5 Minutes to Benefit Your Future Self

Last week I had the same conversation with 2 clients who had expressed frustration at not being able to find time to do some movement when they wanted.  One who worked long hours and was unable to find the time to get to a class and the other needed to do rehab type exercises to keep unwinding an issue in her body and had lost the motivation to spend 45 minutes a few days a week to do her programme.  In both cases we talked about finding their key to maintaining a simple, short habit to make the progress they wanted.  

The major thing I have worked on personally and aim to encourage in my clients is that any conscious movement is beneficial and bringing in 5 minutes of movement every day will massively benefit your future self.  I mostly find that we are all so busy that if we aim to set aside 45 mins - 1 hour, 3 times a week to do a load of strength and rehab exercises, plus add in let’s say a yoga class, a circuit session and a run we would basically be working part time and never seeing our children just to fit it all in!  And that’s assuming there’s a choice of classes we like nearby and at times we can get to, which is highly unlikely.

As busy women and mothers we need to take what we can get and for the most part that’s 5 - 15 minutes in the morning before the kids get up or we need to get in the shower before the start of the day.  Here are my top tips of advice for setting up this habit:

1. You are highly unlikely to do anything at the end of the day.  Unless your baby is still feeding and you struggle to have time unattached in the morning I have consistently found it unlikely that my clients and I will have the energy and the motivation by the end of the day to do anything so make time in the morning and that may mean going to bed 15 - 30 mins earlier in the evening.

2. Make the habit easy to set up - have any equipment you need right there, almost in a place you’ll fall over it so you don’t need to go searching for a resistance band or mat if you need them.

3. Despite what I said in 2) you do not need any special equipment or a specially designated space.  Yes a resistance band might be helpful, a yoga mat so you stick to the surface you’re on is nice, but really you can do conscious movement in a space no bigger than your body size in standing, in your pants and no equipment at all.  You know this, but we often give ourselves the excuse that we’re not wearing the right clothes, haven’t eaten the right thing, don’t have our hair right, it’s not quite the right time etc. Actually we don’t need anything, right now is the right time (unless you’re operating heavy machinery of course!).

4. If you have “rehab” exercises to do - and by that I mean exercises that will help you get stronger by engaging and activating sleepy muscles, untwisting imbalances and doing those small pelvic floor, glute and abdominals exercises we all need to do to be able to go and work the big stuff - then write out a list of all of them, for example 12-15 of them and do exercises 1-3 on day 1, 4-6 on day 2, 7-9 on day 3 etc etc.

5. One major key to doing your habit is attaching it to some other thing you do each day - cleaning your teeth, putting the kettle on, getting out of bed and then always doing this new habit at that time.  Be specific about it, “every time I put the kettle on first thing in the morning I’ll do 10 reps of single leg squats each side” or “while I brush my teeth each morning I will stretch my calves on the step in the bathroom for the same amount of time”.

6. Another key is to find the gateway to that habit.  What I mean is, there is a point at which you have a choice to either do your new habit or not, the point at which you’ll hit the snooze button again, scroll on your phone some more or sit down on the sofa never to get back up again. When you find that gateway you’ll know that the creation of the habit is not the doing of the exercises, how many reps or even what exercises you’re going to do but making that decision to do it at that gateway.  For me that gateway is getting out of bed without touching my phone.  If I turn my phone on it’s game over, I’ll look at my messages, check in on social media and that’s 15 minutes wasted.  If I get out of bed without touching it I know I’ll just get on with what I want to actually do which is take steps to get stronger.  See if you can find your gateway to your new habit and make that clear in your strategy.

7. Five minutes is better than nothing, and 10 squats or 2 core exercises are 10 squats more than you would have done if you’d have thought it wasn’t worth it.  It is worth it, always.  Showing up day after day and showing yourself that you are worth that small moment in time is a consistent step towards the strong and resilient person you are becoming.

Personally, I have chosen to alternate between rehab exercises and a simple yoga sequence each day. I found last year that I got bored of the same rehab exercises each day so I do as I said in point 4 above and then alternate with a yoga flow I make up every other morning.  This keeps it interesting and focusses my attention on the rehab days to really make best use of that time.  You may need to spend some weeks/months working out what works best for you and try different options out.

Happy New Year - and a New You? No thanks, you’re perfect just the way you are!

What does 2020 hold in store for you?

Looking through my emails and social feeds there are either messages of promotion for new diets, new workouts with “incredible/intense/amazing results” or messages saying not to change anything, don’t fall for all the “New Year, New You” BS. Have you noticed that too? 

What if you do want to take the opportunity of a clear January to start something you’ve always wanted, or to create a change in your life to benefit you in the long term? How do you negotiate the noise in all this messaging then?

