WORKING IN vs. WORKING OUT
- By Green Rocks Fitness
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- 27 Jul, 2016
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What many people fail to recognize is that exercise is essentially a stressor on the body/mind. When highly stressed people begin to exercise they are adding stress on top of stress. This approach may work short-term in some ways, but the reality is that in most cases their body ultimately rejects exercise and they cannot sustain it over the long term. This is not a healthy route to take. This rejection means they are prone to injury, getting sick, and can become so tired and low in motivation that they lose the desire and stop everything altogether. When an already high stressed individual exercises intensely, it will cause their stress level to rise to a destructively high level. Stress can only go so high without being managed before everything comes crashing down.
Problems from not managing stress levels:
- Insomnia
- Constantly on edge / always upset
- skin and hair issues
- digestive problems
- headaches/migraines
...and many more serious problems.
It is the bodies way of defending itself, a survival mechanism. The body will do what it has to to preserve life at any cost. If that means shutting down certain functions to prioritize others, then the body will shut you down by pulling the plug on your energy levels, resulting in injury or an illness.
Working In VS Working Out
When you are too stressed or too tired to gain any positive outcome from working out, it is time to "Work-In" instead.
What Is Working In?
Working in reduces your stress and gives you energy as opposed to taking energy from you.
"Work-In exercises increase the amount of energy in the body rather than using up energy. So how does exercise create more energy?
The process of breathing, which carries a strong positive charge, acts like the positive pole of a magnet, whilst the water in your body (your body is ~75% water) acts like the negative pole of a magnet.
So the positive and negative poles create energy or work potential.
The heart, after receiving oxygen from the lungs, acts like a generator, producing a powerful electromagnetic field. It also acts like a pump sending an added charge to the cells and systems.
Muscles help energize the body by producing electromagnetic energy and by acting like pumps to assist the action of the heart. When tension is placed on connective tissues of the muscles, tendons and skin via movement, an electrical current known as a piezoelectric current is produced.
So considering we produce energy with movement, a Work-In exercise is one that uses less energy than is being created. When we perform Work-In exercises, the slower you move your body, the faster the Chi energy flows.
Work-In exercises are performed without raising heart rate or breathing rate above a resting state, so you should be able to perform Working In exercises on a full stomach after dinner." [1]
Things that can help you minimize daily stressors:
- Eat enough of the right sugars, fats, and proteins throughout the day within each meal to fuel you properly, giving you lasting energy
- Get the proper amount of sleep at the proper time. At least 7 hours but I recommend 8. Sleep early, wake early!
- Breathe deeply and do not let whatever is bothering you take away all of your energy.
- Read or listen to calming music
When you can manage your stress levels properly and start eating in a way that will support your activities and day to day stressors, working out can slowly be integrated back into your routine.
[5] Image/artwork credit- Unknown Artist
By Gregory
If you want to lose weight, go restrict your calories, over train doing cardio, be miserable, lose your period, forget your libido, feel like shit but be happy because you lost 10 pounds of ... muscle, tissue, bone and a little bit of fat. But in the process you created dysfunction, facilitated disease, and potentially will experience a rebound (more fat gain while having less muscle) in the near future.
Let's slowly reverse what we have been doing and form new habits, new behaviors, new standards together. We have to be honest with each other and ourselves and until we are, don't expect to get anywhere other than where you have already been.
“We Generate Fears While We Sit. We Overcome Them By Action.”
~Dr. Henry Link
Action
Changes
Things
I cannot say enough great things about working for Green Rocks Fitness! The environment, the staff/owner, and the awesome members/clients and people we interact and work with each day just make it all so great! The health and goals of our clients are as important to us as our very own! That's why we facilitate a space where we can both share and communicate valid information about health and fitness, as well as put it into practice through action! Change is not only dependent on having direction and purpose, but also on taking steps toward the manifestation of our goals into reality!
What do we mean when we say "Set Yourself Up For Success"?
