by Dan | Apr 24, 2016 | Exercise, Goals, Motivation, weight lifting, Wellness/Health
There are always challenges that will come up in our life, from start to finish…how do we handle them? Do we control them, and do they control us? Do we work at them to the best of our ability, or do they take us down a path we would rather not experience? Who knows, as there are always different situations that arise for all of us on a daily basis. We have to take them all individually, and do the best we can. In life, you have control over 3 things: 1) What you think; 2) What you say; and 3) How you act or behave. Our lives are not like our computer. We don’t have a control key that we can just hit when we need.
And we certainly don’t have the power to restart, or redo things in life by hitting on that keyboard “control/alt/delete” at the same time. Sometimes we may wish we could go back and redo things. That is what life’s experiences teach us: We learn from past mistakes. Two things in life we are in total control of are our ATTITUDE, and our EFFORT. Exercise can help with both of these, and can also help feel more like we are in control. We have to have control when we are doing resistance exercises, or lifting weights.
If we control our movements when doing exercise, we optimize the use of our muscles the way they were meant to be. We have to concentrate, focus, and stay disciplined…which teaches us the basic things needed for our life as well.
My daughter Megan is a swimmer, and watching her, especially in the backstroke, it the picture of control. In order to do this stroke well, you need balance, strength, grace, concentration, and a positive attitude. Here she is first for the start of a race of the backstroke:
She needs strength to get up in her stance, stay focused and hold that position until the gun goes off, and then the strength to push off backwards, followed by the grace to propel herself back up out of the water, all requiring a lot of concentration, and all of which starts with her attitude. Then the next 2 pictures are her showing the strength and grace this stroke requires, one from her in front, and one from the side.
It is amazing to watch! All of those above attributes come out during this stroke, and she cannot see where she is going behind her, so as she passes underneath flag markers in the pool, she has to know when to go under, turn, and kick back off the wall to go back the other way in one fluid motion. It is a like doing a race blind…she cannot see behind her, but has to have the trust, and confidence, to swim backwards, and know where she is going. She is in complete control! Just before she goes under, she takes a deep breath, and then goes down, does a flip turn, and has to”let it go” by kicking off the wall to head back. That is a good philosophy to have for life in general. When times get tough, and we think we “can’t go anymore” we need to take a deep breath, and then “let it go”! Just let it go!
Our attitude and effort are at the far right, and we need it at high gear to accomplish things. Exercise can help us to focus better, to improve our attitude…all based on our effort! Our self control can be determined by multiple things in our life, and all need continuous work and effort, and a positive attitude.
Utilize these, and improve our ability and sense of control! And remember, don’t worry about things you can’t control…it is out of our hands. Control what we can, and then move on. Take a deep breath, and let it go! I will keep working on my exercise streak, and have hit a magic number of “3131”…where it ends, I don’t know!
Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3131
by Dan | Apr 17, 2016 | Exercise, Family, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
As Sarah’s shirt says, “Marathon”…the true picture of endurance: the ability or strength to continue despite fatigue, stress, or other adverse conditions. Things don’t just get handed to us. If they are especially important, then it takes even more work to achieve it. To earn it!
Tom and Sarah have been at this for many years as well, as the sign above them states, half marathon. They were getting ready to sign in for the race at Fargo. Training partners and friends, through thick and thin!
Those 2 have had my back for many years…and not just with running. Just like these races and events are not a sprint, for either entering in, or getting ready for, just like life. Life is an endurance event, and there will be many peaks and valleys throughout our life. We have to convince ourselves to keep going, and to work through those times that are tough…there are many more good times to experience.
Those challenges in life go much smoother when you have other people supporting you, encouraging you, and just being there for you.
Steve and I worked at it to go to Disney and do the Goofy race…half marathon on Saturday, marathon on Sunday, for a total of 39.3 miles! How much more endurance can there be! We proved we could do it, and with this, what in life would we not be able to handle? Some of the things in life we think are difficult now seem easy compared to this. But, we proved to ourselves that we did not have to be limited, not only physically, but especially mentally. If we can convince our minds of these challenges, the physical part falls into place.
My kids have all shown what they can do with endurance as well…Megan with swimming, Nick with running, and Molly with a multitude of different sports. All this translates to their life now…putting there head down, and “enduring” all of the stress and challenges of college life and pressure. If they keep reminding themselves of what they have already done, what they can do will seem easy. Here are all 3 with their different sports.