I think it’s pretty safe to say we know now that “fad” diets don’t work - that is ones that are restrictive, change your eating, juice only, skinny tea, massive food group removal or ones based on being a better version of yourself.  Let’s just go over that again - fad diets DON’T WORK!

I know you know deep down that sensible eating, consciously and without waste, moderate, varied movement that suits your body and getting enough sleep, relaxation, time outdoors and connection with others every day are what we need to be healthy and happy in our bodies and minds.  It’s not rocket science and you don’t need special tech, fancy clothing, another fitness or food tracking app or super expensive gym membership. Sometimes what we need is a better strategy to go about our weeks and create habits that are long lasting - read on to find out more about the 1% strategy

Image taken from James Clear’s website (above) and information contained in this message from his book “Atomic Habits”

1% Changes to Create Successful Habits

In 2003 the fate of the British Cycling team changed forever.  Dave Brailsford was hired as a coach and began to implement tiny changes in behaviour and technology that took the team from only ever having won 1 gold medal at an olympics and never having won the Tour De France to winning 60% of the gold medals in the 2008 games, and gaining 5 out of 6 of Tour victories from 2013 onwards.  In fact during the ten-year span from 2007 to 2017, British cyclists won 178 world championships and 66 Olympic or Paralympic gold medals and captured 5 Tour de France victories in what is widely regarded as the most successful run in cycling history.

How did this extraordinary improvement happen?  And why is it relevant to you - someone who isn’t a professional cyclist?

Brailsford didn’t make a dramatic change in training plans, or dope his athletes up to the eyeballs to make them into superhumans.  He got them to wash their hands effectively everywhere they went so they reduced infections, and got them pillows and mattresses perfectly suited to each individual which they took with them everywhere so they slept better.  He had the inside of the team truck painted white to ensure they noticed any dirt or dust which would affect the fine tuned bikes and tested massage gel to make sure they used the most effective one for recovery.  These were among many other thousands of small changes.

On their own not a single one of these changes would have made a difference, but collectively and repeated month after month, year after year, these changes aggregated into a collective of 1000s of % improvements.

How is this relevant to you?

When you look to make any change, don’t think only the massive changes are worthwhile.  

• Waking up every morning and looking out your window to take in the sky and trees before opening your phone will help your mental wellbeing more easily than thinking “I have to meditate every day for 20 minutes or I’ll never reduce my stress levels”

• Drinking a glass of water every time before you make a caffeinated drink will help you stay more hydrated than vowing to never drink caffeine again.

• Packing your bag so you have the snacks and lunch you want for the next day in advance means you’re less likely to regret what you eat and drink at work.

• Having a little programme of movement that benefits your body to do each morning will help you feel more balanced, stronger and more mobile.  Prepare for success with this by committing to waking up 15 minutes earlier, make it friction free to carry this habit out by having the written programme, a mat and any pieces of equipment right there ready for you so you literally fall over it in the morning rather than it being packed away.

Remember that most of the significant things in life aren't stand-alone events, but rather the sum of all the moments when we chose to do things 1 percent better or 1 percent worse. Aggregating these marginal gains makes a difference.

PROGRESS - rough, ugly and never linear!

PROGRESS!

When my son was born 6 1/2 years ago I reckon I would have said I’d be doing events like in the photos above in no time.  I was strong, I had trained through my pregnancy, I had a good base and I felt great.  If I could just ignore and push through all the niggles and sicknesses and constant exhaustion I would be fine.  Everything would be fine, it’s all fine isn’t it?

Well no it wasn’t, I was slowly crumbling and instead of listening to what my body was trying to tell me I just pushed on until I hit a wall, and once I could function no more, that’s when I finally stopped and listened.  It was 3 years until I got moving again with any purpose.  Three years of bouncing from one alternative therapist to another working on diet, gut health, immune health, gentle physical support with manual therapy and also trying to sleep and rest as much as possible.

In the last 2 1/2 years I’ve been building myself back up from a point of actually feeling more healed.  It’s not a quick process, nor is it easy.  There’s no quick fix, no bounce back, no “if I could just be ….. sleeping 8 hours a night/drinking less/weigh a stone less/once the kids are in school/out of nappies/given up the dummy etc etc etc” it’s a process that moves with you through all those ups and downs, adapting and blending with the tussles of your life, a process in which you figure out how you can now move with the life and body you have right now.

This year I started running again.  I haven’t run and enjoyed it much before, and entering a 10k was quite a challenge especially as I got injured fairly soon after entering.  However what I did do is strength train a lot - rehab every day, strength circuits every other day, glute strength work every other day and walking in the hills with my dog 4 times a week.  I could only run for longer than 3 minutes at a time 2 weeks before the run but it didn’t affect me as much as I thought because running is so much more than running - it’s how your body works as a whole, it’s how you breathe, it’s how your glutes and hams and pelvic floor all work together.  

