Tag Archives: fitness

Tips On Incorporating Your Family Into Your Exercise Routine

01/09/2017 R.C. Liley Leave a comment

When you become a parent, suddenly your time — and really, your life, if I’m being honest — is never your own again. I say that almost jokingly, but it’s an entirely serious matter. When you become a parent, especially when your children are babies and literally rely on you to keep them alive and safe every single minute of every single day, it can be really easy for many aspects of your life to fall to the wayside, including matters of your own personal care and health, such as your fitness.

I have come to know many parents in my lifetime, and one of the biggest frustrations they all voice, regardless if they work full-time, part-time, stay at home, work from home, or any combination therein, is that they simply don’t have enough time or hours in the day to workout. We all have only 24 hours in each day, regardless if we have kin to care for in each of those hours, and there’s nothing we can do to get “more” time, as it is. If you want to take care of yourself and fit in fitness to be part of your daily routine, you’ve got to exercise as much commitment, flexibility, patience, and creativity to it as you do your own parenting. Take it from me!

I had been a committed and regular runner (and specifically, a marathoner) for nearly five years before I had my first child. I wanted to continue to run after I had my first child (and since I’ve had my second), and I’m happy to say that I’ve been able to do so. Like I said before, figuring out how to “fit in fitness” after having children necessitates a ton of flexibility and creativity — not to mention support from your family/partner and patience/grace from yourself — but it’s entirely possible. Below, I’ll outline my tried-and-true tips to help you figure out how you can fit in your fitness routine each day with your family in tow.

Invest in a running stroller so you can run with your children. I didn’t buy my first running stroller until my oldest was a year old, but by the time my second kid came around, I was running with her by the time she was just about 4 months old. If you like to run, and if your child’s weight and height satisfies your running stroller’s safety requirements, I can’t urge you enough to invest in a high-quality running-specific stroller. There are many buying guides out there that will give you some great insight into various stroller brands out there, and while their price tags might be shocking, they are worth their weight in gold. An added bonus: pushing a stroller while running doubles as an excellent strength workout, and the mental toughness you’ll cultivate over the miles of pushing upwards of 100 pounds is indescribable. Chat with your pediatrician before you run with your child, though, to be sure that you have his or her blessing.

Ride alongside your children/pull them along behind you. Many of us can remember learning how to ride our bikes for the first time and have fond memories of riding through our neighborhoods growing up. If you enjoy bike riding, consider getting a bicycle for your child so that he/she, too, can learn to ride and can eventually become proficient enough of a rider to ride alongside you. Conversely, if your child is very young, you could always purchase some type of bicycle trailer to pull your baby behind you on a ride. Having bikes in the family can also be a great resource to you/your partner because one of you can run while the other (plus the children) ride bikes or ride in the stroller, too. It goes without saying, but by riding bikes or running alongside your children, you’re setting a positive precedent for them — an excellent role-modeling example — that exercise is both fun and a necessary part of a healthy and vibrant lifestyle. If your children grow up constantly seeing you or your partner exercising, chances are that your children will emulate your behaviors in their own lives, too. Everybody wins!

Embrace your inner yogi as a family. While physical health and well-being is important, so, too, is mental health. As a family, you can easily incorporate a family-centered yoga practice into your everyday routine in the comfort of your own home. There are many DVDs out there that offer family-friendly yoga routines — ones that don’t require an advanced yoga practice or even much in the way of experience — and you may find that the calming effect of yoga helps you to connect with your children and with your family in ways that are harder to come by when you’re out pounding the pavement on a run or logging miles on a ride.

Go for a hike (or even a walk through the mall). Last but certainly not least, one of the easiest and most accessible activities you can do as a family — while still satisfying a personal fitness goal — is to simply go for a walk or a hike. It doesn’t matter if you stroll through a local mall or if you hit up your local park; sometimes, it’s just nice to slow down, take in the scenery, and chat with your family. Again, if your children are very young, you could always push them along in a stroller or even wear them in a baby carrier, if you’d like. Regardless of the type of walking or hiking adventure you take, the experience remains a way for you to connect with your family and incorporate them into your exercise routine — and in the process, model for them that regular physical activity is an important and meaningful part of day-to-day life.

