be patient, like a dog

I was hiking the trails at Ault Park with my dog Freya. It was cool out and the leaves were bright yellow. We have been walking these trails a few times a week for years, and I love watching the scenery change each season. Between the trees and the occasional new and resting trails, it’s like exploring a new forest every few months.

We were enjoying crisscrossing paths and running when we felt like running. She is a cold weather dog and she’ll only run with me in the fall and winter.

At one point she took a sharp right leading us down what looked to me like a deer trail. I didn’t feel like veering off our path, I was headed back to the car. I stopped, she looked back at me saying “what?” I told her that’s not the right way, let’s keep going this way. She said “alright,” and let me tug her the way I wanted to go and we continued jogging.

Not a minute later we came to a huge fallen tree, and the trail ended abruptly. I recognized where we were, I could see the road and our car up ahead - on the other side of the hillside. So I looked a Freya, who was looking at me like “did you want to do something here?” I told her she was right, “let’s head back and go your way.”She turned around with me and we jogged back until she made a sharp left and lead us back to where I thought we were going in the first place.

She knew the right path to take us where I wanted to be, I thought I was right, and she went along with me anyway. Now, we weren’t in any hurry, and we didn’t lose anything by exploring a little more. That’s what stuck in my thoughts. Where are there situations in my life when I can patiently let someone let someone else take the lead, even if I’m pretty sure my path is the most efficient one? Are there times I don’t need to dig in my heels (which Freya does do, don’t think she never has her own agenda). When could I be more like her and follow my friend to a possible dead-end and maybe have to retrace our steps anyway.

What would be different if we extended this ego-less grace to each other, to be patient, curious, and open to explore and learn together.

Now we know where that trail leads, at least until the leaves fall and it all looks different again.

This was originally shared as part of an exercise for my RYT300 Yoga Immersion and Teacher Training with Shine Yoga

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training for function and motherhood

Fitness seems to often get associated with weight loss or bodybuilding. Aside from athletics and performance, I prefer the general public view fitness as care and maintenance of the body. It may or may not be enjoyable. Some of us enjoy cleaning, or cooking, while some of us don’t. We do it because it has to be done.

You may only do the basic maintenance to your car, while your neighbor is meticulous and spends free time doing…whatever car people do to cars. But just because cars aren’t your thing doesn’t mean you don’t keep yours in good working order.

Fitness is the same. You don’t have to love it, you certainly don’t have to want to change your physical shape, but you do have to keep up with maintenance of the machine that keeps you alive. 

Training for function is training for the movements required of everyday life. Movements like bending, lifting, strength, and agility. Think of every physical demand placed on you on a daily basis.

Carrying enormous bags of laundry upstairs, pushing a double stroller, not tripping over toys on the floor, avoiding falls every time a kid or a pet is suddenly underfoot. Quickly grabbing a toddler bolting in the parking lot. Carrying a 40 lb kid with bloody knees and their bike a mile back home. Possibly also  while pushing a stroller.

Training for function means you regularly take the time to practice movement patterns - squatting, lunging, bending and lifting, rotating, pushing and pulling - so that you can perform them automatically.

During pregnancy, the body is changing daily. When I say “functional fitness for pregnancy,” I’m talking about managing that changing body through those ADLs (activities of daily living). Think of this as “practical movement.” There are your normal daily movements: walking, standing to sitting, sitting to standing, bending, lifting, carrying. Pregnancy adds an increasing weight load in the chest, which pulls the upper body forward putting strain on the upper back and shoulder muscles, and in the front of the body which puts strain on the lower back and muscles of the pelvis. Balance becomes challenged. Then there is this additional weight that could be putting stress on joints in the lower body, especially if all the muscles aren’t doing their job in supporting the weight. 

Functional training exercises in pregnancy should involve:

  • strengthening the shoulders and upper back to keep good posture as the chest gets heavier

  • building strength in all the abdominal muscles to prevent diastasis, support the spine, prevent back pain

  • building strength in the muscles of the hip and pelvis to prevent hip pain and support the integrity of the pelvic floor

  • natural lower body movements such as squats and lunges

  • balance exercises to become familiar with changing load and equilibrium in a controlled manner

  • developing some stamina in preparation for labor

Parenthood requires a significant amount of physical ability, and at any given moment. The best way to be able to respond to demanding or repetitive activities of daily living without injury is to have practiced doing them in a controlled manner, where you have the opportunity to do them deliberately and correctly. That’s training, that’s a workout.