you have, whether it’s 2 quick sessions a week or 6, you’ll always be at your best. If you are in a period where you don’t have as much to give, do your best to take care of yourself and get through that time. When you have the time and energy, take advantage of it! 

The bottom line is, do what you can even if it doesn’t feel like much. It all adds up! Email me if you have questions about your situation! 


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Filed Under: Training Tagged With: exercise, training advice

11 Things You Must Stop Doing to Make Your Workouts – and Life – Better

May 28, 2016 by Kathryn Alexander Leave a Comment

We are so often told what to do: eat at this restaurant, add this new exercise into your routine, buy this, wear that! What if, instead of doing more and adding more, you would benefit by letting some things go? Bad habits can weigh you down and make your life harder. 

My challenge to you is to identify which of these habits you can change for your benefit, and start applying them today. Please feel free to reach out to me if I can help in this process. I’d be honored to help you start living a happier life! 

1.  Stop Attaching Your Ego to Your Body

Your self worth and your body are two unrelated things. Yes, I want you to feel great about your body! It is a fantastic thing to have an outward symbol of your hard work and be proud of what you have achieved with your physique. Committing to a workout routine also helps develop discipline and faith in a process. 

But these things do not make your self worth. 

They do not make you kind or intelligent or worthy. Even if you skip a workout, break a leg, or gain fat, you are still all the good things you were before. Keep working toward your fitness and physique goals, but remember who you are, what you are good at, and the people you help.  Then hold that in your head regardless of your physical status.

2.  Stop Going After Other People’s Goals.  

For some odd reason, strangers and non strangers alike feel compelled to offer their unsolicited opinions and judgements regarding others’ workouts. “Don’t get too big!”, “Don’t do this exercise or you’ll get bulky.”  “I don’t want to be onstage in a speedo!”  (It’s not a speedo, by the way; nobody’s swimming here.) Why this is acceptable is beyond my comprehension!  

You own your body, your time, and your effort, so you get to pick what you work for.  

If you want to be a powerlifter, train hard for strength! If you want to compete in a physique contest, it’s ok if your social circle doesn’t understand. You’ll be infinitely more motivated when you are honest with yourself about your goals. Then go at them!

3.  Stop Comparing Yourself to Others  

I encourage you to find a training environment where people work hard, have structured goals, smart programs, and compete. I cannot overstate how important it is to be surrounded by people who are smarter, more experienced, and stronger than you are. Training in this type of environment will improve your motivation and results tremendously. You will learn and it will drive you to be better.  

However, this does not mean you should look at someone who is the same age, the same weight, or has some other factor in common, and think you should be able to do exactly what that person is doing. Absolutely not! Why? Because you have a different body. You have a different training history.  

Work as hard as you can to reach your goals, and your training potential. This might include having mentors and workout partners, and even competitive rivals. That is great!  Chase them! But do not put yourself down because you don’t have the exact abilities as someone else.

4.  Stop Procrastinating

You aren’t going to be in shape, disciplined, and experienced when you start. Just start!  You’ll get stronger and work smarter as you go.  Just start!

5.  Stop Pushing Through Injuries

Many competitors, or people with competitive personalities, are the exact opposite of lazy. This trait is what drives them toward excellence and success, but like Achilles, can also be a downfall. If an injury doesn’t respond to a short period of rest, frequently recurs, or causes debilitating pain, it is not worth pushing through. Know when to go see a doctor to save you damage and time in the long run.

6.  Stop Making Excuses

There is a psychological benefit to making an excuse.  It removes control from you and places it onto another factor, which makes you feel better your actions or inaction. Blaming your busy work schedule for skipping workouts is easy to do, and easy to justify.  You have to make ends meet, right? The problem is, it doesn’t help you. It doesn’t help your family you are working so hard to provide for. 

Ever heard the expression, “There is nothing new under the sun”? Literally every problem you can think of, someone else has overcome. Someone out there has had that problem, a worse work schedule, more children to take care of, and still figured out a way to practice healthy habits. If it’s important enough to you, be honest about what you can do, and do it!

