Strength and Conditioning: You Should Try It

There's plenty of research on the benefits of cardiovascular exercise for your lungs and heart health.

There's also plenty of research on the benefits of lifting heavy weights for your joints, muscles, metabolism, and bone density.

I'm not here to tell you that lifting weights will help you lose weight -- even though it can. I'm not here to tell you that burpees will help keep your heart healthy -- even though they will. I'm not even here to tell you that overcoming your own limits will improve your mental health and make you feel great about yourself. 

Sometimes, people aren't motivated by amorphous "benefits." Kind of like how we know vegetables are good for us, but we still don't really eat them enough. 

I'm thirty-two years old. I have four children. I'm overweight, especially for how tall (or rather, how short) I am. I regularly go to the gym to lift heavy things and participate in some pretty grueling conditioning workouts: rowing, burpees, running, biking, bear crawls, box jumps, wall balls, hill sprints etc. I recently took my kids on a road trip from Iowa to Idaho for a family reunion without help from my husband or any other adult.  

After a day of 8 hours behind the wheel, I was stiff, but not sore. My knees and hips were strong enough to take that punishment with minimal complaints. 

Our first hotel room was on the second floor. There were no elevators. I carried the pack-n-play, the backpacks, the suitcase, and the baby up the stairs in a single trip, and I was fine. I had the grip strength, I could manage the weight, and I had the core stability to keep everything balanced. 

We arrived at our destination -- a cabin partially up the side of a mountain. I unloaded my car, pulling gear in a wagon uphill from a gravelly parking lot to the door. It was tough, but I could do it. 

I went on a hike with my aunt. It was a tough hike with consistent elevation gain. My heart and legs were fine on the way up. On the way down, I had the stability and strength to navigate the steep downward grade without much issue. The tendons in both my legs were aching, and by the time we got to the bottom, my calves, hamstrings, and quads were all equally burnt out, but not to the point of regret or injury. 

The following day, my brother-in-law, my two sisters-in-law, and my 10-year-old niece wanted to go on a hike. I was slightly sore from the previous day, but I also knew that movement would help that soreness more than rest. I suggested the same trailhead as the day before but with a different trail with more moderate terrain. 

The trail was less intense, but still had many steep places, especially toward the summit. While the increased elevation and thinner air were challenging for my companions, I did not notice any difficulty in catching my breath. The conditioning workouts at Sisu Strength Academy prepared me to hike at a much higher elevation without a decrease in oxygen delivery. Shortly before we reached the top, my hiking companions began to wonder if it was worth continuing on. I volunteered to scout ahead and was able to quickly run to the top, returning back down to reassure them it was not much further. My niece felt too tired to continue, so I was able to put her on my back and carry her for a good portion of the remaining distance. 

We descended the mountain, returning home for lunch. I was tired, but the kids wanted to try tubing the small rapids from the river that runs through the town of Lava Hot Springs. I agreed and we rented a tube. We thought we'd only go one time, but the kids were all clamoring to go again after our first run. Because we'd anticipated only going once, we had not paid extra for the shuttle to take us back up to the top of the river with our four-man tube. Well, there was nothing to do but carry it back. I slung it over my back like a turtle shell and held it up with both arms in the air. It was not heavy at first, but after a few blocks, I definitely began to feel the ache in my shoulders and upper back. But, I did it. We went down again, and it was a good time for everybody. 

I still had the stamina to make dinner, play some games, and make several trips to and from the car and up and down the stairs to the basement. 

The next day, we loaded up the car. More stairs and hotel rooms. More carrying tired children. More saying yes to swimming in the hotel pool even though I was pretty tired. More hours behind the wheel.

These sorts of things aren't unique to me. Anybody who follows a similar fitness regimen would have the same abilities, or honestly, better ones. At my gym, I'm not a headliner. I'm just average. 

What people don't talk about and what isn't apparent in before and after pictures is capacity. I didn't have limitless energy on this trip, and I certainly needed sleep by the time each evening came, but I felt so capable the entire time. I felt I could just continually keep tapping into the strength I've developed. I didn't need help, even if I might have wanted it. I could carry everything myself, even if it was uncomfortable to do so. I always felt like I had more in the tank. It's more than just physical strength -- it's mental strength as well. I was capable. 