Convince yourself of the strength you have to continue despite all of the pressures, fatigue, and even negative thinking that can get in our way. Life is a marathon, and we are in it for the long run. At the end of it, we can look back and realize what a success in life we really had.
Remember…You can do this! Don’t give up on yourself! You can do amazing things, just believe in yourself. Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3124
by Dan | Apr 10, 2016 | Exercise, Family, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
Be true to yourself, help others, make each day your masterpiece, make friendships a fine art. Friends? Where would we be without them? They are some of the people closest to us, and for me, have also been training partners. Here Tom and I are after one of our early Grandma’s Marathon events. As I have said in the past, it is not the marathon itself that was important, it was all of the training runs and talks we had getting ready for the marathon. Tom just texted me this week telling me he thinks his “racing days are over”, as he is struggling to keep up with a pace that we had once done. I reminded him it does not matter the time anymore. We have already done it. As he said, it gets tough to admit that. We are competitive, and don’t want to admit we are “slowing down”. I reminded him of what I have on a poster of mine:
Who cares how slow we are anymore! I reminded him that it is just a way now to spend more time enjoying the scenery along the way…something we did not get to appreciate as much in the early days as we were worried about our time. Enjoy life…at a slower pace!
There was Steve, when he could not run at Fargo due to his heart. I still ran, but something was definitely missing. My competitive days are in the past. I missed running with my friend, talking, working things out, discussing all of life’s issues and problems. Friendship means so much more than a time!
Don’t take for granted those people who are important in your life now…we will not always get to have them. Appreciate life for what it is. Those people extend to many…
Sarah of course! My wife, my “always training partner”, and my best friend!
Chris…my nurse ever since I have been at Brown Clinic. She is now a runner, and loving it. I want her around for a long time too.
New friends develop by attempting things that may not be in our comfort zone. Rich is involved with me in our Fun Fit program, doing a lot of resistance/weight training. I got him going more into running now as well.
Then there are the new “runner” friends…made from the Watertown Area Running Club…who all have the enjoyment of just wanting to run. This first is one of the original ones of us all after competing at Fargo.
We hang together, and we love to run…but best of all, we have become friends. Over the past few years we continue to recruit others, and we love to show how much we love to be active, and stay healthy.
Never forget those people we meet along the way in our lives…they become friends…people we care about, like spending time with them, help them through things in life just like they help us. Working together helps to stay motivated to keep going, and working on staying healthy, and active. Bottom line though, it is not about the exercise. It is about those bonds of friendship we make along the way. Those are the things, and the people we will remember forever. Who cares what are time is, or what place we get, or who we beat. Enjoy the ride along the way, and don’t miss out on the good things, the good times, that are right in front of us. That is what life is all about. I would definitely say having friends is having Success in Life!
I can’t say it any better than this! Friendships are for a lifetime…Keep moving everybody, and enjoy these people who make your life a success!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #” 3117
by Dan | Apr 3, 2016 | Exercise, Goals, Motivation, Wellness/Health
Exercise requires great energy, strength, concentration…but how hard should you work? How hard is hard enough? When is too much, too much? Here is my family, showing off our sports, and the intensity in our face…we may be serious, but we have fun, and we support each other! We have our game face on: Bring it on!
We are all individuals, and that intensity can be perceived differently by all of us. In general, intensity can be split into 3 categories: High, medium, and low intensity. You can help judge is by your heart rate as well. Your maximum heart rate should be 220-age. Then take 75-85% of that for high intensity, 60-70% for medium intensity, and 50-55% for low intensity. If is always safer to start out slow, and work your way up, but eventually, you need to make it more challenging for yourself. You need to sweat, feel tired, and feel like you actually did something as well. Much of this is not so much about how far your body/legs can take you, but how far your mind can take you. We have to listen to our bodies, but at the same time, we cannot rely solely on our minds. If we do, we may never get out of our “comfort zone”. We have to push our limits, but we have to listen to our bodies, and mind, and find that balance. Finding that balance can be very tough!
