Let’s Clear the Mind
/Month of September brought a whole new meaning to being stuck at home. The smoke that kept us at home towards the end of August just grew into a day of Apocalypse. I couldn’t help but wonder if that was a sign to think through our priorities and what we would like to do with life. The good thing was that we had our Train and Smile class on the day that the sun never showed up for the whole day. And as always, the smiles of everyone brought me back to earth - the earth, that I am having a hard time recognizing.
SEpt 9th at 8:45Am - sun never showed up
There is definitely something about the endorphins that our body releases when we workout. Even though I am tired and sweaty after a quick workout session, I do feel much better than prior to working out. There are certain days that it is really hard to convince myself to set up my dumbbells and start lifting, or to run up and down the stairs to get my heart rate up. But once I win that battle in my head, I definitely do come out of it more energized and happier.
I should admit that this month had been tougher than most of the other months of 2020. My mind went to so many places and I started to feel the stress of everything that is going on around us - politics, politics, politics and some COVID. I never thought that I would ever get impacted with the actual politics because my entire life, I have done everything to avoid listening to politics - and I am from Turkey so you imagine... However, this year, that is NOT possible. I ended up finding ways to make it lighter in my head... And the best way, that I found, was to embrace it and make something better out of those heavy thoughts in my mind. I used my Train and Smile classes to create themes that would turn those thoughts into fun workouts. I basically focused on those endorphins to cheer all of us up, even it it would be only for the 30 minutes. And with all of that, we completed our 50th Train and Smile class today, with the theme of “frying” (hence the heated political environment) and a pan as our workout tool!
The cool thing about endorphins and strength training is that the effects are not just limited to the moment of the workout, they linger way after the workout. This is the whole premise of my 15 minute workouts - not only to get you to a happy state in a short period of time but also have that happiness to linger longer. Not to mentioned your muscles will also continue to burn off of your fat storage if you did your training right. Isn’t this win/win?
Now... last month, my challenge to you was 4 pushups a day - only 4. I know that some of you have taken me up on that challenge. So this month, I have two challenges for you:
Create a progression in your pushups: Mondays 4 (2 and 2), Tuesdays 6 (3 and 3), Wednesdays 8 (4 and 4), Thursdays 10 (5 and 5), Fridays 12 (6 and 6), Saturdays 14 (7 and 7) and Sundays 16 (8 and 8). On Mondays start back up with 4.
Add 2 wall squats to your morning routine (after the pushups)- each holding for 30 seconds without putting your hands on your legs.
Squat is an awesome move - not as awesome as a pushup, of course. It engages your butt and your quads, some of the bigger muscles in your body. By activating them in the morning, I am hoping to get you to a happy start. Every day, even if you don’t workout, you walk... Therefore you fire up those quads. With a morning warm up on those quads, I am aiming to get your knees ready for a full day of stress. After all, we don’t carry stress only on our shoulders. I will do my first squats tomorrow morning and post it to this blog as a comment. If you want you can then use that video to do squats with me every morning.
I keep saying that we will all get out of this year stronger. I still strongly believe in that. Even if we have our frustrations with the current environment, we can all find a way to clear our minds. Once we clear it, the key is to keep it that way - just like our closets. :)
Kaya’s drawing of wall-e - here is my clear minded boy
High five to all of you who have done last blog’s challenge and who will take on my new challenge... Let’s keep those minds clear so that we can see things around us with happier eyes!
