Juggling for fitness and pleasure

My workplace recently engaged in a "steps" challenge, where different departments competed to see who could rack up the most steps across the team. My team came an admirable second in both the overall steps category and the average steps category.

We were defeated in the overall steps category by a team with significantly higher numbers than us (so they were able to step more steps than we stepped) and a team that had significantly smaller numbers than us, but a lot of enthusiasm (so they stepped more steps per steppers).

At one point I was chatting with some colleagues about the challenge and I mentioned that I sometimes juggle to get my steps up if I'm running short but don't want to go anywhere. Apparently, these particular colleagues were unaware that I juggle. Most of my other colleagues know this about me, because I keep a set of juggling balls at my desk and often have a "juggling break" to flex my shoulders if I'm getting too stiff from sitting too long.

But not everyone has walked into the office area while I was in the middle of a (particularly messy) Mills Mess,* so occasionally someone I know discovers I juggle as new and "exciting" information. I have to let them down by telling them I just do it for fitness and movement. Quite often, this startles people almost more than discovering that I juggle at all.

Juggling for fitness?

Yes, it's a thing.

I first came across the idea of juggling for fitness in my early 20s, and found it utterly freeing. I taught myself how to juggle in high school, but (like most things that involved physical dexterity) I realised that I'd never be able to do it to performance standard. I have the physical grace and natural elegance of a walrus on land.

If I practiced really hard, I would get better at it – but I'd still never get to performance standard.

"What was the point of learning how to do something that's for performance if you know you'll never perform?" my teenaged self thought.

But! Then I discovered that there are people all over the world who... just juggle. They don't do it for audiences, they to it to move. Like riding a bike or running even though you have no intention of ever competing, you can juggle just for the fun of juggling even if you have no intention of ever performing.

Oh, and you can actually juggle competitively. 

I have no intention of doing that, either.

In the grand scheme of things it's a bit like using a skipping rope. You have a small, inexpensive piece of equipment that allows you to essentially travel without moving. 

You can just have a light juggle, and get as much exercise in as you would if you were going for a light walk, or you can ramp it up and make it more involved and intense with bigger or faster movements and more points of body contact.

Between a set of three juggling balls and a footbag (hacky sack) I have a "gym" I can (and do) take with me wherever I go.

Does this mean I juggle all the time and I'm very good at it? No. And, also, no. But I could. 

Sometimes I get on a bit of a streak and I'll start juggling regularly for a few weeks, sometimes I'll go months without picking up a ball.

Sometimes I'll pull my travelling balls out of my bag and juggle in the hotel a few times while I'm on holidays. Sometimes they'll never leave my bag for the whole trip.

But, I enjoy it whenever I do it, and I don't worry about how often I drop the balls (picking them up is part of the movement) or failing to get a certain trick again (given my walrusness, I'm doing well just to juggle at all – and no one is watching, so who cares?).

If you're looking for a low-impact exercise that you can do in the comfort of your own home that costs very little, I thoroughly recommend juggling. It's good for your brain, good for your joints, and a half-decent cardio workout.

Way more fun than a treadmill, and decidedly better value for money.

*I'm not very good at Mills Mess

Mellow Yellow, Or: No one said you have to progress

A bouldering route at my gym.
Pick the yellow or the blue climb.

A few months ago (getting close to a year now, I think) I started going to a bouldering gym.

I'm really enjoying it, I'm getting a lot out of it and I think it's doing wonders for both my physical and mental health.

I am still on the bottom rung of the ladder, and I have no real intention of trying to go much higher than that.

The gym I go to indicates the difficulty of the climb with colour. The basic, beginner level is yellow, then blue, purple, green... and a range of other colours I don't care about because I'm probably never going to climb them. To be honest, I'm probably never going to climb the green ones. The purples are a distant maybe.

As I may have mentioned in the past, I'm not the most physically adept person in the world. My fine motor skills aren't particularly fine. My gross motor skills are kind of gross. The more I try to hone and refine my technique on... well, anything, the worse I get. It's like the worst thing I can do is actually put thought and effort into what I'm doing.

I went to get evaluated for dyspraxia a little while ago. The results were inconclusive. They said I may have mild dyspraxia, or I may just be rubbish at everything. It was suggested that I go in for more tests, but I haven't done it. There's a limit to how much time and money I want to spend on having people say "there's nothing actually wrong with you, you're just crap."

So, while my basic strength levels are all improving and I'm developing muscles (which is nice), my coordination and balance remain unimpressive. 

Now, when I say "my coordination and balance are unimpressive", I'm fully aware of the fact that some people would disagree with me. Those people are comparing me with someone who does nothing. If you don't climb or juggle or do yoga, the fact that I do makes me instantly more "impressive" by comparison. However, if you compared me to someone who has been doing any of those things for the same length of time that I have, you would realise I fall neatly into the category of "could be better".