You should try strength and conditioning because it's not just a box jump -- it's a painless mountain descent. It's not just a deadlift -- it's carrying a crate up a flight of stairs without injury. It's not just a strict overhead press -- it's hauling a heavy tube over your head for half a mile. It's not just a hill sprint or meters on a rower or calories on a bike or how many burpees you can do in a minute -- it's the process of incrementally increasing your capacity to breathe without a problem in much thinner air. Increasing your capacity to be useful. Ready for more.

Hard Changes

I've noticed lately that everybody has limits on things they are willing to accept, willing to do, and willing to change. 

I think actual self-mastery, however, comes from expanding your horizon on all three of those planes.

An example to demonstrate. I used to avoid drinking anything alcoholic solely because of my personal religious beliefs. 

Now that I am an adult and my spiritual views have been tested, I still avoid alcohol, but I would say religious reasons are not the main motivator anymore. I know my own weaknesses, and what vices I already struggle with. I don't want to need a drink to relax, to feel comfortable talking, to have fun, or to enjoy time with a friend. I don't want to risk the illnesses or side effects that can result. I could see myself needing it. I could see myself rationalizing because I am anxious sometimes or because I get overwhelmed. Because of my past experience, my risk factors for alcohol abuse are higher, and why should I test to see if that is true?

So, logic and spiritual convictions together have made a hard decision easier for me. I don't have to change something that I'm naturally excellent at doing. But, reflection has made me realize that I still have beams in my own eye. 

I realized I have a comfort zone of changes that I find acceptable. I choose goals that are already within my grasp of what I might enjoy doing. I dismiss other changes as being too extreme, too limiting, too uncomfortable, too challenging. Why would I want to do that? Sounds like a way to never have any fun. It would be too difficult for me. We're all going to die anyway, so might as well die having a good time.

People rationalize themselves away from making real changes all the time. I just need to take it easy. I'm just not good at sports. I could never get up that early. I'm just an introvert. I'm not good at taking tests. I'm doing fine with things just how they are. They set goals within the confines of their comfortable limits. Sometimes you take baby steps toward a better path. Those steps are good and useful. But when the path suddenly requires more, demands conviction, demands commitment -- you stop walking and just march in place. And then you wonder why you never seem to be getting anywhere.

Self-mastery comes from the perspective that you're never finished progressing. When the path gets steeper, you dig deeper.  There's always something better you can work toward. There's always more you can demand from yourself. Sometimes when we say to ourselves, "I can't possibly do more here," we really mean, "I can't comfortably do more here." Then we decide that this program or goal or journey just isn't working for us, and we look for something more comfortable.

This isn't to say that the only discomfort that has meaning is physical. Of course, the application to the gym environment is obvious. You might go every day and see no progress because you continue to do what is comfortable.

But other things in life push us. 

I think parenthood is one. Dealing with children can be very uncomfortable. It can be exhausting, painful, annoying, and require a great deal of purposeful focus and personal reflection. It requires self-control. Approached well, parenthood can be transformative simply because you're always in an uncomfortable place that forces you to get better -- if you let it.

Dealing with an injury is uncomfortable. You can face it in a way that allows you to grow from the experience. Dealing with mental illness is uncomfortable. You might have to do a lot of extra work to function when you're trying to improve that area. It certainly would be more comfortable to lie in bed than talk to a therapist. But only one of those will mean progression. 

Try challenging what you're used to. Try pushing yourself to do something you don't really feel like doing. Try giving up something that you're still holding onto that's holding you back. Try adopting something that you don't like doing but that you know will be good for you. Try lifting heavier. Try going to bed earlier. Try waking up earlier. Try drinking more water. Try stretching even though you hate mobility work. Try going for a walk even though it's freezing outside. Try reading a book that challenges you. Try talking to someone you don't normally talk to. Try going deeper into that squat. Try something you think you're too old for. Try changing how you speak, how you think, and how you react. 

You might think it is too hard. You're probably right. You'll probably fail.
But maybe try doing it anyway. It's the only way to keep moving forward.

