Do you remember that band? “100 Years” hit so hard, didn’t it? I want to belt that in a car with my buddy Abby. Abby, make note.
I’m chatting about fitness this round as it’s the gray scream of January-February and moving tends to help. I substituted for a high school gym class last week. Whatever picture you have in your mind, that’s exactly what it was.
WHAT HITS
Angie McMahon’s album “Light, Dark, Light Again” is a banger. The whole thing. I discovered her song, “Pasta,” a few years ago and couldn’t put it down. This album is about many things but keeps honing in on establishing a relationship of love with yourself. And not a shallow “love yourself” take, but a true exploration of suffering and perseverance. It’s getting me. It’s vast. I hear something new every listen. If you only have time for one song, try “Letting Go,” “Mother Nature,” or “Exploding.”
A DRIP on fitness
I wore a YMCA shirt to an improv class and a classmate came up to me afterward and said, “I saw you work for the YMCA, would you want to be a fitness instructor at my gym?” At the YMCA, there was a 90-second span of time where we ushered all 50 kids in the after-school program across three crosswalks in one traffic light. Not just any streets. I’m talking the intersection of Lincoln, Belmont, and Ashland in one swoop. By “we” I mean myself and one other employee whose top characteristics included using Snapchat and screaming. The entire act had to be illegal, beginning with my hourly wage. I would have agreed to anything. She could’ve said, “I saw you work for the YMCA. Would you like to learn how to tap dance for sport? You’ll plateau in three years and never be enough.” and I would’ve replied as enthusiastically.
I was a fitness instructor and personal trainer for four years. I worked for corporate fitness companies that were hired by businesses to run the gym in their building. It was physically too taxing to balance with performing so I stopped. I explain all of this so you know exactly how much to trust me.
The following sits somewhere between a pump-up speech and a how-to guide if you’re trying to start a workout rhythm. This is every trick I’ve used to make this world accessible for me and the people I’ve coached. Somewhere along the line I became liberated by movement versus harmed by my relationship with it. This shift changed a number of my behaviors for the better. Like everything else in this country, fitness is an industry. It’s designed to make you feel not good enough so you buy in. Hopefully, something on this list helps you participate in the system while also bucking it.
1. Personal trainers and fitness instructors get their certificates through accredited sources. Anyone can buy the course. It’s a relatively challenging test to pass and you have to continue to take classes every year to keep your certification. How everyone chooses to train gets subjective fast. Trust your gut if you run into a trainer online who is preaching something that gives you the spooks. We did not go to medical school.
I took my course through the National Association of Sports Medicine and it, almost, single-handedly cured my relationship with movement and eliminated the pieces of my sweet, sweet anorexia that we’re hanging on. I forgot how the body worked and relearned in a state that was desperate to remember how incredible it is. If you’ve got the money, take the course for kicks.
The course is expensive so here are some YouTube videos that can get you going. It’s probably stuff we learned in biology. But life is hard. We get parking tickets and pay taxes and forget. It’s good to remember behind all the trauma that the word “cardio” carries is simply the cardiovascular system. And when you’re sprinting and heaving it’s far more inspiring, or just honest, to know what’s happening within your body. Understanding makes phrases like, “I’m so bad at this,” dissipate while you’re moving. They start to sound pointless given the situation. Your body doesn’t care about your skill level and you start to not care either. You’re pumping blood and you know why, rock on.
Muscle Basics
How stretching actually changes your muscles
Circulatory and Respiratory Systems
Central Nervous System
Like did you know when we lift something using our bicep our brain is, yes, telling the bicep to contract but also telling the tricep to relax and stretch out? Is that not the sickest thing you’ve ever heard in, at least, the last fifteen minutes?
2. Almost every gym has some sort of introductory package with a personal trainer. It’s semi-cheap and if you can’t afford to continue with the trainer, be upfront about it in the first session. Say, “I can only afford three sessions. Here are my goals.” They get it and they’ll pack as much advice into your time together as they can. Our paycheck is determined by the number of clients we’ve got, so they may try to sell more sessions even if you are upfront. Don’t freak out, it’s just the job.
Essentially, a trainer observes your posture during a series of movements in your first session, identifies the shortened and lengthened muscles, and creates a plan of exercises to stretch the shortened muscles and strengthen the lengthened ones. We’re not trying to get you to squat 300 lbs. We are trying to help you identify your muscle imbalances so your body knows how to safely squat the 110 times it needs to when you play with your niece.