I'll often try a route that requires more coordination than I have, and my hands and feet will simply refuse to move. "Come on, Sharon, you just have to move this foot up here..." Nope. Not happening. "Okay, fingers, you just have to keep holding on to this thing while I move my other hand to--" No. This sequence of movements will not happen.

I may or may not be able to see what I have to do next, puzzle-wise, but I only have two options: stay where I am, or fall off.

It even changes from day-to-day on the same climb. Monday I could send that climb; Thursday I couldn't.

The yellow routes are mostly within my capabilities, though. It may take me a couple of goes to nut out how to do one that requires a movement I'm not au fait with, but that's a nice challenge that I'm actually capable to solving, and then I get to enjoy doing it again a few times before they reset the wall and take that climb away.

So I do the yellows (and the blues I can do) several times in a session. I take what I can do, and make it harder, rather than getting hung up on things that are too hard.

I know the "done thing" is to try to progress to the next level. Well, that's fine, if you can do it. If you can't, but you keep assuming you should, you'll just get completely frustrated and give up, disheartened. Again.

BUT! And this is really important – you don't have to progress. There's no law that says you have to move on from the beginner levels, if you are still getting something valuable out of those levels. 

I have a regular workout at my climbing gym where I pick at least five routes that are within my abilities, and I do them five times each. This converts those climbs into sets of reps, and my goodness it's a workout. By the time I've done five reps of my third climb, I'm dripping with sweat and feeling the burn in my muscles. It's like running up several flights of stairs, only it's a full-body workout.

On the days where I'm just trying routes, I'll see if I can manage a few blues, and sometimes I can and sometimes I can't. When I can, I'll do it a couple of times before moving on to trying another route. If I can't, I'll try it a few times, and then go do a couple of climbs that I can do before trying another new one. It's exactly right for me.

So maybe you are trying an activity where you feel pressured to progress, but you are still at a spot that's working for you and you don't want to move past it yet. Remember, just because you can't do something "well" doesn't mean you shouldn't do it at all. And you don't have to progress, you can just enjoy life in the shallow end of the pool. Anyone who says otherwise is a source of negative energy, and you don't need that kind of negativity in your life.

A Matter of Time and Underwear

When I’m in the mood for killing a few minutes with some mindless television, I don’t go for soap operas or “reality” TV – I turn to ads for exercise equipment and fitness programs.

I don’t know what it is about these ads, but they catch my attention and hold it in a way that similar ads for air-fryers or non-stick frying pans just can’t. Whenever I flick onto one of the ads-that-go-on-forever channels (i.e. home shopping whatnots), I’m always disappointed when someone is blowing a crepe out of a frying pan instead of showing Chuck Norris.

I love Total Gym ads. I also love Bowflex ads – although I preferred the old machine that had the whole “bow” thing happening; the glorified elliptical trainer they have at the moment is boring in comparison. Oh, and TapouT XT ads are a hoot, but they don’t have a patch on the ads for the Brazilian Butt Lift. I was always incredibly happy whenever I came across the BBL ads on the home shopping networks – but mostly because the way they referred to one’s derrière as a “boom-boom” was hilarious.

I’ve never actually bought any of these products, I just love the ads. I will confess that I did actually buy some DVDs for Tae-Bo.... but this was many, many years after Tae-Bo was a thing, and I bought them because I found them in a shop for a really cheap price. I wanted to see if I was the kind of person who would actually use an exercise program on DVD (you know, just encase I decided to go for the BBL DVDs). Turns out I’m not.

Glad I didn’t buy them at the height of their fame for 4 easy monthly payments of whatever it was back then.

The thing that struck me recently (when I saw a Bowflex ad straight after a Total Gym ad) is the fact that they all try to market their machines/programs as time savers. “Achieve results in less than 10 minutes a day!”

For some reason, they have decided that time is the biggest reason behind people not exercising. They seem to think that, if people can spend less time doing that pesky workout thingy, they might be more willing to buy the workout thingy.

But the fact is, we’re not not exercising because we don’t have time. Of course we’ve got time. We’ve got oodles of time. I just spent 20 minutes watching an ad for Total Gym.

If I’d just grabbed a skipping rope and skipped for the entire time the ad was running, and maybe threw in some plank exercises during the Bowflex ad, I’d see some pretty impressive results if I kept that up for a few weeks – and all for the low cost of one monthly payment of $3 to get the skipping rope from KMart. But wait! If you order now, we’ll also throw in the floor of your own house (normally valued at nothing) for free!

