A Friendly Nudge - Embracing Difficult
...because we all could use a little encouragement!
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I want to welcome all of the new free subscribers and invite you to become a paid subscriber so that you can join us for the exercises each week. Since my shoulder is on the mend, I’ll be adding new exercises.
We need to give your bodies challenging things to do.
Our quality of life as we age depends on it.
If the most weight that you can deadlift off the ground one time is one hundred and fifty pounds, then that’s considered your one rep max for that exercise. It’s your all out, maximum effort. And if it’s truly your one rep max, you couldn’t lift it twice in a row if your life depended on it.
Don’t worry, we’re not going to start doing one rep max work. But our goal is to help you build a reservoir of strength so that activities that you enjoy doing or that are necessary for daily living never approach your one rep max. Living independently requires us to be able to confidently negotiate our daily activities without compromising our safety.
This is why strength training is so essential for all ages but especially for older adults. Getting stronger and more resilient as an older adult is doable but we have to be smart about how we approach it.
I understand that my audience is made up of folks with a wide variety of fitness levels, so an exercise that’s only mildly taxing for one person might be inappropriately difficult for someone just beginning their fitness journey. It’s why I stress the importance of starting where you are and skipping any exercises that feel too challenging for now (they may feel perfectly fine when you get a little stronger).
Several years ago I did one hundred regular pushups with good form in ten minutes. In the first few minutes, knocking out 10-12 pushups in a row was pretty easy but as the minutes ticked by the number that I could do without stopping started to drop. Ten pushups dropped to eight, then that dropped to four and by the time I finished I’d do one or two and have to wait a few seconds to do the next one. It was a grind and it was a perfect example of doing something to failure.
Today, four months after my shoulder replacement I can’t do a single regular pushup. But I can do 10 inclined pushups with my hands on an exercise bench. My first few weeks of pushups were done against a wall and as I got stronger I started doing them against lower surfaces. I’m confident that over time I’ll regain the ability to do regular pushups again (maybe not 100 in 10 minutes but it won’t be from a lack of trying), but I understand that I have to gradually rebuild that capacity.
Because I haven’t done any strenuous exercise while my shoulder was healing, I’m basically starting over. That means that I have to gradually increase the demands and load that I’m placing on my upper body so that I can give my reattached muscles and connective tissues time to strengthen, as well as to retrain my central nervous system to do the work.
One of the reasons that I encourage you to get cleared for exercise by your doc prior to starting an exercise routine is so that you can push yourself without too much worry. You still have to use common sense and pay attention to your body, but at least for me it was reassuring when my doc gave me the green light.
Building strength requires something called progressive overload. That means that we’re challenging our body to adapt to gradually increasing demands. That can be more repetitions, greater resistance, shorter rest periods between sets or adding instability by using something like a stability ball. The goal is to stress our body to elicit growth. Without adequate challenge our bodies aren’t going to perceive a need to change.
For years whenever I started a new exercise effort I’d always try to do too much too quickly. My muscles, nervous system and enthusiasm would get ahead of my connective tissue and I’d get hurt and have to back off or I’d get discouraged and quit. It’s important that we’re patient with ourselves and not get ahead of ourselves.
If you’re just getting started, do pushups against the wall or against a kitchen counter until you’re feeling moderately challenged, that’s your starting point. You can gradually increase the number you do until you can do a set of 10. Then you can start doing multiple sets until you can do 3 sets of 10. Now you’re ready to do them against a lower incline like a 12” platform or a stair tread. At that point you can move to the floor and do sets on your knees until you’re able to do 3 sets of 10 and then you can move on to regular floor pushups.
If you’re just starting to exercise or it’s been years since you did so regularly avoid the temptation to jump ahead. We want to give our body and our nervous system a chance to acclimate and adjust to the increased demands that we’re placing on it. Building a strong foundation reduces our injury risks.
I still love doing individual exercise snacks when I’ve been sitting too long or I just know I need to do something, but I’ll try to do a better job of providing more repetition and set options to accommodate a greater variety of fitness levels.
Now let’s make salmon and eggs for a delicious protein-packed breakfast option.
I cook salmon almost every week, usually either grilled on the backyard gas grill or roasted in the oven and I always try to buy enough to ensure that I have plenty of leftovers. Leftovers might get turned into a tasty salmon salad, but frequently I have salmon and fried eggs the next day for breakfast. This week’s dish means that I now have a new delicious breakfast option.
I tried this recipe using canned salmon but it just doesn’t compare to fresh salmon. I’m sure there’re some olive oil packed salmon options that work but I haven’t found one yet. I’ll let you know if I find a good one. My guess is that this would also be tasty with the smoked salmon that we get from Costco.
Ingredients:
4 oz cooked salmon
2 eggs, whisked with a teaspoon of water added
3 green onions, chopped
1 small handful of fresh dill, chopped
4-6 cherry tomatoes, halved
1 handful of spinach for serving
Olive Oil
Salt & pepper to taste
Put a small amount of olive oil in a skillet over medium heat and when it begins to shimmer add the onions and a pinch of salt. Give this a couple of minutes and then add your salmon and a fat pinch of fresh dill.
Since the salmon is already cooked we’re just heating the salmon so this step will only take a minute or so.
Add the eggs and cook until they reach your desired level of doneness.
Serve over a bed of spinach and top with sliced tomato and a pinch of fresh dill.
Salt and pepper to taste.
Enjoy!
Here are some exercise options for finding the challenge that your body is looking for this week.
If you’re just getting started, ease in. If the duration recommendation is 10-12 reps, you may find that 6 is plenty challenging, that’s your signal to stop at 6. If you’ve been doing this for a while, a set of 12 might feel great and in that case, rest for 30 seconds to a minute and see how a second set feels. It’s also OK to spread 2-3 sets of a particular exercise over the course of a day.
The balance and range of motion exercises can be done daily, but with the strength exercises, give yourself a couple of days rest in between multiple set days. I’ll talk about recovery a little more next week.