Personal Foundations: Exercise - The program

Welcome to this series of musings about something we can usefully call personal foundations. Why am I concerned about that? Well, here is how this works for me.

Both in my professional and my personal life, I am concerned about improvements for either my clients, myself or both. I have noticed that most everyone can talk up a pretty good storm about how things should really be and what needs to be done about it. And that's as far as it goes, in more cases than we care to admit.

So what is going on? The logic is sound, the facts are undisputed. Still, nothing changes. For sure, life is full of obstacles - imagined and real, but if we are honest about it - and we should be - we will see that sometimes we are our own worst enemies. It's the old Pogo condition: "We's seen the enemy and they is us".

The if-only game

Have you ever played the "if only" game? It goes something like this: If only I had this thing/the money to do whatever/more this/less that, then everything would be so much better and I would really get things done/be more wonderful/yada-yada-yada. Yes? Me too. Now answer me this - be honest - did you ever win a lot at this game? No? Me neither.

I don't know how many times I have hungered insanely for some new toy or gizmo. As if the only way I could become a happy archer would be to get a Howard Hill laminated bamboo longbow. Or what about (droooool) these hand tied flies from Burma or wherever that are so good for 9 o'clock hatches and so on-and-on-and-on. And if I actually got it/them/whatever-it-was, invariably, very little changed. By then, I was probably chasing something else that was suddenly indispensable for my happiness and well being (except, of course, the well being of my bank account - funny how that works, isn't it).

I have by now reconciled myself to the fact that there will always be more toys than I can possibly buy. And I am learning to play the if-only game with the odds stacked in my favour: if only I don't get carried away by everything the world is trying to sell me all the time and instead use what I have, I will actually get out and do fun stuff more often.

This thing called respect

I think I have finally caught on to the core issue at work here. The senseless chases described above occur because I/you/we continue to lose sight of the real, underlying and fundamental forces that affect our true sense of happiness and well being. We lose ourselves too readily in the mistaken belief that more material possessions will automatically make us more happy. Not true. Any real progress in the happiness department has to come from within; it's a matter of attitude. I am also convinced that there is a strong link between happiness and respect. Try this on for size and comfort: how can you expect others to respect you if you don't respect yourself? Are you going to build your life on deceit or come by it honestly?

A personal foundation

We don't have to be psycho-therapeutical about it, but your sense of self respect is a function of how you feel about yourself as a person and about your life in general and everything in it. Doesn't this sound like we are talking about your personal foundation? Well, there we are, then.

I didn't always have this clear a perception of this. It has been growing on me for some time and then I had occasion recently to go through a book called The Portable Coach which my wife recommended to me. . The book is written by Thomas Leonard, the founder of Coach University, and really gets into all aspects of building your own, rock solid personal foundation. His arguments rang true to me and helped me sort out and organize my own thinking quite a bit. The question then became how to find a focus for doing something about it.

A starting point for change

Thomas Leonard's book deals with 28 strategies for business and personal success. I am just not enough of an overachiever to start 28 new personal development projects right this minute, thank you very much. But I can do one or two. Picking the starting point turned out easier that expected.

Try this: What are you without your health? Not much, if you ask me. Is it as good as it could be, as good as you would want it to be? Most of probably answer no and no.So that's a perfect starting point right there, don't you think?

The two components of good health

Good health is achieved by sensible nutrition and plenty of exercise. Yeah, really. That simple. Fortunately for us, our family has a reasonably good handle on the nutrition side of the equation already. It's the exercise part that is an enduring and pervasive challenge for us. But that will now change! (Said he.)

What we are doing about it

I - actually the whole family - have started a "get fit again" initiative. Times are changing and our bodies, too. The Norsemen of old lived a lot more active lives than most of us, rowing and sailing their longships around and all that.

Rowing is good exercise, I can attest to that. I was in pretty good shape when we were living on Ibis, our Westsail 32', in Mexico and I was rowing the dinghy back and forth several times a day. Everything had to move on and off by a dinghy powered by "Norwegian steam". And I mean everything: groceries, people, dog, ice, water, propane, diesel.

I have to confess that I don't much care for exercise and sweat and pain purely for the sake of exercising. I've always packaged it in with other activities like hiking, fishing or hunting. Or rowing in the tropics when the occasion arose. You can do worse than messing about in Mexican anchorage.

Thing is though, even with the amount of rain we get around here on the we(s)t coast, it still not enough to allow me to row to work. Something has to give. So, a plan B is clearly required.

