New Year’s Phase 1 Challenge – Week 2, Day 2

Welcome to Week 2 of The New Year’s Phase 1 Challenge as we work through building in movement routines throughout our day.

Yesterday, I introduced you to the three goals that we will be aiming to reach with this week’s movement portion:

1. Strength and Stability
2. Mobility
3. Oxidative Capacity

Today, we begin with the first item: strength and stability.

Given that we are aiming for a lifetime of good health, free from the dysfunction that regularly arises in the modern population, we must be thinking about what we can do to prevent the decline of the systems supporting the body over a long period of time:

• the decline of the brain, causing loss of cognitive function
• the decline of organs, causing loss of bodily function
• the decline of the bone and muscle, causing an inability to use the body and leading to a significant risk of debilitating injury.

This last one is our primary target with today’s focus – building strong lean tissue – as we develop routines for creating a strong and stable body that will last us for decades to come (although, getting stronger will also support the health of these other systems; remember, everything is connected).

The routine part is the key here – to accomplish this task we must have the proper mindset, understanding that this is a lifetime effort and not some short-term goal to reach in the next couple months before bailing for a different task.

Therefore, it is essential that we use this time to build these exercises into a routine part of the day. If we are to build a strong and stable body capable of supporting us through a lifetime, then we must make sure that the exercises to create a strong and stable body are engrained in our lifestyles.

Identify Your Time Slots

By now you should have identified a number of time slots throughout your day during which you can:

1. Get in 1 or 2 sets of an exercise or two over a few seconds-to-minutes time frame.
2. Get in a short strength workout wherein you go hard for a small number of exercises (3-6).

For me, it looks something like this:

1. Short Time Frames – enough for 1 or 2 sets of an exercise or two
   • First thing when I wake up
   • Lunch
   • While making dinner
   • Transition periods (all those random times throughout the day where my attention shifts from one task to another)
2. Medium Time Frames
   • Right after work, before dinner
   • Lunch

Pick Your Exercises

Now we need to identify exactly which exercises we will be focusing on. Note that these will change over time as your body evolves. What we need, now, is a range of exercises that target the most important muscular systems in your own body. To name a few:

Body Weight:

• planks
• push-ups
• pull-ups
• squats
• bridges

With Weight/Machines:

• bench press
• overhead press
• squats
• tricep dips
• row

Of course, feel free to pour through the internet for other options. Note that most exercises often come with variations to meet the needs of your body at this point in time.

Combining my chosen exercises with my established time slots:

First thing in the morning:

• 1 basic plank until failure
• 1 set of push-ups

Lunch

• at minimum, plank and set of air squats
• or, a short work-out, 3 set each:
  • overhead press
  • core routine (plank with added variations, etc.)
  • push-ups

Additionally,

• any time I walk under door-frame with pull-up bar, complete one set of pull-ups
• any other free-time (commercial break, while the veggies are sauteeing, etc.)
  • plank, push-ups, pull-ups, or squats

What creates improvement over time?

Finally, this last key part to understand before getting started: what to keep our attention on as we carry out these actions this week, and then repeat over the weeks to come.

1. Repetition
   • Building strong muscular systems takes time. Only by staying consistent can you create the change that your body needs from you. Staying consistent, repeating these exercises regularly, is what will create results.
2. Failure
   • The easiest way to build strong lean tissue is to load it and cause it to fail. This is accomplished by using heavier weights for fewer reps, or by taking long exercises (planks) all the way until you absolutely cannot possibly go any longer (and then going a few more seconds).
   • However, this is also the easiest way to get injured, which means that going heavier must be accompanied with serious mindfulness about what your body can actually handle
     1. Add more weight, only up to a point that you can safely perform the exercise; otherwise, stay on the safe side and go a little lighter to prevent injury.

The last thing you want to do is lose the ability for repetition because you have caused an injury by going too hard. Remember, our goal here is a healthy body for years to come. This is accomplished by being smart, not by trying to perform that which your body cannot.

Start small and build up. If you need to work on one system before another (for example, you need core and back strength before you put a bar on your shoulders to squat), then this is where you must begin.

Have patience, respect your body, and enjoy watching as you progress over time, creating the strong and stable body that you deserve.