No, the main reason I don’t exercise much is I’m too lazy to get changed. I don’t want to get hot and sweaty in the clothes I’m wearing, but I really can’t be bothered changing into suitable clothing. And if I did make the effort to get changed, after I finished exercising I’d have to get changed again – or sit around in uncomfortably sweaty underwear for the rest of the evening. I’m certainly not going to do that for “less than 10 minutes a day!” – what would be the point of that?

Total Gym, if you come up with clothes and underwear that I can exercise in, and then just loll about in for the rest of the night without feeling sweaty and stinky, you’ll have my full attention.

Shadow Tennis

So, I've decided to jump on the latest fitness craze and I've ordered some Tae-Bo DVDs.

I was sorely tempted to try Tap-Out, but figured I already owned enough expensive white elephants.  If I want to experiment with finding out whether I'm a "work out in your home in front of the TV!" person, I may as well chose yesterday's fad.  By getting a really popular DVD that no body wants any more, you can get it really cheap.

Four DVDs for under $25.  That's all I'm saying.

Anyway, while I'm waiting to do whatever the heck it is you do when you do that stuff, I've been using the one and only other exercise DVD I have - it came with my dumbbells, and goes for about half-an-hour.  It's not bad, but after doing it three times I'm a bit board with it.

Then, last week, I noticed Wimbledon was being screened of an evening.  It suddenly occurred to me that there's actually a pretty fine line between televised tennis and televised aerobics.  You have to squint and turn your head sideways, but the similarity is there and you can see it.

So, here's my current "fitness craze":  shadowing the ball in on-screen tennis.

I "serve" with whoever is serving, then chase the ball from one side of the screen to the other (well, I have a slightly larger playing service than the width of my TV, but you get the gist) and "hit" it whenever one of the players hits it.

Essentially, I'm playing both sides of the tennis match at the same time.

It's actually really fun.  Certainly makes watching the tennis more entertaining.  I have a better appreciation for the really tricky shots, too.

In the ad breaks I do some sit-ups and push-ups to turn it into a more elaborate work-out.  I can tell you, after an hour or so of this, I feel like I've been exercised.

Jump the fence

As part of my attempt to build a better athletic base this year, I've discovered plyometrics.

I was looking for some exercises designed to improve explosive power (lots of sudden lunging and jumping forwards and backwards in fencing), and some of the sites I found mentioned this plyometric thing.  Being a typical librarian, I raided my library's collection and found a couple of good books on the subject.

Also some pretty average books and some downright boring books, but I can say I quite like these two:

High-powered plyometrics by James C. Radcliffe, Robert C. Farentinos. (ISBN: 0880117842)

and

Training for speed, agility, and quickness by Lee E. Brown, Vance A. Ferrigno, editors. (ISBN: 0736058737)

The core idea behind plyometrics involves a lot of jumping, skipping and bounding - making your muscles work like springs to propel your body in all sorts of ways.

It seemed like a good fit for a sport like fencing, so I've been starting with some of the less intense exercises to build a few work-outs.

I've only done it a handful of times, but I have to say my plyo workouts are amongst the best I've ever had.

I don't need a gym - just a park with a patch of land big enough to do some sprinting.  I don't need any equipment except a pair of shoes (although a boxing bag or a medicine ball add an extra dimension).  If it's raining, I just go to the PCYC and use the boxing area or the basketball court, depending on what's free.

My favourite plyo exercises so far involve a combo between jumping and sprinting.  You jump a few times (either a long jump or a lateral jump), then suddenly change direction and sprint for a few meters.  You feel absolutely hammered after a few reps of these - but it's a good feeling.

I give myself a 10 minute warm-up of light jogging, some skipping and some stretching, and then run through a few combinations of five or six plyometric drills for 20 minutes, then spend 5 or so minutes doing another round of jogging and stretching to cool down.

It's amazing how effective that can be.  I've been doing this as my "warm up" before fencing on a Friday night, and it has completely revolutionised my training...

Just not in the way I expected.

You see, quite often I get to fencing and waste half my warm up time getting dressed, then do a couple of drills with the group, then have a few exercises on my own before a short class with the coach*, then I get maybe two bouts in before it's time to take of my 300 layers of clothes and go home.

So often, I get to the end of a fencing night and thing "I could really do with some exercise or something".

Now that I'm doing this plyo work-out ahead of fencing, I'm actually coming into the fencing session feeling like I've already done a decent amount of exercise for the evening.  I seriously don't care if I spend the next two hours largely spectating - I've moved, I've grunted, I've sweated and I've done stuff that makes me feel kind of like an athlete.

Who cares if all I got was a training session where I felt like a dork and two bouts which I lost?  I had a good session.  I did serious sport.

The fencing is just the icing on the cake.




*which usually leaves me feeling like a moron - for some reason I can never work out what he wants me to do, and when I finally work it out I do it poorly.