Every trainer I’ve met is stoked to make the gym seem like a far less scary place where people feel empowered to move. We all act a little weird because we’re paid to workout six times a day. Despite these incessant dopamine hits, we chug energy drinks to remain standing. Do not be intimidated. Beneath this bang™-fueled exterior, is a chill person who is not judging you and genuinely excited to help.
3. In an acting class years ago, the teacher said “Your body is an instrument. Play it.”
4. If you can’t afford a trainer but still have a gym membership that you don’t know how to use, take group fitness classes when you can and look at your posture to build up some personal workouts. Most of us have upper cross syndrome. Look up exercises to correct your posture type. Go to the gym, walk for 20 minutes on the treadmill with good posture, and do a few sets of exercises you learned to work on your imbalances. Boom. A workout.
Here is an exercise and database library by ACE. This is an incredible resource. Pull it up on your phone at the gym, review the moves you want to try, and try them. You will feel stupid at the gym trying something new. It’s ok. Be easy on yourself and know everyone at the gym looks stupid. The entire time.
5. Let’s return to the rhythm part of “work out rhythm.” It’s not going to be the same every week, month, or season. I go to the gym more in the winter because I’m angry and sad. Less in the summer because I’m angry and can play outside. Routine is cool, but reframing to rhythm allows you to live a life and not get down on yourself if you get out of step with a routine you’ve established. You’re going to get sick, go on vacation, need rest, get injured, be on your period, have surgery, go to bar trivia on a Tuesday, etc. Let it happen. There are a million trainers online selling their 4, 8, and 12-week plan. Cool. Good for them. Do those plans but determine the hierarchy. You’re in control. Your life > doing every workout in an 8-week fitness plan - right? Right.
Also on rhythm, your body is going to change for as long as it’s alive. Just like everything else. Take a neutral stance towards these changes even though it’s impossible. Every winter I will gain weight and every summer I will lose it. Great. I’m going to respect that. Sometimes I’m really strong, sometimes I’m not as strong. Cool. I used to run eight miles like it was nothing. Now I run two like it’s everything. Whatever. Maybe next year I’ll run a marathon. Maybe I’ll never run again. Awesome. I can’t climb overhangs because of two different surgeries. So, I’m not going to climb overhangs. Alright. Your body will keep changing. You don’t need to transform it, it’s already transforming. Show up for it every day and say nothing but, “good morning.”
6. Two years ago, I stopped going to the gym with a plan and, for me, it rocks. I have 20-some balance and strengthening exercises that I like, a few aerobic workouts I like, and some stretches I should do more often. I do some smorgasbord of these when I go to the gym and stop when I want. If I get bored, I look up different moves or take a class. This style of working out will probably not make me into the marathon-running, rock-crushing elk girl of my dreams. But that dream is only fun for a few minutes a day. I just want to keep my muscles awake and clear my head.
Notice I said, “like.” Don’t do stuff you don’t like! I don’t like crunches and I will never do them again. I don’t need to. There are plenty of other ways to strengthen my core. Do stuff that feels interesting to your body. Balance is a good one.
7. Follow athletes on Instagram. I follow a French athlete who moves like death isn’t real, Courtney Dauwalter, and a smattering of other cyclists and skateboarders who do things I will never be able to do. Athletes are not trying to be hot, they’re trying to try. Netflix has 100 sports documentaries and these do the same trick.
8. Speaking of being hot, don’t worry about being hot. Some people get off on being hot at the gym. If that’s you, use it. Whatever. But for the rest of you, remove yourself from the narrative. Remember recess? Or playing with your cousins? Or whatever makes you go “Oh, yeah, that was fun and I wasn’t thinking about how I looked or felt I was just alive and moving.” That’s possible.
Athletic wear (oh my, another industry) does a great job at making people, specifically women, feel like they need to wear something special to work out. Unreal. We’re on a spinning rock and you want me to spend money on, I’m sorry, a matching neutral set? Get a solid sports bra but other than that, wear dumb or inspiring clothes. I have two workout shirts, a pair of leggings, and one pair of shorts. I haven’t updated these items in two years. One shirt has Baby Yoda’s face on it, the other is from a Memorial Run for my friend’s dead dad. When I look in the mirror of the weight section surrounded by gym rats and see my distorted, sweaty face puffing in one of these, I’m free. Dude, Baby Yoda isn’t even cool. It’s not a funny reference. It’s sort of like, “Oh weird, Baby Yoda? Ok.” In this shirt, I’m trying to try. And not like an athlete, but, almost, like 9-year-old Cat would when she sprinted from the house to the barn.