The Year of Unseen Work

I always feel anxious around New Year's Day. I struggle with winter, and January first always marks the start of what is (in my opinion) the worst month of the year. It's dark, cold, and in some ways, punishing.

I have never looked back at the end of a year and been proud of my accomplishments. I always, instead, feel like the year was wasted in days, weeks, and months of thinking that tomorrow, or next week, or next month, maybe I'll finally get it together. Then, inevitably, the week passes, the month passes, the year passes, and here I am the same old me -- still struggling, still treading water, still wondering when I will actually do the things I hope I will do. 

But then, another part of me pushes back against that.

This year was different.

I had a baby. That baby took more from my body than I ever gave before, and I have been spending weeks and months working to rebuild strength and come back from injuries. All the old insecurities and weaknesses returned -- including my old friend bulimia, which constantly tells me that I don't belong, that my body is worthless, that people will overlook me and forget me and judge me because of how I look. 

I think you'd have to actually have an eating disorder to know what it is like to constantly fight one. Even if you don't actively act on disordered eating tendencies, the voice is always there in the back of your mind. You just always have to be stronger than the voice, which takes so much self-control. That self-control comes from a finite source, and it draws from other areas, leaving you feeling like you're always fighting but accomplishing nothing. 

This year, more than any other year, I've made progress in diminishing the "eating disorder" voice. I think it is working, but I can tell you it has been a lot of mental work. 

I've also been trying to resolve a lot of past struggles that go back to childhood. It's been hard to uncover painful memories, re-experience them, and then resolve them. It's been even harder to dismantle the comfortable memories that I did have, seeing the pain that lay just underneath them. I think that the experiences I had growing up made me independent, tough, and able to work through discomfort. The stronger the wind, the tougher the tree, after all. Although trauma gave me great sea legs, I found myself walking on dry land as an adult after a childhood navigating rough seas. I was struggling to adapt, to understand people, to understand myself, and to know what was normal and good. I have a cynical streak I cannot shake. I have trouble getting to know and trust new people. Near-constant anxiety is a familiar companion. 

I can say that I am starting to know what it's like to walk on land without falling over. That confidence came with a lot of emotional pain and, again, a lot of draining mental work. 

So, even though all the things I wish could have happened this last year didn't really happen, here are some things that did happen:

• I kept a new baby alive and loved with more patience than I believed I possessed. 
• I turned a corner from believing that I was a failure in a lot of areas of my life to hoping that even when I don't measure up, I still have value.
• I was diligent about recovering from both physical and emotional injuries, even though it takes a long time and really isn't fun. 
• I got better at keeping my things organized.
• Clark and I celebrated our 10-year anniversary, and even though we aren't perfect, my relationship with him is the best thing I've created for my life and the life of my family. 

Unseen work is often thankless, and it takes effort that can't be neatly photographed and posted for quick likes and shares. The unseen work is scary, uncomfortable, and messy. It deals with the stuff that nobody wants to talk about. It takes brutal honesty and seeing yourself for how you really are, instead of how you hope you are. It takes seeing other people as they really are, and not how you hope or wish they will be. 

It's foundational. It might not ever really end. But if I ever want to run up a mountain, I've got to learn how to walk on dry ground. 

Happy New Year.

Blessed Are The Meek

In a lot of ways, pushing yourself and getting better is a delicate balance. You want to challenge yourself, but you don't want to push so hard that you injure yourself. You want to fit in more items on a daily to-do list, but you don't want to burn yourself out or sacrifice rest and recovery time. You want to gain muscle, but not eat so much while doing so that you need to buy new pants. 

It's balance.

But, perhaps the thing that is most challenging to get right is a balanced mindset. Some exercises (all good and valid forms of movement) don't require a ton of mental sacrifice. Going for a long walk is great for the body and great for the mind. You spend time meditating in a space for appreciation, self-respect, and gratitude. 

Weightlifting and conditioning are different, requiring intensity, focus, discomfort, and a great deal of mental effort. I'd like to suggest a word that doesn't seem to belong in this environment. Meek. 

Meekness, in my opinion, has been unfairly maligned by the English language. A quick dictionary search gives the definitions of submissive, gentle, spiritless, mild, resigned, and quiet. Not exactly the type of tough mindset that comes to mind when you're grinding out a sprint on the rower or doing yet another round of box jumps. 