About exercise programs

I figure I am as good as anyone at inventing excuses for not doing what I don't like doing in the first place. But, as they say, all excuses are created equal. It doesn't much matter which one you use, the result is the same: nada, zip, zilch.

A week or so back I was chatting on the phone with a colleague and friend of mine in Toronto and we were on the topic of exercises. I said something about feeling like I was turning pudding. He laughed and said, yeah like a real coach potato. But then we twigged to the fact that a pudding is a lot softer than a potato. In fact, the pudding makes the coach potato look good! Well, I hadn't thought I was quite that badly off, so I clearly needed to get moving on making some changes.

As I said, I don't exactly relish exercising. It is hard to get started. I first have to get motivated and buy into the concept of a program. I have to believe in the concept behind the program and its structure. Making value judgments like this isn't easy for unless you have done some home work about human physiology and nutrition.

Many years ago I did a four year stint of fairly diligent martial arts training. I read a lot of sports nutrition books and theories about how best to train the body, stay healthy and avoid injuries. The material was bit of a jungle to wade through to say the least. A lot of it was good, some was awful, some was mediocre and some was downright dangerous. I have noticed that the jungle just grew bigger and denser over the years. Still and all, there is some very good material available today. Applying some common sense and asking some pointed questions will go a long way.

The most important thing to consider first is why you are getting into this exercise thing. Will you be training for strength, speed, stamina, endurance, fat loss, muscle gain, recover from injury or what? You tell me. All are legitimate reasons to get moving, but it really pays off to match the program to your overall goals. The bottom line is that there is no one right program that fits all goals. It all depends.

I am thoroughly sold on making the training purpose- or sport specific after having attended several lectures by Jack Medina, a former coach for a couple of the US Olympics Gymnastics Team. He also works with some pretty hot professional sports team and has a great approach that makes a lot of sense to me. In a nutshell, he takes what we know about human physiology at the muscle cell level and compares that to the demands made on the body by a specific sport like marathon running or football. Then he looks at what rest periods there might be between the activities. Finally, he develops a program to train the body to make use of the right energy source (e.g., blood sugar, glycogen, fat) during activity and restore itself during the rest period. If there is no rest period, like running a marathon, the body is trained to utilize the energy source that will be available throughout the whole period of activity. Sounds easy enough, but the hitch is you have to go out and do it yourself, no-one can do it for you.

Finding the right program

Finding a credible program is important. The "right" program is one that fits with the basic motivation and fitness goals of the individual. My goal right now is to get back in shape, regain some lost energy and just plain feel better about myself. I am fortunate in that I have a decent metabolism and tend to stay at the same weight with only minor fluctuations. There is no guarantee that this will be true as I get older, so I probably can't coast on this much longer.

My daughter wants to continue developing a career in fashion modeling. In that business looks is everything and some people try to get it with illicit drugs or yo-yo dieting, both of which can ruin you in more ways than one. Others take the healthier route with exercise and sensible nutrition. I, for one, is glad she has bought into the healthy option. She is blessed with a slender body, but needs to find a way to stay in control of the vital measurements.

My wife is motivated more directly by weight management besides generally wanting to feel fitter and have more energy. So, there it is. Three people, some similar and some unique motivators.

That leaves Dani, our dog. The bonus for her is that any increase in energy should spill over on her by way of extra walks and outings. So maybe this is truly a program for both man and beast, after all.

What we found

You might not think that one program could work for all three of us, but if you are still with me, here is the pay dirt: we found one. It's called the Body for Life program by Bill Phillips. There is a lot more information about this on his web site. We came across his book while browsing the book section at the local Costco and the thing that caught our attention was all the before and after pictures of graduates of the program (also on the web site). There were just too many of them to be a fluke - every fad program you see has at least one success story, right? Bill Phillips' program goes deeper, I think, and seems more sustainable than most programs I have seen.

The way I see it, the program gets you started by laying it all out. You don't have to worry about whether you are doing the right things or enough of them. Do the program as described each day and go home with a clear conscience. The results are tangible and easily observed. While 6 days per week may be a little hard to continue indefinitely (I think), the program develops the foundation for a decent fitness level so that you can go on a maintenance schedule later.

The program structure

The core of the program stretches over 3 months. It is extremely well structured, but allows you just enough flexibility to tailor it to your own tastes without overwhelming you with options. The program mixes resistance training with aerobic exercises which makes it well rounded.

The program also has a very thoughtful and well informed approach to nutrition. That last point is key because my wife has a degree human physiology and sees right through anything that doesn't hold water (how is that for mixing metaphors).

