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5 Steps to Starting or Restarting an Exercise Habit

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This morning I was listening to an episode of Jocko Willink’s podcast while I was ironing in my hotel room. In the episode he addressed a listener’s question about how to start exercising after not exercising for a long time. The listener basically wanted to know if he should jump right into a hard routine or ease into it. Jocko’s advice was somewhere in between the ends of the spectrum. Basically, don’t go so hard that you experience D.O.M.S. (Delayed Onset Muscle Soreness) but hard enough that you feel good about being challenged.

Listening to Jocko’s answer made me think about what I would say to someone who wanted to start exercising again after a long layoff from it. While I’m not a professional trainer, I have started and stopped exercise habits many times in the last decade. Here’s what has worked for me.

  1. Start! Do something, do anything that gets you moving out of your physical fitness comfort zone. For some people this might be just taking the stairs instead of the elevator. For others it might be trying to run a mile or bike a mile. The point is to start doing something.

  2. Do something that is at least mildly enjoyable. I hate running on a treadmill, so I only do it when it is the only cardio option available to me. I did it three time this week because I was staying at a Hampton Inn that only had two pieces of equipment and one of them was inoperable. If you told me that the only way that I could get in shape was to run on a treadmill every day, I would be as big as a house. But I ran on the treadmill because I wanted to maintain cardio momentum for when I get back to my bike at home. I love biking and so I’ll run if it means that I’ll be better on my bike when I get home.

  3. Find a time that consistently works for you. Common advice is to exercise first thing in the morning. That doesn’t work for me because my kids start stirring at about 4:30am. The afternoon is my sweet spot for exercise because that’s about the time that my mental acuity wanes and I need to do something that doesn’t require much thinking.

  4. Create an accountability system for yourself. For me, that is running this blog. For you, it could be checking-in on the Ed Tech Fitness Flipgrid.

  5. Remember that every little bit helps. When I really got into road cycling someone who was a very good racer gave me the tip that every training mile helps. Even if that mile was only to the post office for stamps, it helped. In other words, if there is a day that you can only exercise for 15 minutes, that is better than exercising for zero minutes. Feel good about doing those 15 minutes instead of feeling bad that you only did 15 minutes.

Notice What’s Not on the List?

The list doesn’t include buying new shoes, new clothes, a new watch, or even getting a gym membership. You don’t need those things to start exercising. You can find hundreds of free exercise videos on YouTube. I use the Global Cycling Network’s free cycling fitness workouts.

What’s Your Advice?

Those of you who have good exercise habits, what’s your advice for those just getting started? What’s your advice to keep the habit going?

Ed Tech Fitness Challenge of the Week – Planks!

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Last week’s Ed Tech Fitness challenge was to complete ten burpees per day. How did you do? I cracked and missed a day last week. I got back after it the next day though and finished the week on a high note with a fantastic workout on Saturday afternoon and a great morning of skiing with my two-year-old daughter.

This week’s challenge:

Let’s continue strengthening our cores this week by doing some planking! Planking is a core exercise that you can do just about anywhere and without any special equipment or clothing.

Try doing five repetitions of planking twice per day this week. You decide how long you need to hold a plank based on your current fitness. Some of us might only be able to hold a plank for 15 seconds before we need to take a break. Others of us might be able to hold a plank for a minute or more. Do what you can to the best of your ability without risking injury.

How to plank and variations on planking:

The classic plank is to support yourself on just your toes and forearms/elbows like this. You can modify the plank to fit your needs. One variation is to plank from your knees. Planking from your knees can reduce some of the stress on your lower back. Another variation is to do a side plank. Here’s a good overview of how to do a basic plank and here are some variations on planks.

Stickers and tee-shirts:

A couple dozen of you took me up on the offer for free stickers. If you asked for one and didn’t get it yet, it’s on the way as I put a handful of envelopes in the mail this morning. I have about twenty stickers left. If you want a sticker, just send me an email with your mailing address (U.S. only, sorry).

One person took me up on the tee-shirt offer so I have four more to give away. If you want one, complete this week’s challenge and post updates on the Ed Tech Fitness Flipgrid throughout the week.

Good Luck with This Week’s Challenge!

If you have suggestions for future challenges, please feel free to share them with me.

Have a great week!

~Richard

As always, please consider your current fitness level before embarking on any of the Ed Tech Fitness challenges. I am not a medical professional. Consult your physician if you have any questions before beginning a new exercise or fitness regime.

Garmin Instinct Review – A Rugged and Lightweight Fitness Watch

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The Garmin Instinct is a lightweight fitness watch that offers all of the features that you could need in a watch built for outdoor training. I purchased mine last week. After one week of daily use, it’s time to share why I chose it along with my initial likes and dislikes about the watch.

Selecting the Garmin Instinct

The first thing that I looked for when starting my search for a new fitness watch was a wrist-based heart rate monitor. I know that the wrist-based heart rate monitors are not as accurate as chest strap heart rate monitors, but I really don’t like wearing a chest strap.

After whittling my list down to watches that have built-in heart rate monitors I started looking for watches that have ANT+ connectivity so that it could pair with the computer on my bike. The Garmin Instinct has ANT+ and Bluetooth connectivity.

As some of you know, I love to ski and in the summer and fall I like to mountain bike and fly fish. Therefore, I wanted a watch that had altitude readings, barometric pressure reading, phone-independent GPS, and waterproofing able to withstand frequent dunking. That led me to the Garmin Fenix 5. But it was out of my price range unless I went the refurbished route. I have not had good luck with refurbished electronics in the past so the Fenix 5 was out.