In German, the word for meek is sanftmütig. It is, literally translated, "gentle courage" or "gentle boldness." This approach gives meekness a lot more credit and perfectly illustrates the best mindset for progression and growth. 

Gentleness -- humility -- is an essential quality for someone who's trying to get better. You need to be willing to take correction, recognize weakness in yourself, and be willing to listen to the ideas and approaches of others. As soon as ego gets in the way, as soon as you let go of that essential humility, you become less malleable in your goals and approaches, less valuable as a team member, and less teachable by your coach. 

Courage and boldness, on the other hand, are needed to follow through on your humility. Coach says, "Why not take a heavier weight, today?" Those with too much ego dismiss this instruction, believing that they know better and don't need the additional trouble of adding more work. Those with too much mildness dismiss the instruction because they lack conviction in their own ability. Only those with the balance of the two set down the 30-pound weight and pick up the 35. 

 Humility answers with acceptance. Courage answers with confidence. Boldness answers with belief. The combination is formidable. Meekness is a formula of just enough humility to trust that you can always benefit from help and instruction, and just enough boldness to implement it with conviction.

Meek people become self-reliant. They become self-assured. They become more concerned with self-improvement than with self-aggrandizement. They become good teammates, but they are also strong enough to work alone with a grounded conviction. They complain less, and they take more beatings; they are okay with failure, but they also don't quit easily. They trust the process, they learn from mistakes, and they are okay with starting over. 

Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth. 

Hell

As anyone who has spent time with me in the gym knows, I'm really not much for profanity. But, occasionally when something is really hard, I will allow myself to say something to the effect of, "This is hell." You can all laugh at me now because most people don't even consider hell to be profanity, especially at Sisu. 

The use of the word hell, though, is interesting. A lot of the time in colloquial speech, people use the word hell to refer to something that is challenging or excruciating. Like coming back from major surgery, battling through a tough divorce, losing friendships, experiencing severe mental or physical pain, or going through the intensity of addiction recovery. Those experiences are significant, and I don't want to discount how tough they can be with what I say below. 

Obviously, the word hell has its roots in religious origin. Fire, Brimstone. Eternal torment. Red devils with fiery tails. Burning. In essence, pain.

I don't often bring up my religious beliefs because I'm a fairly private person and I never want to feel like I am pushing what I believe onto other people. I might even be too reticent in this area. However, for the sake of understanding my thought process in this post, I will give a bit of background.

Most Christian religions, at least ones that follow a more traditional perspective, interpret hell to be a real place awaiting people who earn it through their actions and beliefs or lack thereof. I belong to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We believe in Jesus Christ and consider ourselves to be Christians but our interpretation of hell and damnation differs. 

Instead of a physical place of fire and pain, we generally consider hell as a state of being. Hell is, in essence, a condition of stagnation. You can no longer affect change, your potential is wasted, and you cannot progress. Without potential, without work, and without upward mobility, you then experience true misery, because you face eternity without hope of anything ever changing.

I've decided, based on these reflections, to stop saying that something feels like hell when at the gym. Because even though doing a gajillion lunges does hurt and is pretty unpleasant, I'm on a track of upward mobility. I'm progressing. I'm affecting change.

What would truly be hell? Sitting down and letting every chance you have to improve go to waste. When you have a door that can be opened, but you do not open it, you will never see the door that lies beyond it. Your choices are reduced. You have fewer doors, and as you choose not to open them (or even worse, to slam some closed that stand open for you to walk through), you eventually get to a point where you have no more choices left. You have only consequences.

Those consequences might not come until the triple bypass surgery, the high blood pressure and cholesterol, or the debilitating chronic illness. They might not come until the lost time with family, the inability to run after a child in danger, the need to sit out instead of join in because you simply can't. You are no longer making choices; the decisions are literally stripped away from you. 

Hell is truly a cage of our own making, and we place the bars around us one by one as we make the choices we make, until we are no longer free to choose anymore. And what could be worse than losing the ability to act for ourselves, to contribute, build up, create, dream, and then motivate others?