This weekend I entered the 4km River Arun swim, a swim that goes with the tidal flow with 500 participants all on a mass start.  I had panicked quite a lot about it before the race, that my wetsuit was too tight, that I wouldn’t be able to breathe properly, that I hadn’t trained enough to swim that far.  All the panicking got me through, the psyche before the race helped spur me on and in the end I had a lovely, smooth swim for 1 hour and 4 mins.

My point is progress isn’t fast, it’s definitely not linear and it sure as hell isn’t smooth.  It’s rough and ugly, filled with tears and pain and anguish, you need help and support from those around you and those in the know and you need to believe in your power.  I definitely lost faith for a good while there but I’m here to tell you now, I thought I couldn’t do this again, I thought I was too broken to push myself hard again, but I can and I did, and I loved it!

What do you really need ... and how to get it

Image courtesy of: Catie Atkinson, Spiritysol

Writing this from my breakfast table on the terrace outside the lovely holiday house we rented in Tenerife, its a funny thing to be thinking about “needs”.  This particularly phase of life is pretty near perfect - husband around for a whole 8 days, plenty of sunshine, kids happily playing safely and we have miraculously found somewhere with 2 other children the same age as ours for them to be entertained by.  However, the reality is this escapist week is the tonic to our full tilt lives, with my husband commuting for nearly 4 hours each day, me teaching 16 classes a week plus all the extra admin and life stuff, and our kids doing after school activities on all but 1 weekday.  I have had a few new clients recently coming in talking about how they’d like to be doing more to help themselves get stronger, but they just can’t find the time, or my client who hasn’t had a full nights sleep in 4 1/2 years whilst her husband has not helped out.  One of the most powerful tools I learnt that helped me break through the cycle of needing - feeling unfulfilled - feeling resentful - expressing anger - was the realisation that I could ask for what I needed and those who were able to support wanted to help.  Most of the issue as a Mum who has her finger on the pulse of everything in the household is that we don’t let go easily.  Think of the last time you went out for a bit and left your partner in charge - did you micro-manage the entire time so they had food, things to do, washing already done and clothes already laid out?  Or did you just leave the house?  For those with little kids I suspect the answer is the former, I know I wasn’t alone!

Asking for support with what we need is a fundamental change of tack for a previously independent woman who didn’t really need someone else’s help just so she could go to do some food shopping alone, or buy a nice top for a party so she felt good about herself.  I believe learning how to express what we need and want can change our own lives and of those around us.

I learnt through the One Of Many coaching system that writing a “needs creed” is the first step, so here I am passing that tool on to you. 

Write out a list of all the things you need/want/desire  - anything and everything from water, fresh air, daily movement, a massage, an evening out with girlfriends, a good book, 8 hours sleep, going for a walk by yourself, regular sex, an evening spent talking with your partner, individual time with your kids, going to see a therapist because you need some extra help, getting a cleaner etc etc.  You can write as much as you can possibly think about and in no particular order to begin with.  Then divide your list into “essential needs”, “wants” and “desires” - your essentials are those things that you would not feel complete and fulfilled without, for example, it might be essential to you that you are able to take one evening a month to chat to or connect with your best friends in some way and without that you’d feel adrift, or moving in your most nourishing, chosen way at least 3 times a week otherwise you’ll feel sluggish and foggy.  You shouldn’t feel that anything is a luxury and not really a need or that you feel selfish writing these down - if you feel that is what makes you, you and you wouldn’t feel your whole self without it then it’s a need.  Your “wants” are things that are slightly down on that list, for example, a new top to help you feel better about your breastfeeding boobs, or a massage once a month, these are things you can get by without but you may spend your time feeling resentful if you are not able to make room in your life for them.  Your desires might be things that are visions for the future, or wants that you have for the way you will be living.  Not “once I lose 5kgs I will ...” but things like “I need 8 hours sleep, our baby hasn’t slept through yet, I don’t think it’ll happen tomorrow, it might take a while, how do we get there?” Aim towards the positive desires rather than negative outcomes - I want to feel healthier, not I want to be slimmer - then your goal orientation will always be positive rather than negative.

Once you have your list, the fun begins, this is where you get to involve others.  Write next to each need/want/desire what that looks like to you - eg. Water - 6 pints every day (especially if you’re breastfeeding), sleep - in bed by 9:30, lights out at 10pm every night, movement - that yoga class you love every Saturday morning, or that online workout programme you’ve been considering that’ll cost £20 a month.  Then work out who can help you with this and ASK them.  Sleep is the most fundamental, important and potentially contentious one here, if you are up in the night with babies, up at the crack of dawn with them as well and then have to entertain them during the day and your partner comes home at 8pm preferring you to eat together when he/she is back, and then he/she will watch TV and chat with you until at least 10/11pm and so you don’t get into bed until 11:30/12pm, this is a pattern that is not serving you.  You and your partner have different needs, and whilst I sympathise with wanting to connect together at the end of the day, there are other ways to do this other than eating late together and going to bed late together.  Talk to your partner about what you need “I need to get more sleep, I’m so tired, and feeling depleted” then show them what they can do to help “I would love it if you could help me by encouraging me to go to bed at 9:30pm, it would help me feel so good and happy” and how this could work “I would like to eat dinner with the kids so that I’m not eating late, then I’d love to sit and chat about our days when you eat later on” then check in if that could work for them “what do you think, how would that work for you?”

