Tag Archives: workout

Aches and pains

I do a lot to take care of myself and for the most part, I feel good about my progress. But today I feel old.

I usually take in the attitude that age is just a number. I’m as young as I believe that I am. Today my age wins.

Saturday on my 5km walk with my wife, she decided to jog for some of it. I enjoy jogging at my wife’s pace and thought nothing of it. I will run on my treadmill faster than this, and for longer than the two sections we jogged for. Sunday after my archery I did an 8 minute leg workout that I usually do, and added about 4 reps of an assisted pistol squat, because I’m very slowly trying to get myself to the point that I can do these.

But by Sunday night my knee was hurting. I don’t know why, but think it might be running on uneven terrain rather than on the treadmill, or trying the pistol squat after my 8 minute workout, when my legs are fatigued. Then I got a hip cramp that night.

After this my shoulders and back tightened up and for the first time in several months I felt shoulder pain. I only did one exercise with my arms that was slightly different than my usual routine, and I intentionally did it with light weights since it was new. Besides, it was a bicep exercise, not a shoulder one.

This ache caused me to tense up my upper back and the tension between my shoulder blades was so tight, I had to push my back into doorway jams to work the kinks out several times during the day… basically using the corners of the doorway to massage the knots out of my upper back.

Old. That’s the feeling this morning. I feel like the rust has formed on my joints, and the whole machine is seizing up. This morning I’ll ride my stationary bike for 20 leisurely minutes, do some stretching, and that will be my workout. Tomorrow I have a massage booked and it will be a painful one. A lot of deep tissue work on my upper back, and hamstring work because my tight hamstrings tend to be the root of my leg and hip issues.

Maybe after that I can remember why I work so hard to take care of myself, remember to spend more time stretching, and start to feel young again. Maybe I need reminders like this to refocus me. When I don’t exercise, my back pain becomes chronic. But I have to say that it’s not fun to ache in several places at once, and while exercise usually keeps the rust away, right now this machine feels old and rusty.

This morning my age is getting the best of me… but I’m not done feeling young. I’ll work my way back to healthy, and oil these joints back to fully operational again. The alternative to this is being lazy and letting myself fall back into a life of daily pain, and feeling even older than I do today. No, I’d rather keep active and find my way back to feeling young again.

When is your next workout?

Even without dealing with a pandemic, this is a crazy time of year for educators. I will avoid sharing what time I’m writing this, but let’s just say it has been a long day! I bet 2/3rds or more educators can’t believe it’s only Thursday, and not the weekend yet!

So with all the craziness of September, who has time for a workout?

You do!

Until January 2019, my pattern was to stop working out during my busy times at school, like September and report card time. Then I realized that fair weather fitness wasn’t fitness. I decided that if I wanted to be healthy, I had to be consistent. So I stopped letting ‘busy’ stop me from working out.

The result: more energy, and more to give! More vibrancy, and a great feeling that I’m actually caring for both my current and future self.

Busy times aren’t times to push heavy weights, run longer, or ride faster. Its dedicating small windows of time to self care. It’s about raising the heartbeat, walking when you’re too tired to run, and maintaining a level of fitness at a time when it’s easy to forget to take care of yourself.

If fitness isn’t a priority when you are ‘too busy’ then it’s not a priority. Period.

You deserve to treat yourself better than that. So, when is your next workout?

What’s your Walk-up music?

If you’ve ever watched a boxing match, a UFC fight, or even fake wrestling, you know that fighters come in to ‘Walk-out music’. They have a song that pumps them up and gets them ‘Ready to Rumble’. These Walk-out/Walk-up/Walk-in songs energize you and get you ready for ‘game time’. Almost everyone knows this one.

John Spencer asked on Twitter: “If teachers had walk-up music when they started class, what would you walk-up song be?”

The resulting thread of replies is fun to check out!

I went with a song that’s very new to me, but that I love to do workout sets to, Tujamo ‘s ‘Drop that Low (When I dip)’.


A former students reminded me in a response to my tweet that for last year’s grad my walk-up music to the stage was ‘Rock Lobster’ by the B-52’s. I responded, “That was old school me, this is new school me 🤣“.

I have a small playlist on my phone called ‘All On Repeat’. These are songs I like to listen to over and over again when I work out.

Just recently, I shared a video of myself working on my handstands listening to Kesha’s ‘Your Love is My Drug’. My plank music is Eminem’s ‘Lose Yourself’. And my chin-up music, along with other exercises, rotate between ‘Paper Planes’ by M.I.A., ‘Bitter Sweet Symphony’ by The Verve, and again my new favourite, Tujamo ‘s ‘Drop that Low (When I dip)’.

I also have music that I listen to when I write. I always chose music either with no lyrics, or with lyrics that are easy to ignore. Enya is a favourite, especially songs from her album, ‘Memories of Trees’. My current go to is a bit more frenetic, Michael Denny’s ‘Nerve Centre’ available on the Calm (meditation) App. I’m listening to this as I write, now.

Music stimulates my mind, and it sets positive moods for me. When you look at my eclectic selection of songs above, they give no indication that I grew up loving Led Zeppelin (still my favourite band – and ‘No’, not a password recovery answer to retrieve any of my passwords), as well as Boston, AC/DC, and the Rolling Stones. But I also grew up on Bob Marley, Blondie, and Boney M. I’ve also grown to love musical theatre songs, thanks to a family that is obsessed with them.

My tastes vary considerably, and my workout songs are far from classic rock, but they really do ‘Pump me up‘ and motivate me to push myself. So what about you?

What’s your Walk-up music? If you had ‘game time’ music to put you into a mood to do your best, what would it be?