I’ll be the first to admit that being a parent can be really tough and trying at times, and it’s easy to neglect our own personal welfare and health for the sake of our children — or because we feel like we “just don’t have the time.” My experiences have taught me that it’s entirely doable to incorporate my family into my regular exercise routine, so long as I am patient, flexible, and creative with my endeavors. Some of my most meaningful training runs and races have been the ones that I’ve run with my kids, and I have no doubt that if you also include your family into your training, that you, too, will find your time with your family while on a run, ride, walk, or meditation also incredibly meaningful.

Author’s Bio:

Owner of Runnerclick.com, Nicershoes.com and Monicashealthmag.com. He is an entrepreneur from Copenhagen, Denmark. He loves to travel and compete in ultramarathon distance races. He has been featured in a lot of running blogs around the world.

Going Strong

Get Combat Power Fit With This Pokemon GO Workout

07/21/2016 R.C. Liley 1 Comment

What did we do before the release of Pokemon GO? If it was just sitting around, then most of us are better off with the popular app. Except, maybe, your actual pet….

I haven’t even played the game for a week, and try to keep it minimal. Staring at my phone as I walk around is not my favorite pastime, so luckily its addictive power has not fully overwhelmed me…yet. It has, however, given me an idea for a way to turn it into a workout.

Nothing like getting outdoors with your smartphone and working up a sweat as you hunt Pokemon. There’s a sentence I never thought I’d say. But in an effort to roll with the current trends, I’ve found myself playing the game, and even saving my daughter from a vicious Pidgey attack.

Pidgey Attack on Daughter_Pokemon GO

She’s lucky I have a accurate Pokeball throw!

Anyway, as I’m sure many of you already have the game and are familiar with the platform, let’s get right into the workout.

Combat Power Pokémon GO Workout

1. Find a popular Pokemon hangout. Preferably an open area like walking/jogging trails or a park to give you plenty of space. Inside your home will suffice too.

2. Launch the app and walk/jog/run until Pokemon show up. If inside, running probably won’t happen. Take this Pinsir I found wandering inside our home, for example.

Pokemon GO Pinsir in House

3. Catch the Pokemon.

4. Once caught, you’ll see the list of stats about your fresh catch. What you want to look for is the CP (Combat Power) of your Pokemon. Use each number to perform bodyweight exercises.

Pokemon GO Pinsir Stats

Notes:

For this Pinsir, his CP was 88. So I would choose to do 8 reps of one exercise followed immediately by 8 reps of another exercise. As your experience level increases, so will the CP, even into the triple digits. Then you’ll have 3 different exercises to perform for each catch.

If you get a number with a 0 in it, like 10, just do one exercise of 10 reps. Or, if it’s a triple digit like 220, then do 2 reps of an exercise, then 20 of another.

Here’s a useful list of bodyweight exercises to use. Choose ones you’re able to do with good form, and with opposing muscle groups for multiple sets. For example, if your Pokemon has a CP of 345, you’d perform 3 push ups, 4 sit ups, and 5 squats.

Walking, jogging, running, or sprinting until you find another Pokemon depends on your fitness level as well as your chosen location. Please please PLEASE, do not sprint into the street!

Pokemon GO is already great for getting sedentary folks moving more, but for those that want more, this is a simple workout you can do anywhere. All the while, you’ll add to your Pokedex. Like ~~killing~~ catching two ~~birds~~ Pidgey’s, one stone.

To some, this might sound easy at first, but find an area swarming with Pokemon and you’ll feel after a while, I promise.

Going Reviews

Going Reviews: Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower – The Healthiest Way to Mow!

04/07/2016 R.C. Liley 9 Comments

Fiskars Reel Mower, Review, Healthy, mowing, yardwork

How much do you depend on gas? Not too long ago, it was used mostly for various modes of transportation; planes, trains, and automobiles. Our grandparents’ generation didn’t have gas-powered blades to cut their lawn, nope; they used manual push mowers!

Hmmm, and come to think of it, people weren’t as concerned about obesity back then…..interesting. Well, push mowers haven’t left, they only improved, and I think I’ve had the pleasure of using the best.

I loathe using gas power to do something as simple as cutting grass. So, when I saw the Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel Mower, I knew I had to have it to prepare for the weekly battle against growing grass. No, hippie, not that kind!

I mentioned in a previous post how excited I was when I wrote Fiskars asking if they’d send one for my review and they graciously agreed!

Setup was fast and easy; even Avery enjoyed helping me get it together!

In another post, I wrote about my first experience with the Fiskars Reel Mower while wearing my daughter, Avery, in an Onya Baby Outback carrier.

