The virtue of self-control relies heavily on habit. More self-controlled individuals develop healthy habits for eating, studying, and getting what they want to do done—so that, paradoxically, they achieve their goals while expending less conscious effort than their more impulsive counterparts.
–Angela Duckworth
Hello Athletes,
Even though I don’t see you every day, I do think of you every day. The last few days, I was thinking about how all the challenges you face as school begins remotely for another semester. I know you guys are all being gritty and I’m proud of how well you are doing in Zoom school, but I know it’s not the same.
One of the little things I thought about over the weekend is the break between classes. It is a mundane, small thing, but just getting up and walking from one classroom to another is a nice physical and mental reset.
And then…I happened to see this video on the New York Times. This is a seven minute standing workout…the video is about half way down his article…which will fit during a fifteen minute break between Zoom classes. Honestly, it was designed for old people I think–you should be able to bang this out easily (and you can make it tougher by doing some or all of the pushups and planks on the floor). The benefit, though, is have some movement and not be stuck in your chair all day switching from one zoom link to another with some quick note taking or a few text messages to friends during the break.
There has been some press about the benefits of ‘exercise snacking’–there is research saying that a few small, intense exercise bouts during the day can have a large cumulative benefit over time. That makes sense to me. And also, I feel like having a plan to do a quick exercise series like this between Trig and French might help clear your mind and get you ready for your next class.
Here is my suggestion/challenge:
- Try to do this exercise set during one break between classes each day.
- On another break, as soon as you log off zoom, set a timer for three minutes and do some Downward Facing Dog…get into as good a Dog pose as you can and hold that, moving around a bit to try to work the stiff spots. Walk your dog, stretching one calf then the other. Go back to center, or even release one leg then the other. It’s your dog!
- On yet another break, as soon as you log off zoom, set a timer and get two (working up to three) minutes of plank. Start with what we would do as a group–straight plank for one minute, then 30 seconds on each side. Work that up to three minutes. You can add things like lifting one leg, then another.
- You can always do some push ups in another break.
If you do this as soon as you log off zoom, you can quickly get these little exercises in and then prepare for your next class. If you wait and try to do this right before the next class, it becomes more likely that you run short of time and think ‘oh, I’ll just do this next time’.
This is the magic of habits: if you do the same thing in the same place and at the same time each day, or after each class, it becomes second nature. Working hard may never be easy for you, but you can make it easier by making it a habit.
When it comes to making long term improvements, habits are better than heroism (another Angela Duckworth observation).
Maybe the school or other teachers are already suggesting something like this. If so, great! Keep it up, or add this exercise series to your routine. At first this might be hard to remember to do, but if you stick with this and make it a routine (do an exercise set after your first class of the day, or after APUSH, or after math) eventually doing the exercise will become a habit.
I hope this helps as you start a new semester!
Coach
Random thoughts as I watched the video…
- I find the British accent helpful to listen to when I exercise–somehow motivational.
- Even though this is not an incredibly hard exercise set, it’s a legit set of exercises. The wall sit reminded me of almost 40 years ago, I was dating a woman who had been on the New Zealand ski team (long story!). One of the exercises they would do was this wall sit, to help them stay in a crouch during downhill ski runs. Susan would challenge me to wall sits and we would hang there with gritted teeth until our legs were shaking, neither one of us wanted to give up! I had not thought of this in years, but the feeling I had as I was straining to hold my legs up came rushing back when I saw the video of the guy doing his wall sits. I will always remember wall sits as a killer exercise.
