Movement

Are you stuck in a repetitive cycle? Find out how we unlocked the keys to recognizing how our daily habits and routines impact our life! 

Do you feel stuck? Is your alarm permanently set to maintain your daily routine? Running out of free time? We’ve spent years unpacking the constant stream of information and combined it with our knowledge and experience to unlock the keys to recognizing how all of these habits and routines affect our life! 

Understanding Your Fitness 

We’ve all been there, setting a goal to be more active, buying a gym membership and vowing never to miss a day, waking up early to workout, squeezing in the gym after work or school and the list goes on. With so much information and so little context, it sometimes feels like a struggle to find the routine that works for you. 

Over the years, we’ve collectively tried a variety of workouts:

  • HIIT

  • Yoga

  • Outdoor Sports

  • Strength Training

  • Cardiovascular

  • Plyometric

  • Pilates

  • Kickboxing

  • Swimming

  • LIIT

  • And too many to list!

There are people that can work out on their own with instructional videos, and others that enjoy the setting of a gym, while the rest partner with friends or significant others for joint support. There really is no wrong way to go about it, as long as you are taking action! What we’ve personally found took trial and error, maintaining a curious mind and being mindful of our bodies, we developed a lasting at-home fitness routine. 

Any time you start a new routine, or even as you feel yourself progressing, pay attention to how you're feeling both physically and emotionally. This is one of the keys to a lasting and evolving fitness routine. Ask yourself: 

  • Pre-Workout “Am I excited/nervous about this?”

  • During Workout “How’s my body feeling?”

  • Post Workout “Would I do this again?”

While you’re asking, check in with your body without being too critical and pay attention to the different sensations that you’re feeling, for example:

  • Burning sensation in the muscles- lactic acid build-up (generally relieves within 1 hour)

  • Sweating

  • Heartbeat pre, during, and post-workout

  • Breathing patterns

  • Mindset/Mood

  • Energy Level

The care and attention you take to analyzing your fitness routine allow you to be in control of your progress, modifying as many aspects as you need such as:

  • Length of workout

  • Intensity of workout

  • Type of workout

Change is good! Change is even better when it’s incremental…we’ve both had our fair share of injuries, overcoming health struggles, and simply just not having the time to work out. The hardest lesson is to accept incremental growth, which means one step at a time and not overburdening your body. Build strength, lose weight, gain weight, whatever goal you set, always apply the same foundation and be aware of your collective movement throughout the day. Fitness routines often forget to mention and focus on our daily activities and depending on what type of day you had your energy level might not always match your body's ability for that moment. Yes, for that moment, don’t judge yourself for missing a workout and then punish your body by cramming more in, embrace that there are other moments and intensity-appropriate activities that you could do in its place. 

Don’t overlook these day-to-day activities that activate your body: 

  • Housecleaning

  • Gardening

  • Walking

  • Cooking

  • Housework

  • Dancing

  • Laughing

Seriously? Laughing? YES!!! Take that laughter and make your routine enjoyable, and stay connected for more of how we discovered the keys to sustainable fitness!

The best supplement for your fitness routine: REST 

All right. Article done. No arguments here! Just kidding!! This one definitely needs to be explained and understood, for the purpose of sharing a hard-learned lesson and hopefully impacting you to change your thoughts for the better on how crucial resting is. 

Let’s take two subjects, a man and a woman. Both are active, energetic, and adventurous, with a tendency to push through hurdles. Unfortunately sometimes the act of pushing through was done blindly…and forcefully. 

The man is methodical and meticulously focused on improving his health through self-structured fitness routines. He’s had the benefit of years of experience and confidently strives to adapt and change his routines for the best outcome. Suddenly, in the middle of a strength training exercise, he feels a sharp pain in his bicep and shoulder. The test results show that there is mild to moderate inflammation in his tendons and ligaments. In simple terms, he’d overworked his muscles and they needed time to recover. What was missing? The proper balance of rest and recovery. 

The woman is enthusiastic and constantly trying different types of exercise. Her history started with a militaristic type of training that involved dance aerobics, swimming, and calisthenics. She evolved under the guidance of her husband who supported her individual needs and targeted exercises and routines that would support her body. She perseveres through various health complications, at times overcompensating for lost time by overexerting, ending up in a vicious cycle of drawn-out periods of rest with sporadic exercise. What was missing? The proper balance and UNDERSTANDING of rest and recovery. 

Are you finding the point here yet? No matter what your story is or why you’re working out if you don’t implement some form of rest and recovery you risk not only injury but time and aggravation. Aggravation is our own personal experience, being shuttled from one specialist to another, physical therapy appointments, chiropractors, and acupuncturists all while going to get imaging (X-rays, CT Scans, MRI). Through the aggravation came a realization, we really didn’t want to be doing this anymore, so we had to take control. Working with the professionals, we started questioning their methods and asking questions to be better informed. We didn’t just want to learn how to heal that injury, we wanted to learn what we could be doing to actively prevent it. 

We stripped away those ingrained mottos, those that didn’t serve the purpose, “No pain, no gain” doesn’t do anyone any good, think about it, maybe we need to provide more information with that. How do you differentiate normal lactic acid build-up burning from delayed onset muscle fatigue? Those are two completely different types of pain. We learned to differentiate the pain we were feeling, and the fatigue our body was showing us, and instead of ignoring it we actually paid attention to it. 

Learning to accommodate your body and break away from the invisible pressure we put on ourselves is the path to longevity. Think of it like black and white, or salt and pepper, and make the connection that fitness goes hand in hand with rest and recovery. 

Start with making your recovery accessible to you, what can you learn from the professionals to take home with you? Sign up here to stay posted for our easy-to-follow guides! 

Follow our pre and post-workout routine here. We emphasize making sure that our muscles and joints are warmed up properly, and take the care to stretch and rest afterward. We’re both proud to say that we’ve successfully been able to maintain endurance and level up along the way!