For us, a typical morning starts off with waking up and eating breakfast. It is very important to start the day off with a balanced (tailored to your ratio demands of sugar, protein, and fat) breakfast, after fasting all night while sleeping! After breakfast, Melissa and I come to the Green Rocks Fitness office (located at 401 Shady Avenue G-100, Pittsburgh, PA 15206 in the Kenmawr Apartments building) where we work with clients, and work on the business by writing content, filming videos, and doing research to further help both our clients and ourselves. We have a refrigerator where we can store our refreshments and the food that we bring with us. This enables us to work longer without having to leave the premises to go eat, which as we have learned, really sets us up for progress with finishing tasks. When you are in the zone and really tackling projects, having to stop because you are really hungry puts a huge damper on productivity! As we educate and tell all of our clients, eating throughout the day is very important and should not be neglected when it comes to our health, wellbeing, and productivity!
Portable Burner and Mini-Oven
Sometimes we need or prefer to heat/cook certain foods! We purchased a mini-oven and intended to order a portable burner so that we can bring the food from home and have it stored in the office refrigerator.Problem solved! I was telling one of our clients this and she was so inspired by the idea of this whole concept that she purchased the burner for us right there on the spot. We were greatly surprised to say the least, and I couldn't thank her enough for her kind gesture! The people we work with and the sense of community we are building is truly amazing and special! This is exactly what we envision in our business, but I will talk more in-depth about that in another post. This burner allows us to cook food during our days at the office in order to stay properly fed and regulate our blood sugar throughout the day, while being able to stay at work for different tasks and projects. We would like to have a kitchen in our new storefront (in the future) so that we can provide these services to our clients, but I will talk more about that in my vision article!
Coffee and Tea Machine
Our clients are all about having coffee regularly, and rightfully so! Coffee, when used properly, offers many great benefits! Most people "do coffee" wrong, as we point out in our blog article, Benefits of Coffee. Most times, our clients get coffee from less than ideal sources, and the ingredients they put into the coffee is of poor quality. That is where a good thing turns into a bad thing! We offer good quality milk with the right types of sugars, and even mix in some gelatin
( purchase here
) for some beneficial protein.
What does setting up for success mean to you?
Whether it is going to sleep 5 to 15 minutes earlier so that you can wake up with time to eat a good breakfast, or preparing foods in advance so that you aren't going long hours without eating, you can take steps using your foresight in order to prevent certain issues from arising and sabotaging your health/fitness goals!
Meal Prepping
Make time during the week to cook and prepare foods so that you don't have to suffer when those busy moments or days hit and you end up resorting to less than ideal meals (or no meals at all.) This can be beneficial for a multiple of reasons! These situations are stressful and can cause blood sugar dysregulation, resulting in sleepless nights (or waking up between 1-4 am,) cravings, irritability, depression, and reduced ability to handle situations, tasks and other stressors. Personally, it's relieving to know I have food already cooked and prepared! I know that if days get busy, or interrupted, I'll be okay knowing my food can be ready at a moments notice.
Summing up
If you know certain things will cause stress, or prevent you from doing what needs to be done, put yourself in a position to win! Set yourself up for success by taking the necessary precautions allowing you to stay on the path that you want to be on! Action! Action! Action! I'll repeat it again... “We Generate Fears While We Sit. We Overcome Them By Action.” –
Dr. Henry Link
This is something we help with for all of our clients! We offer guidance, as well as understanding, in all areas of health and wellness. This includes movement, nutrition, meal plans, mindset, motivation, and tips/tricks to stay the course. If you find yourself struggling in any one (or even all) of these areas, take action NOW and let us help you help yourself!
TIPS:
1. OWN THE MOVEMENT: Never do an exercise with a weight that owns you! This means you are dictating the movement and in control at all times, performing the movement safely and targeting the muscles you want to target. Do not allow the weight to pull you forward without your consent.
This movement can target the thighs more, or the glutes/hamstrings more, depending on the position of your torso (more upright versus more forward/bent over). In this video Melissa is performing the squat to target all of the muscles as a whole. The thighs, the glutes and the hamstrings. Her rear delts and upper back also get worked indirectly from her good posture and by keeping her shoulder blades retracted and chest up: http://bit.ly/2pEVl82