While I might not go so far as to say the tenth round of burpees is heaven, it certainly isn't and won't ever be hell. 

Starting

 This was my first official week getting back into working out since Peter was born. 

I was glad to be there, but I was also sad to see how much progress I had lost in terms of my abilities in the gym. I always liked being a team member at Sisu and being an asset to the team, helping others reach the goal, and being willing to do more work in order to finish with my team. 

In many ways, the journey of this pregnancy and the postpartum journey have humbled me. Certainly, I have been humbled physically, and even now I am working out with certain restrictions on my abilities because of breastfeeding and a weaker core. I can't just dive back in with no holds barred. 

Whenever there's something in the way -- a roadblock, an injury, a realization that you need to focus more on technique before you can get stronger, constraints on time, reduced ability to recover -- ego can get in the way of mindset.

Ego seems like a friend at first. Ego is what pushes you to compete, to be better, to not quit. Ego says you should be able to do this, so get it done; skipping days and taking rests is not acceptable because it's not exceptional. Ego tells you that more is better. It tells you that if you didn't give it all, then you gave nothing. 

Before Peter, I relied on ego a lot. I wanted to be noticed as a team member. I liked to believe I was an asset. I pushed myself because being exceptional meant being valued-- it meant having value.

One of the journeys I had to go on -- by force -- was unlearning this form of motivation. 

So what replaced it?

Well, I'm working on it. But, when I was doing the conditioning workout on Tuesday (my first conditioning workout in over 6 months), I was very slowly completing some of the workout goals. I was winded, running behind my teammates. My movements felt awkward and I was just so aware of how much my body had changed and how much work I needed to do. 

As I was jogging around the pond, I wanted to stop and just go home and claim that my body wasn't ready, which honestly, is the truth. My body isn't ready. After the workout, I had a drop in milk supply that lasted about a day and a half, and I'm still not sleeping great at night because of Peter waking up. Tuesday's workout happened with less than 5 hours of sleep, compounded over multiple nights. I actually found myself nodding off between EMOMs. I'm coming into the workouts with a hand tied behind my back already; these restrictions would affect me even if I was in peak physical condition, which I'm not. 

In the past, this is where ego would step in with the usual message of work harder or you'll be inferior and you won't have value here. Lack of rest doesn't matter; stop making excuses for yourself. Don't be weak. 

Instead, I said, out loud in a very out-of-breath voice, "It's better not to finish than not to start."

Here I was, starting. Ego might not find that impressive, but is it really my goal to impress anyone? No. So, let's get started.

Peter

It's not news to anybody that learning I was pregnant with my fourth child seriously threw me for a loop.

I had multiple evenings where the sheer panic would overwhelm me and Clark would have to hold me until I felt better.

I had no desire to tell people about it, I felt embarrassed by questions relating to my pregnancy, and I did not even like to be around other people's babies because it would make me feel anxious and afraid.

I was worried about losing my carefully honed coping skills -- especially my current ability to dive into a tough workout or go for a 30-mile bike ride when I was stressed.  I worried about how my life would change by "starting over" with a new baby. I hated the idea of being pregnant to full term because I'd done it before and I had not forgotten about the hip pain and the isolation and the loss of mobility and the heartburn and the sleep deprivation. 

More than anything though, I avoided thinking about the labor and delivery. I never forgot the pain and near hysteria I experienced while in labor with Nadine. She came very quickly, I felt like no one was listening to me, the pain was unreal, and there was no time to prepare. I was in physical shock after she was delivered, and I struggled to recover mentally from that experience for a long time afterward. 

I dealt with these feelings during the first half of my pregnancy by trying to ignore the situation. I did not want to buy baby clothes or gear, I did not like thinking about preparing for this new person in my life, and I tried to just go about my life as usual. During the back half, the physical reality couldn't be ignored anymore, so I tried to focus on resolving some of my feelings so that hopefully I wouldn't be a complete basket case by the time baby actually arrived. 

In the last few weeks before delivery, my anxiety started to ramp up again. A big factor that influenced my mood was how the baby was growing -- the pattern was eerily similar to my previous pregnancies. Baby was measuring big, and I started to worry that I would go into labor and feel no sense of control over the process.