7.  Stop Doing Things That Take You Farther Away From Your Goals

We all know the things we should do. Do your workouts, eat your protein and vegetables, go to the dentist, etc.  We check those off a list when we do them. (And you list makers, I know you write them in to your list when you’ve done them, just so you can check them off. Hey, I do it too.) 

Consider all the small things that take you farther away from your goals. Skipping a meal, not eating enough protein, not drinking enough water, and staying up too late. These things seem small but they add up. If you are serious about changing your life, your body, and your habits, identify these issues and address them. 

8.  Stop Drifting 

Write down goals and work toward them. If you don’t have specific goals you are working toward, you roll into the gym when you feel like it, work what you feel like working, and go home when you feel like it. This is okay sometimes. It happens on reload weeks, or on vacation when you are improvising in a different gym, but it really won’t serve you best in the long term. For what to do about this, see below.

9.  Stop Program Hopping

One of the biggest keys to success is following a well designed program. Sure you can make progress without a program, but you’ll get there faster with a program, and who doesn’t want to get there faster? An effective program has a plan, structure, and a big picture. It will stay consistent, or change only slightly, for a period of weeks. Stay with it! 

Do not change simply because you’re bored. Do not attempt to “shock your body” by adding a bunch of random crap to your workouts, or by sticking your finger in an electrical socket. Squeeze all the effectiveness you can out of a program by improving upon the workout each time you do it. That’s hard to do when it changes more than you wash your coffee mug.  

The best way to find a good program is to seek out a qualified trainer who has experience programming. Talk to the people in your gym to find out who they have worked with, who they liked, and what brought results.

10.  Stop Being in a Rut

This sounds like a contradiction to the previous point, but it is not. Hear me out. A rut does not progress, never changes, and does not deliver results. It may be comfortable, and it may have even delivered results at one time. It doesn’t anymore, but hey, it’s better than nothing, right? Maybe. But why settle for better than nothing? Go for better than that!  

11.  Stop Obsessing- Live Life!  

Do a little bit of research to find a workout plan that you can stick to. Have faith, give it time, and do it with gusto! Balance out your hard work a positive attitude, good food, and enough sleep. Then go out and have fun! Enjoy your newfound energy, vigor, and live your life!

I’m excited to share these tips with you and cannot wait for you to apply these strategies and experience the benefits in your life. I’m ready to see you succeed!  

Filed Under: Life, Misc. Tagged With: exercise, fulfillment, happiness, life

What’s So Special About the New Year?

January 2, 2016 by Kathryn Alexander Leave a Comment

It’s a Friday. Fridays are pretty fun even when they aren’t January 1, but there are 52 Fridays in a year. What’s different about this one? 

Why is it filled with hope and unbridled optimism and the promise of #bigthingstocome?

It’s a Friday. 

It’s different though. It’s not like any other Friday. It’s the first day of a new year! It’s different and it’s special just for that. 

It’s the first day called 2016, it’s a clean slate, a blanket of fresh snow. And sometimes that in itself is the last little bit of motivation we need to start a new habit. 

 

What are your New Year’s Resolutions?

Take a minute and think of them right now. 

I’m going to guess:

  • lose weight
  • exercise more
  • be a better husband or wife
  • spend more quality time with your kids
  • enjoy life more fully
  • save more money and pay down debt
  • get organized

Are those new thoughts? Did those goals just come to you this morning? No! Absolutely not! They are things you’ve wanted many times before. How many times have you looked at that piece of cake at the office party and thought, “I shouldn’t eat this.” 

How many times have you tucked your kids in bed only to realize that the day was another exhausting blur of carpools, practices, and homework. You’ve wished you had put away your phone, your kids’ homework, and spent more quality time with them. 

You’ve wished you actually committed to that workout. You wish you actually used your gym key tag.

Why didn’t you do that already? Well, many reasons, and they are all okay. You are human. You are busy, you are obligated to people and tasks, but you have the best of intentions. 