My final three choices were the Garmin Instinct, the Garmin Vivoactive 3, and the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR. This is where size, shape, and overall appearance broke the tie.

I had been strongly considering the Garmin Vivoactive 3 ($60 off right now) until I saw a woman wearing it while I was in line buying lift tickets at a local ski mountain. While I wouldn’t say that it’s a “woman’s watch” it did have more of a bracelet look than “men’s watch” look. At the same time I also didn’t want a super bulky watch which seem to be trendy in men’s watch design. That’s why I ruled out the Suunto Spartan Trainer Wrist HR. That left just the Garmin Instinct. I went with the Tundra color over the classic black or bright red.

It’s worth noting that my selection criteria was fairly basic. I wasn’t concerned about mobile payment capabilities, music storage, calling or texting capabilities, video streaming, or camera capabilities. For what it’s worth, the Instinct will pair with your phone via Bluetooth to display text messages and other alerts. It can be used to control music on your phone, but it doesn’t store music. The Garmin Instinct also does not have any kind of mobile payment capability. If those things are important to you, I suggest taking a look at the Vivoactive 3. 

What’s Great About the Garmin Instinct?

The form factor of the watch is fantastic! It comes with the most comfortable band I’ve ever had on a watch. The band is far more comfortable than the one on my Fitbit Charge and the band on my Casio Pathfinder that I often wear while skiing.

The Garmin Instinct is not touch screen. That means it always responds to input no matter how much sweat I get on it or how shaky my fingers are after a hard workout.

The heart rate monitor is consistent even if it’s not 100% accurate. I’ve been watching the heart rate feedback throughout my spin workouts for the last week and I haven’t seen any wild, out of the ordinary spikes or drops. By contrast the Fitbit Charge, which is hard to read during a workout, has always shown me some spikes and drops that just don’t seem right (no one goes from 130 BPM to 80 BPM in seconds without dying).

Once you have selected some favorite workout activities on the Garmin Instinct, it is easy to start and stop, save, and share recordings of your workout data. What’s not easy is figuring out how to create those activities on the watch (more about that in the next section).

The Garmin Connect app, available to all Garmin watch owners, is easy to pair to the watch. The watch and the app sync together easily and automatically after the initial set-up. In the app you can view lots of data about your workouts, your fitness, and even your diet. The Garmin Connect app will let you sync data with other fitness apps including Strava and My Fitness Pal.

What’s Not Great About the Garmin Instinct?

The initial set-up was frustrating. The owner’s manual that comes with the watch has a grand total of seven miniature pages that tell you nothing that isn’t totally obvious. If you want to figure out anything else like how to create favorite activities, how to save workout data, or how to share data, you’ll have to either randomly press buttons until the option you need appears or do some Googling. I ended up doing a lot of Googling to figure out how to use all of the features of the watch.

The Garmin Connect app works very well with the Garmin Instinct. However, the app is hit or miss when it comes to synching data with other fitness apps. I connected my Garmin Connect account with Strava and My Fitness Pal. I’ve done six workouts since getting the watch. The data has correctly synched with Strava on only three of the workouts. The other three workouts I had to manually enter.

Bottom Line

This watch isn’t for those who must have all of the conveniences of a smartphone packed into a watch format. But if a rugged, lightweight fitness watch that doesn’t look like every other smartwatch on the market is what you’re after, the Garmin Instinct is a great choice! The heart rate monitor is consistent. The watch is comfortable to wear. And the data for outdoor activities is great. Overall, I’ve very happy with my purchase.

Put “Fun” on Your To-do List

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I’m a list writer. I haven’t always written to-do lists, but about five years ago I started making them. Now, if I don’t make a list at the start of the day I don’t work nearly as efficiently as I should. My lists usually have a few blog post ideas for the day, the most pressing email, errands I need to run, my workout for the day, and tasks related to running my business. There is one new category that I have recently started adding to my to-do lists, “something fun.”

“Something fun” is actually what I put on my list. The fun thing of the day is what I put on my list. Some days that fun thing is “go skiing” other days it’s “go fishing” and today it was “tie flies.” My fun thing is never “check Facebook,” “check Twitter,” or “browse Amazon.”

Putting a fun activity on my to-do list, even if I can only do it for a short time, reminds me to take a break from the grind of work. When I get back to the work part of the list I have a bit more energy than before the “fun thing” was done. And having a fun thing on the to-do list means that I have an easy thing to cross off the list and it’s always satisfying to cross something off the list.

Life’s too short to not have fun things on our to-do lists. When you have fun things on your to-do list, the list of must-dos doesn’t feel quite so daunting or demoralizing.

What’s on Your List?

Do you write to-do lists? Do you put a fun thing on them? Try it, you might find that you actually get more done and have a better attitude about your to-do list.

Chumbawamba Fitness

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I cracked! I caved! Whatever you want to call it, yesterday I gave in to the excuses and didn’t workout. What’s worse is that I stress-ate a whole bunch of chips (Cape Cod potato chips, if you must know). I could list off all the things that went wrong with my day yesterday, but none of them were things that should have kept me from working out. They were just annoying things that piled up until I cracked.

Today, I got back on the wagon. I did the burpees, I did the push-ups, and I crushed it on my bike! The thing about getting back in shape or really working toward any goal is not letting one bad day wreck everything done prior and, more importantly, not let it wreck the plan for the future. So as Chumbawamba reminded us over and over and over again in the fall of 1997, I get knocked down, but I get up again.

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