Tag Archives: workout

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?