9. If you don’t know how to throw a baseball, have a friend who knows how to throw a baseball teach you. Or a football. Or a bump a volleyball. Meet in the park and learn. I wasn’t good at sports as a kid. It’s easier to be bad at practice or in gym class if you can be self-aware enough to beat everyone to the joke. This mode of survival eliminated the fun that comes with sport. Being bad at sports or PE messed with a lot of us. Trust me, I talked about it in almost every first-time session with a client. Take back sport.
10. Join a sports league. For the last two summers, I’ve played beach volleyball with a bunch of really great dudes. Each Thursday we all talked about how it was the best Thursday of our life. After the game, we would jump in the lake. There was usually a cover band that would play at the beach’s bar. Every member of the wait staff could’ve been a successful character actor. My summer volleyball team is enough reason to make me move back and buy a home in Chicago. Are you with me? I haven’t mentioned fitness once.
11. Choose a “why” that makes sense. My first goal was to lose weight and I hated moving. When I changed it, my relationship with moving changed. I’ve never seen a client build up a positive relationship with movement if it’s centered on weight loss. Instead, it becomes a game based wholly on numbers and punishment. If this goal works for you, totally fine. I will not debate you. But for the rest of you, talk to a doctor, therapist, or nutritionist if you want to lose weight. Choose a different goal with movement.
My newest “why” is, “be healthy for the next surgery.” I’ve had two in the last three years. It will come again and it’s a major stress on the body. Another “why” is the maintenance of my major depressive disorder (brag). Breathing very hard is an oil change for my mind. This is not a good metaphor as I don’t fully understand an oil change.
Now, I’m not on the rowing machine chanting, “FOR SURGERY,” or “this is an OIL CHANGE FOR MY MIND,” but sometimes I’ll pop it in the thought flow when I’m having a tough time. You can have as many little “whys” as you want. Sometimes you need them, sometimes you don’t. Choose the ones you believe.
12. Let this industry be stupid. Because it is. Drink the kool-aid and laugh at it. I love a spin class. It’s dark, there are candles, and I’m screaming “wolf pack” at some point. During the class, I’m doing the thing and doing it hard. But afterward, I’m going to laugh. Same with bouldering. I love rock climbing indoors on little plastic rocks. But I must always remember I am rock climbing indoors on little plastic rocks. It’s a game. Have you ever watched the free weight section of a gym? It’s the funniest place in the world. A bunch of people pumping iron and looking at themselves in the same mirror. I mean what is this place? Not one to fear.
13. Take breaks in group fitness classes. I take more breaks than anyone else in the ones I take. Many of these classes are designed to make people sweat and feel sore because then they’ll feel like they did something and come back. As in, they might be pushing you too far. You don’t have to change the world in a group fitness class. But take them! Because isn’t it fun to turn your mind off and be told exactly what to do? Find a class and instructor you like and attend it regularly The same people will be in the class. Then, you’ll start chatting afterward. And fall in love. This is how all romance begins. True love, time and time again, points back to a group fitness class called “BODYATTACK.” (this is the name of a real class)
That’s the end of the list. Although I’m not a practicing trainer or instructor, I love helping people through the house of mirrors that is the fitness industry so reach out with questions.
I repeat - you don’t have to change the world with it. I use this phrase all the time when I’m on the fence about going for a walk, driving to the gym, going to an open mic, writing anything, calling a friend, etc. “Go for a walk, bud, you don’t have to change the world with it.” You don’t. You just have to get 50 kids across three streets at rush hour in 90 seconds. And you can.
WHAT’S UP, ASHER?
After featuring my brother, Annie, last round I figured it was time to feature one of my real brothers. We’re starting with my little brother, Asher. For the past 8 years, Asher and I have sent each other multiple audio messages in a row that equate to a 20-minute podcast in which we scream about being alive and then try to give some semblance of advice to the other. It’s the best thing. I am so proud of this dude, always and forever. He is funnier than anyone I know. It’s a gift to see him work with his horses. I didn’t tell him to talk about his horses or movement and he talked about both. Wow.
I love my bro.
What is something strange or cool that happened to you recently?
What advice would you give yourself one year ago?
Live in the moment. Nothing else to do. And if you like HITMAN, it would mean, oh, so much to me if you forwarded or shared it. See you $oon.
love love love <3
I need you to come be my trainer at Country Time Playhouse!! Great ideas and advice!! Great job, Asher! That was awesome. Please will you do a reel of you doing yoga?! The picture makes me giggle!! P.S. don’t tell Asher, but he sounded like his Dad sometimes. ❤️
Keep pressing on Katie Lou!!