 

Forgiveness

Consider the act of forgiveness. It is an immensely kind act to do for yourself, when you can acknowledge and release others’ transgressions. It doesn’t require any specific formality or documentation. No attorneys, witnesses or notaries. It is simply an shift in your mindset. 

The new year presents us a similar opportunity. It gives us an occasion to put away the old guilt and failures, the missed workouts, the regrets for time lost. It gives us an occasion to start anew, making healthier, kinder choices that will truly fulfill us. 

So take this opportunity to make resolutions. Everybody else is! Gyms are bustling. Vegetables are flying off the grocery shelves. You are practically globally supported! Make your resolutions fun, do-able, and specifically beneficial to you. Sounds silly, but doesn’t “lose 11 pounds of fat” sounds better than “lose weight”? “Go to the gym 3 times a week” will guide you better than “exercise more”. 

The key to resolutions is to harness the energy of the new year, but remember that these goals are set up to become new lifelong habits which aren’t attached to any particular calendar date.

Here are some suggestions for resolutions in case you haven’t come up with any. Don’t pick all of these, but choose and adapt 1 or 2 if they will help you.

  • Drink 64 ounce of water every day.
  • Prepare a healthy breakfast every day.
  • Go for an exercise walk or jog 3 times a week.
  • Write in a gratitude journal 3 times a week.
  • Set your alarm, then put your phone on Do Not Disturb by 7:00 pm every night. (This is my favorite! Love you all, but I need my beauty sleep!)

 

Here’s to a Brilliant 2016!

One more thing: email me and tell me your resolutions! Let me know how they progress. I want to know if you have success with them, if you modify them, if you can positively influence your family and friends through them. 

kathryn@kathrynalexander.com

Let me know!

Bring it, 2016. 

Filed Under: Life, Misc. Tagged With: exercise, fulfillment, goals, healthy eating, life, New Year, New Years Resolutions, resolutions

Cold Water Immersion Therapy: Placebo or the Real Deal?

March 21, 2015 by Kathryn Alexander Leave a Comment

Everybody who has a body should exercise. That much is clear. The benefits of exercise and physical activity have been proven over and over. Practically every area of life is improved with exercise. Even people who don’t participate in structured exercise often do leisure activities or manual labor.

Many people take such great care to find the best exercise program, their favorite gym, the right type of exercise. They count the number of sets and reps they do, how fast they run, how far, the number yoga classes they attend. But do you know that just as important, perhaps even more important, is your recovery?

Why is Recovery So Important? 

Exercise is an acute stressor. It is extremely beneficial in the long run, but stressful in the short term. It is during the recovery phase that you actually reap the benefits of exercise. You must manage the acute stress and care for your body properly to reap the long term benefits. If you don’t recognize that exercise is tough on your body and take care of it, you won’t create an environment healthy enough to adapt and improve, which is ultimately the process which makes you better.

What Happens to the Body During Exercise

Essentially, what you are doing when you exercise is sending a signal to your body that it needs to be stronger or faster or tougher, depending on which type of exercise you do. You present your body with a challenge which stimulates it to respond specifically. (ie, resistance training makes you stronger, and long runs increase your endurance). The act of exercise causes some muscular stress, tears, and inflammation, during which the body’s metabolic pathways create some measurable biomarkers. We can assess the body’s inflammatory response by measuring interleukin six (IL-6) and C-reactive protein (CRP). Creatine kinase (CK) and lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) can be measured in the body to indicate levels of muscle damage. Of course, there are many other metabolic responses and pathways in play here, but these are just a few which give us an idea of how the body is handling stress.

Common Methods of Recovery

Many people think of recovery as cooling down, rehydrating, eating to replenish energy stores, and sleeping. These are all important things to do, but these are actually the most basic “must-do’s”.


Here are two of my clients post workout.  These chicks work hard! They do 6:00 minute planks "for fun" after their workout.  Next on the to do list: eat and rest!

Here are two of my clients post workout.  These chicks work hard! They do 6:00 minute planks “for fun” after their workout.  Next on the to do list: eat and rest!