I think Onya’s carrier and Fiskars’ reel mower is a perfect combo for the active parent; even the color schemes match! Even after a mowing when it just rained, I can happily say I enjoy reel mowing! I wore Avery every time and she even fell asleep within a few minutes. So now I’m saving gas, exercising, mowing the lawn, and getting Avery to take a nap; perfect!

Here’s a quick video of the Fiskars in action with me wearing Avery:

It helps that, unlike other reel mowers, Fiskars StaySharp Max uses super durable steel blades that cut grass without touching each other. This makes the mower very quiet (even enough for naptime) and means no annual sharpening of the blades like many reel mowers.

If you’re concerned about it being too difficult to push, Fiskars has you covered. Along with the blades not touching, they have the only reel mower with adjustable blade height to change depending on how tall your grass is.

Here are the key features that Fiskars provides on their website:

The smart design of our eco-friendly reel mower offers a cleaner cut without the hassles of gasoline, oil, battery charging, electrical cords or loud engine noise
Received Popular Mechanics 2010 Green Design Award and recommended by Consumer Reports over other reel mowers among other accolades
A combination of advanced technologies make the StaySharp™ Max Reel Mower 60% easier to push than other reel mowers
Patent-pending InertiaDrive™ Reel delivers twice the cutting power to blast through twigs, weeds and tough spots that would jam other reel mowers
Exclusive StaySharp™ Cutting System uses precision-ground, hardened steel blades to cut grass without touching, greatly reducing friction and blade wear for long-lasting performance without costly annual blade sharpening
Patent-pending VersaCut™ Technology offers cut height settings from 1″–4″ to provide best-in-class cutting, even when you’ve missed a week of mowing, plus one-touch height adjustment for comfortable use
Inset wheel design allows the blades to extend across the full width of the mower to eliminate uncut strips under the wheels and edge closer to foundations, fences and borders than other reel mowers
Unique grass discharge chute throws clippings forward cleanly, away from your feet
Cuts all grass types, even tough southern varieties like St. Augustine, Zoysia, Bahia and Bermuda
18″ cut width
Limited three-year warranty

With the 18 inch cutting width (very good for a reel mower!), I am able to mow our front and back yard in 30 to 40 minutes as long there are no obstructions. Yes, this is while wearing my baby, so it could be even faster. But I don’t mind, just a longer nap and more exercise, right?

Compared to a gas mower, the reel mower doesn’t cut the grass as cleanly, but it’s not far behind. Our lawn still looks good when I’m done and I happy with its performance.

I used to hate having a gas mower and fighting to get it started for the first time before every mow, and the maintenance can be time consuming and costly. Plus, the noise, ugh, I despised walking behind the gas-guzzler as it droned everything out around me.

Now, I can actually talk to Going Mom while mowing and really enjoy it more than I ever thought I would. But, everything has a negative side…..

The inset wheel design does allow for greater overall cutting width and to get close to edges on borders and fences, but if the surface is sloped near these edges, it can be frustrating. When trying to mow along our slightly sloped fence line, the mower keeps gravitating into the fence and I have to readjust. This occurs with gas mowers too, but since they are heavier, it’s not as often.
The mower spits grass out of the front and away from you, but with any wind around, that grass might end up in your face. It’s not always, but something that can be annoying, especially when wearing your baby! Of course, Fiskars offers a Grass Catcher which solves this problem. I haven’t tried it, but might get one soon.
It just won’t cut some patches of grass. I will go over and over the patch, but it doesn’t seem to do the job. This is usually weeds and doesn’t happen often though.
Beware of mulch and other small, hard objects! Any mulch around our trees and garden that finds its way into the yard has the ability to stop the mower, and you, in its tracks. If you’re going fast enough, you might power through it, but just try and clean your yard from obstructions before starting.

Issues aside, I am happy with the Fiskars StaySharp Max Reel mower and would recommend one to anyone with a yard smaller than an acre. If that’s you, and you want a “greener” way to care for your lawn while getting a great workout too, then look no further than Fiskars. For just $199 and free shipping on Amazon, it’s cheaper than most gas mowers and you’ll never have to fill it up or add oil….EVER!

I know I’ll be getting some good use with our Fiskars Reel Mower and look out for post in the near future on how to create a high intensity workout while mowing with Fiskars!

Do you or have you used a reel mower?

If so, what kind and how does it compare to the Fiskars StaySharp Max?

Disclosure: Fiskars sent me their StaySharp Max Reel Mower to review free of charge, but I was not compensated otherwise. All thoughts and opinions and strictly my own.