I requested to be induced because I have had big babies before, and I was afraid of going too long and having my baby be even bigger. The doctor agreed to schedule an induction at 39 weeks, but the hospital was too busy to allow it, and they kept pushing the date further out. The feeling of not being in control escalated. 

On Friday, April 23rd, I asked Clark to give me a blessing. I was 38 weeks and five days. He blessed me to be able to see God's timing and trust in the Lord that everything would be okay. He blessed me to focus on things that would help me to be positive and give me comfort. I admit that I tried to hear the words, but what I really wanted was to be blessed that I would go into labor, and I was annoyed to hear that I needed to be patient. 

Over that weekend, I thought a lot about the words of the blessing, and I thought about the week ahead, with the induction being pushed out to who-knows-when, and I resolved that I could do it for just a little longer, that everything would be okay, and that the time would pass. On Saturday, I listened to Clark sing at an evening church service, and that helped me to feel calmer. By Sunday, I was in a better place.

Sunday evening, I put the kids in bed, Clark left for work and took my time getting ready for bed. The thought came to my mind around 10PM, just before I was about to lay down, that maybe I should eat something. I don't usually eat that late, but I went downstairs and had a bowl of cereal anyway. I went to bed and fell asleep. 

I woke up at 11:25 PM to a warm gush of liquid on the bed. I was in the twilight zone, but eventually, I realized my water had broken. I called Clark, who said he had a burglar in his backseat and had to drop him off first before coming home. I called my mother-in-law to see what to do. She lives about 1.5 hours away, so I told her I'd look to see if anyone closer was awake who could come to stay at the house until morning. A friend from church was still up, and she came over. 

Clark picked me up and we drove to the hospital. I was having slight contractions, but nothing severe. We got checked into a room, hooked up all the monitors, got my IV in, and by about 2 AM contractions were starting to get more intense. They checked me and I was at about a 3. 

Because I had such fast labor with Nadine (from start to finish was 7 hours), I was super worried about not having time to get an epidural (with Dini, I was at a 3 for most of that time, then dilated from 3-10 in the space of about 50 minutes, so it was too late for pain meds). I just really wanted to avoid the intensity and panic I felt with her, so at about 4 AM, I got an epidural. I could still feel contractions for the majority of the labor after they placed it, but they were much milder. I was able to sleep a bit, which was good because I'd already been up basically all night. 

They checked me periodically through the morning, and my dilation was steady. By 11:15, I was at a 10. The nurse called the doctor to come in and the birth team got everything ready. I was able to start pushing at about 11:45. Peter was born at 11:52 AM, so just over 12 hours after my water broke. 

The most amazing thing happened when he was born. They laid him on my tummy (his cord was pretty short, so he couldn't reach my chest until they cut it), and I just had this feeling that he and I were in this together. Like his little person was there to help me and I was there to help him, and I couldn't have gotten to where I was in my mental health or healing or anything without him, and he couldn't have gotten here on Earth without me. It was such a wonderful thing to feel after so many months of working through feelings of anxiety, apprehension, sadness, and fear. 

We named him Peter because of Simon Peter, and also because of the meaning of the name Peter, which is "Rock". I needed a firmer foundation, I needed to face some things I had been unwilling to face, and this pregnancy and birth experience forced me to face them all, and I'm a stronger person, a better mother, because of it. I have more confidence in myself, and I'm less focused on appearing and more focused on becoming and being. 

Simon Peter and I have a lot in common -- a struggle to know what to do, a difficulty in seeing the big picture, trouble accepting that there are some things that can't be changed. But God sees the potential in us both, and even though Simon was a rough stone, he was still anchored in his love for his Savior. I have a stronger belief in myself now because I have a stronger conviction that God sees me not just for who I am but for who I can become. Just like Peter, I am human and will make mistakes, but the mercy and salvation of God are there to compensate me for my pain and suffering, and to compensate for me when I fall short. 

I'm too stoic and cynical to subscribe to simplistic spiritual platitudes like "everything happens for a reason," but I do think that, despite the toll on my physical health and the changes to my body, and the sacrifices I had to make because of this pregnancy, I needed to experience this in order to develop increased direction and self-actualization in my life.