If an individual exercises for 2 hours, which is on the shorter side for many, he or she must fully recovery in time for an optimal workout again 22 hours later. As you can see, the more intense and frequent workouts are, the more effective recovery must be to allow the athlete to continue. 

Athletes Must Recover Harder

Professional and amateur athletes are going to greater lengths than ever to enhance recovery in hopes that they can recover faster and more fully, and work hard again in their next workout session. In addition to carefully calculating ratios of pre-, peri- and post-workout supplements, they are also thoughtfully adding in the macronutrients in the proper amounts and at the right times. They foam roll before exercising, foam roll and stretch after, plan reload weeks and recovery days. Acupuncture, acupressure, sports massages and Airrosti are on their busy calendars.  

All of these therapeutic rehab or “prehab” modalities have some validity. Like exercise selection, recovery methods should be specifically chosen too, if for no other reason than that each individual only has so much time to spend each day.

Cold Water Immersion Therapy

One recovery method many people are turning to is cold water immersion therapy.  Cold water immersion therapy involves submerging yourself in very cold temperatures post exercise. This can be done via ice packs, cold showers or even swimming in cold water. If you live in Austin, Texas, like me you can do your cold water immersion therapy in the waters at Barton Springs Creek which are chilly 68° year-round. Many ice baths are much colder.


Barton Springs, in Austin, Texas.  Can this place get prettier?

Barton Springs, in Austin, Texas.  Can this place get prettier?

Proponents of cold water therapy claim that it improves circulation, decreases inflammation and muscle damage, perception of soreness, and improves recovery time. Many people claim cold water therapy also increases mental toughness which is a viable tool in sports and life.

Cold water immersion therapy is usually administered in one of two ways: cold water therapy alone, or contrasting cold water and warm water therapy alternative.  Contrast water therapy is measured in a certain number of minutes in cold water, then immediately warm water.  This processes is repeated as many times as the athlete chooses.


2014 brought us a new way to do ice water therapy.  See my ice bucket challenge here.

2014 brought us a new way to do ice water therapy.  See my ice bucket challenge here.

Review Showing Benefits of Contrast Therapy

A 2013 meta analysis published in PloS One combined data from13 studies that used a variety of contrast therapy interventions, and found that contrast therapy did, in fact, yield statistically significant differences in biomarkers post workout as compared to passive recovery [1]. It is important to note that these were contrast therapy interventions, not solely cold water interventions. The authors of this review indicate that while they have not seen other reviews on contrast water therapy, the studies involved in their review included other potentially confounding factors such as stretching, compression wear, and massage. Further research is warranted to fully understand the effects of cold and contrast water therapy.

Studies Fail to Demonstrate Benefits of Cold Water Therapy

Other studies have failed to demonstrate a benefit from cold water therapy. A September 2013 study of experienced rugby players showed no difference in the cold water therapy group verses the passive recovery group. [2] Both groups played 80 minutes of full contact rugby game simulation, and then were tested on muscle function and blood marker tests after their cold water therapy or passive intervention. The groups were not statistically significant either before or after the game and intervention.  

Similarly, a recent study published in January 2015 showed no benefit of cold water therapy following sprinting in 24 well trained athletes. [3]  This study’s intervention groups also tested differences in hydrostatic pressure of the cold water, but pressure changes did not improve outcomes either.

Of course, there are many many more trials on cold and contrast water therapy, and this isn’t even a comprehensive review.  But, even this little bit leaves us with questions.

Study Shows Placebo Effect Improves Results

I want to address one more study, which I find most interesting of all of them.  An Australian group discovered that no research had been done on cold water immersion therapy and the placebo effect [4].  To test this, they designed a study that had 3 test groups.  All subjects performed a high intensity (HIT) sprint protocol, during which biomarkers and subjective measures were recorded.  

The subjects had intramuscular thermistors injected for the test, blood analyses, and pain tolerances measured.  Their protocol, after a warm up, was four 30 second sprints on a bike against resistance.  Immediately after the HIT session, 24 hours later, and 48 hours later, they were tested for maximal leg strength and power.  In short, these guys were uncomfortable!