No-one would refuse you this, the people around you want to help, would love to facilitate an easier life for you, and need the specifics - no more assuming they will “just know” or wondering why they can’t just tell what you need!  Do you need time to go to a class each week? Who can help - a Mum friend, a neighbour, a relative, your partner - you never know until you ask, try it out, adapt as you go along, you are not alone.  It does take a village to raise a child, sometimes it’s not obvious what that village looks like, or who is in your particular village, and sometimes you need to build it, but it’s there.

How not to hurt yourself when you run!

I hear from many women (myself included at one point), that they are worried about running because they don’t trust their pelvic floor, or they can’t run very much before it all going a bit pear shaped.  I get that, I wasn’t sure my pelvic floor would hold either, but now I know that you can start running whenever you like or whenever you need to without worry because if you set yourself up well you’ll be using your body efficiently so your pelvic floor will be in the right place. 

“But surely my pelvic floor is always in the same place, how can it be in the right or wrong place?” - ah well that’s the thing, the way we stand, walk, go up and down stairs, get out of a chair and run can all influence whether our pelvic floor is in a position where it can do it’s job well or in a position that there’s not a hope in hell it could hold on and so most likely it won’t!  So let’s set you up right and then off you go!

• Ideally I would have you take a photo of yourself side on so you can see the curves of your spine - if not a photo, at least stand side on to a mirror and take a look.

• Our spine has natural curves from the joint between our skull and neck curving slightly forward, the area around the back of our ribs curving slightly back and then a low curve behind our pelvis which curves forward again.  In some people these gentle curves can become exaggerated and a head forward posture leads to an increased upper back curve and increased lower back curve to balance all the way through.  In others the spine can be very flat through the upper half and with a steeper curve in the low back to compensate.  In others, and this is more common in post-natal women, the curve in the low back travels up to behind the belly button and either their butt sticks out or, more commonly they tuck their bottom under to compensate for the excessive curve higher up.

• So when you look at your spine, what do your curves look like?

• When you’re standing, walking, running and all the rest of your daily movements you want to think about keeping your ribs connected to the pelvis at the front.  In 99% of my clients we focus on ribs down - this is through expanding your back as well as connecting through your front.  So when you walk and go to start running keep your ribs dropped down so you have that connection and control set up right.

• Then check in with where your pelvis is, if it’s stuck out you’re going to have problems with the impact of running on your low back, and if it’s tucked under - surprisingly common! - you’ll have problems with your pelvic floor struggling to hold strong enough with the weight of your trunk going down through your pelvis. Start from the ribs and then you may find the pelvis stacks correctly underneath.

• What about your head?  Remember your head is pretty heavy, if you run with your head stuck out forwards that’s going to increase the slump down through your upper back and make it heavy to keep picking up each step - like holding a bowling ball in your arm all the time!  So keep your chin tucked slightly and back of your neck long so your head and ribs are all in a line.

• As you start to run, make sure you drive your legs back out behind you each step instead of scooting your feet forwards.  It helps if you start from where your foot lands - make it mid or fore foot instead of heel which means you are best to strike the floor almost under your body rather than out in front.

• Last thing - arms - do they swing across your body or do you use your arms forwards and back like pistons to help propel you.  If you are doing the cross body swinging thing you are potentially lacking mobility in your upper back to get enough counter rotation to your pelvis - ie. your pelvis and ribcage should rotate opposite to each other each step - but if you don’t get enough of this then your arms have to swing to get more momentum.

Having someone take a video of you running is a brilliant tool to help you learn.  You often find that what you think you’re doing and what you’re actually doing are a world apart from each other and seeing yourself can help you close that gap.

Don’t be afraid to run, here’s my top 3 tips for starting out:

1. Go by feel not distance, speed or what your technology says

2. Walk then run, walk, run, walk, run - slow to a walk when you feel your alignment (all those points above) is failing to hold.  There’s only any point in running while you’re doing good technique rather than ending up in a sloshy mess at the end.

3. Breath into your ribs to the side and back under your shoulders - more of that in the next post - not by tightening your neck and dragging your shoulders up

Have fun, running is a brilliant way to get some headspace, take an easy amount of time out to do something for yourself and most importantly enjoy spending time in nature whatever the weather. I will post more soon about conditioning exercises for running so you can make sure you’re strong enough all over to keep going.

Happy Running!