There is a basic structure for each day and the program goes six days a week with Sundays off (or whatever day fits best for you to take off).

The exercises are concentrated around the 9 major muscle groups in a what each muscle group gets at least 48 hours between each work out. Since muscles take about 48 hours to fully recuperate from a strenuous workout, this regime makes a lot of sense.

Between each day of weight training (about 45 minutes) you do one day of aerobic training (about 20 minutes). This makes sense because to get fit and control weight (read: reduce or stabilize fat) you must train your body to be efficient at burning fat for energy. What Covert Bailey calls to become a "better butter burner". Each training session is scripted and laid out. For each day there is a nutritional schedule. You get to eat six times a day and should drink lots of water. Sunday is off, do what you like.

The exercises

1. Chest - pectorals
   • Dumbbell bench press
   • Incline dumbbell bench press
   • Dumbbell flyes
   • Barbell bench press
2. Shoulders - deltoids
   • Seated dumbbell press
   • Standing barbell press
   • Side raises
   • Bent-over raises
3. Back - latissimus dorsi
   • Wide grip pulldowns
   • One-arm dumbbell rows
   • Reverse-grip pulldowns
   • Dumbbell pullovers
4. Arms - triceps
   • Dumbbell extensions
   • Close-grip pushdowns
   • Bench dips
   • Lying dumbbell extensions
5. Arms - biceps
   • Incline dumbbell curls
   • Seated dumbbell curls
   • Standing barbell curls
   • Hammer curls
6. Front thigh - quadriceps
   • Leg extensions
   • Leg press
   • Barbell squats
   • Dumbbell squats
7. Back thigh - hamstrings
   • Dumbbell lunges
   • Standing leg curls
   • Lying leg curls
   • Straight-leg deadlifts
8. Calves
   • Seated calf raises
   • Standing calf raises
   • One-leg calf raises
   • Angled calf raises
9. Abdominals
   • Floor crunches
   • Twist crunches
   • Decline sit-ups
   • Bent-knee leg raises

Day by day

To give you an idea about how to work this program, here is an outline of the day by day sequence of exercises.

Day 1. This is upper body day with exercises for chest, shoulders, back, triceps (back of upper arms) and biceps (front of upper arms). We started on a Monday. About 45 minutes.

Day 2. This is aerobics day. No weight training. 20 minutes.

Day 3. This is lower body day with exercises for quadriceps (thighs), hamstrings (back of legs), calves and abdominals (stomach muscles). About 45 minutes.

Day 4. This is aerobics day. 20 minutes.

Day 5. This is upper body day again. About 45 minutes.

Day 6. This is aerobics day. 20 minutes.

Day 7. This is your day off. For us, this is Sundays.

Day 8. This is a Monday again, but a lower body day, not upper body as in the first week. About 45 minutes.

The pattern repeats in this manner over the 84 days (12 weeks) of the program. As you can see, if you start on a Monday this structure rotates upper and lower body sessions over Monday, Wednesday and Friday. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday are always aerobics and Sunday is day off.

The most important road block

So all this sounded pretty convincing. There was only one thing blocking my path; 178 pounds of yours truly. Funny how that works, isn't it.

I have to admit that the six-days-a-week schedule looked like a real challenge. We quickly figured that if we all did it together, we could exert some group pressure and sort of spur each other on.

Timing is everything

Question was, when. We are all three on different schedules. After work was a problem because of general low energy and lots of other things going on. My schedule flat out isn't predictable enough to guarantee that I will make it home by a certain hour. But we knew that the later in the evening we scheduled it, the greater the chance that the excuses would win.

That left the morning. As far as I am concerned, that's not normally an option for anything but bare necessities. I start my day early because I feel I have to. I'm not much of a morning person, although I am not as bad as a former colleague of mine. One time we needed to be at a client site something like 6:30-7:00 am in the morning and she just looked at me and said: "You can have my body at seven, my brain arrives at nine".

But I digress. In the end, I was simply overwhelmed by logic. Morning is logical. The new rec center near by opens at 6:00 am and was offering a special for 90 day memberships. Well, talk about the moon aligning with the stars and all that. My alarm is now set for 5:30 am. This better be good because my body is threatening to reject me every time it goes off. Lucky for me it is just for 3 months, 84 days to be exact. I'm not making any plans for the thereafter, right now, but I expect I'll be sufficiently in the groove to continue with something. Most people seem to, once they are over the initial hump.

I am curious how this will work out and what my results will be. I have to keep a record to manage the program, so here goes. I will try to post periodic updates, but expect I may get out of synch now and then. Bear with me.


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