Here are a bunch of us from run club getting ready to go for a run…putting our game face on! Ready to take on the day, take on the run. We are ready for a challenge. If life we face those same challenges, and the intensity of those things in life also vary, again, ranging from high to low intensity as well. How well conditioned we are can determine a lot of how we are going to handle those challenges in life. Are we going to get tired easily, and throw in the towel? Or are we going to use that towel and wipe off our foreheads, put our head down, and face those challenges in life head on? Again, intensity requires great energy, strength, and concentration.
Here I am doing a plank. To hold that position requires concentration, strength, and focus. When I do this in a workout I try to do continuously for a minute, take a break, then repeat back and forth. I could not even come close to a minute when I first started, and I would not have yet had I not become more “intense” with working at it.
Intensity requires a lot of strength, “reinforcements”, and concentration…more so to convince your mind than your body. When things with exercise get tough, do we quit or back down? When things in life get tough, do we quit or back down? The choice is ours…and yes it requires work and effort. But that does not mean you can’t have fun with it, and also help push yourselves in the process.
Here I am pushing my daughter Megan with her workout…or more so, cheering her on, with both of us laughing in the process. Bottom line, we were having fun, and spent more time laughing, but also, encouraging each other to keep working. I do this in my Fun Fit workouts during the week at Anytime Fitness, with all of us cheering each other on to keep going. We also do this with our weekly run club gatherings.
We can still be intense, but also, and more importantly, have fun! If you don’t also make it fun, it becomes a chore, a nuisance, or just plain work. You need to make it fun, and then you will keep doing it, and as a result, gain all the benefits of this as well!
As this states: The law of the land is intensity. Without it, you’re doomed to failure. With it, you’re destined for glory. Use that intensity to your advantage, and see how many other benefits this will give you every single day, with every single thing you do, to help solve and get through every obstacle and problem that you may encounter during the day! Your intensity can help you have “success in life”.
Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3110
by Dan | Mar 27, 2016 | Exercise, Goals, Motivation, Weather, Wellness/Health
Do you have Fortitude, that firmness of spirit, a steadiness of will in doing good in spite of difficulties faced in the performance of one’s duty? In achieving one’s goals? We all face challenges when it comes to exercise, and the biggest factor is the continuation of an exercise plan. We all get busy, we all face challenges, and we are have those days when exercise is not really what we want to do. These are the times when we need fortitude more than any other time. That strength of mind to keep going, especially when we know the benefit can be very high.
We need to push ourselves, especially when our mind tells us otherwise. If we can convince our minds, we can make it. Our bodies can take a lot more than we think. Here Sarah is pushing it towards the finish line of one of the 5k races we did. It does not mean that she did not have to work for it though.
When we push it, we know it! We will recover, but in the end we know that we gave it our all. That goes for all of it. As stated many other times, unless we are able to push past our comfort zones, we will never know how far we can actually go, or how much we can actually achieve! You would be surprised as to how much you can amaze yourselves as well.
But, in South Dakota, we also get to face the weather conditions as well. This in and of itself can be a huge challenge! A challenge that tests us physically, but even more so, mentally! Our bodies can take it if our minds are willing to take it on.
Here Sarah and I are coming across the finish line of the Turkey Day Race on Thanksgiving. At this time of year, the temperature can be very cold, and can be tough to convince yourselves to get out and just do it! When it is a race like this, it is always helpful when there are more people involved. It helps motivate you to keep going, and to go out and exercise, whether running or walking. Otherwise, when it is cold, or snowing, it is very easy to say “forget it, not today!”. Been there, done that. It makes you stronger overall when you still exercise in conditions like this. Life is always throwing curve balls, and the saying “adversity makes you stronger” comes even more into play. You feel like you can handle anything that life throws at you when you can go exercise in conditions that are far from ideal.
Regardless of the conditions, you can do it. If you wait for conditions to be perfect, you will never get anywhere. It is very rarely perfect. But boy when they are, it makes it even more worthwhile!
Have the courage to face that adversity, and potentially poor conditions, and see what you are capable of doing…just like life in general. The daily grind of everyday life can take its toll as well, and it is easy to feel frustrated by it. Stick to that strength of mind, that firmness of spirit…that Fortitude!
Here Steve, one of our run club members, and friend, sums it up well with his shirt…run forever! That can translate to exercise forever, walk forever…keep moving forever! Use it or lose it. You need to have the fortitude to continue at those times of adversity in order to make us stronger in general.
Keep moving everybody!
Dr. Dan
Consecutive Exercise Day #: 3103