Their intervention groups were assigned as cold water therapy, thermoneutral water therapy, and thermoneutral placebo water therapy.  The placebo group was informed that their water bath included a new “recovery oil”, as they watched a member of the research team add it to the water.  The “recovery oil” was actually Cetaphil, a common skin cleanser which does not have performance effects.

All three groups showed a decrease in maximal voluntary contraction on the immediate and 24 hour post exercises tests.  It is commonly known that high intensity muscular work can decrease measurable strength for days after the work session, so that demonstrates that this HIT session elicited an appropriate muscular response.  Biomarkers from the blood tests were similar for all groups too.

The cold water group was given research demonstrating cold water therapy’s effectiveness on cycling exercise, so they entered the study with a belief that the therapy would benefit them.  Similarly, the placebo group was informed that their recovery oil was as effective as cold water therapy. 

Both the cold water and placebo groups rated themselves as more psychologically ready for exercise and less fatigued than the thermoneutral, non placebo group.  That is to be expected.  The mind is an extremely powerful thing, and it can drive you to reach a different mental state.  

But here’s the kicker: both the cold water and thermoneutral placebo group showed improvements in strength recovery over the thermoneutral group. This is actual, muscular exertion in which the placebo group performed as well as the cold water group.  

The actual mechanism for cold water therapy’s efficacy is not completely understood.  Is it the cold water? This study suggests not, as the blood markers did not significantly change even in the cold water group. Or is it simply the belief that the cold water is an effective therapy? Is it the combination of both, in which that belief is strong enough to drive the placebo effect for the thermoneutral group?

Should You Try Ice Baths?

What’s an athlete to do when research is split like it is on the case of cold water immersion therapy? Some evidence suggests it is beneficial, where other carefully designed trials cannot elicit a measurable response. Importantly, none of the outcomes have been negative or dangerous. One can then assume that it is worth trying. At the worst, an athlete who tries cold water therapy to no benefit has lost some ice, some time, and some minutes of warmth from his or her life.  However, there is the potential that he or she might see some personal gain from the experience.

Regardless of which it is, the important takeaway here is that our attitudes and beliefs are so powerful, they effect our body’s performance in physiologically measurable ways. Individual athletes should keep this in mind in effort to remain mentally strong. Coaches should be aware of this to help develop and foster a positive training environment, and mentally tough athletes.  

How do you recover?  The science geek in me loves my studies and data, but just as much, I love real life feedback.  Let me know what you do, what you have tried, and how it works for you. Now, go work as smart on your recovery as you work hard in your workouts!  

References

1.  Bieuzen, F., Bleakley, C. M., & Costello, J. T. (2013). Contrast Water Therapy and Exercise Induced Muscle Damage: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis. PLoS ONE, 8(4), e62356. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0062356.

2.  Takeda, M., Sato, T., Hasegawa, T., Shintaku, H., Kato, H., Yamaguchi, Y., & Radak, Z. (2014). The Effects of Cold Water Immersion after Rugby Training on Muscle Power and Biochemical Markers. Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 13(3), 616–623.

3.  Leederab, J.D.C, Van Somerenbc, K.A., Bellbc, P.G., Spenceb, J.R., Jewelld, A.P., Gazee, D., & Howatsonbf, G. (2015).  Effects of seated and standing cold water immersion on recovery from repeated sprinting.  Journal of Sports Sciences.  Jan 9,1-9. DOI:10.1080/02640414.2014.996914.

4.  Broatch, J.R., Peterson, A., & Bishop, D. J. (2014). Postexercise Cold Water Immersion Benefits Are Not Greater than the Placebo Effect. Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise. 46(11), 2139 – 2147.  DOI: 10.1249/MSS.0000000000000348.

Filed Under: Recovery, Research, Science, Training Tagged With: cold water immersion, contrast water therapy, exercise, ice bath, ice water immersion, recovery, science

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