Mixing Up Your Exercise Routine

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Mixing Up Your Exercise Routine: For the sake of your muscles, your motivation, and (of course) for mushing season!

If you’ve ever read an article on fitness, all the exercise gurus recommend mixing up your workout. The reason is simple. Muscle dictates your metabolism i.e. active muscles burn fat and reshape your body. But muscles are capable of going into “auto pilot” mode if the same muscles are exercised routinely and in the same way. That is, they become ineffective at keeping your metabolism working for you to burn fat.

I’m always looking for ways to “mix up” my exercise routine. I do it because I know my metabolism needs it but I also do it for another, very personal reason. I don’t LOVE to exercise! I need motivation, and variety helps keep me motivated. I also like to have fun when I do anything. If I’m not enjoying something I tend to not want to do it.

Here are exercises that are part of my regimen:

• I walk my dogs every morning. I enjoy that!
• I go to the gym and work on the elliptical machine and do the circuit weights to build up my strength for mushing season. I don’t particularly like this but I need to do it if I want to be strong enough to run my team in the fall and winter.
• I take yoga classes 2-3 times a week to stretch out my tight, 64 year old body.
• I love yoga and the benefits of added flexibility and balance are so welcome that I try to do a daily yoga practice on my own at home.
• I take 2 Pilates classes a week to build up my core strength because I need that for my back and my knees. Again, I need this if I want to run my dog team during mushing season so my core strength is critical.
• I love Pilates classes. It seems to be a great choice for someone my age because it helps work the small muscles that are connected to the larger ones so you get a double whammy. And I like double whammys!



Well, yesterday I decided to try something new. The nice thing about trying something new is that you never know how everything will end up. Will I like it? Will I hate it? Will I succeed or will I fail?
For a year now I’ve been considering trying an SUP board. That’s a Stand Up Paddle Board that looks like a surfboard, only wider. You stand on it and use an oar to paddle around on flat water or the ocean and you can even catch a wave and surf a wave into shore. In my Gidget days back in the 60’s I was a surfer when I lived in Maine. Last year for my 63rd birthday I attended a Women’s Surf Camp to see if I could get back up on a board. Much to my chagrin, the answer was “no”. =( The cartilage I’ve lost in my knees over the years just wouldn’t let me pop up on the board fast enough to catch a wave. I could only get half way up. I was very disappointed but the thrill of being on the water was still there and I tried to figure out a compromise so I could get back out there. That’s when my surf instructor suggested I try an SUP board. I balked at the idea of trying it out in the ocean. Too challenging I thought. Where I live in Ocean Pines, Md. we are surrounded by lots of bays that make up the Chesapeake Bay system but the water doesn’t have the clarity a New Englander like me is used to. My feeling is that if I can’t swim in it I don’t want to be on it. Just in case.

However, l have broken down and kayaked on many parts of the bay and the beauty of the entire ecological system has softened me a bit and I now feel that there are certain things I’m willing to do in order to enjoy our beautiful Chesapeake Bay area.

So this week when I became aware that a young woman was offering yoga classes on an SUP Board in the shallow bay area in Ocean City, I decided to give it a try.
And am I glad I did!

I LOVE doing yoga outside, especially when it’s near the water. And doing yoga on a board floating on the water seemed like an exciting challenge to me. So yesterday morning, I headed to Fager’s Island, a well known Ocean City restaurant, and I embarked on my new water adventure.



Standing on a board and paddling really forces you to work on your core. It is great for developing balance and as we paddled to a secluded cove I was excited at all the new thoughts that were flying through my head. Perhaps it was because it was my first time on the SUP board, but I found myself focusing intently on what I was doing. I couldn’t daydream or chat. I had to pay attention or else I’d end up in the bay. I snuck a quick peek from time to time at the beautiful waterfowl whose space I had invaded, but for the most part I focused on my paddle and keeping my feet stable on the board so I wouldn’t TILT! It was exhausting and invigorating!!

Once we were all in the cove we dropped a small anchor so that our board would stay in the same spot while we did our yoga poses. However, during the class the wind picked up and even in the shelter of the cove we found ourselves drifting a bit which forced us to work even harder on our balance.

My biggest surprise was how “centered” I became during that yoga class. I’ve been practicing yoga for several years and the instructor always stresses the need to “center” and to turn your attention “within”. I never fully understood the full meaning of that directive until then.



I was so concerned about falling into the water that I HAD to focus on centering. That became my priority and the poses themselves became secondary. As a result, poses I normally found easy to perform became challenging, while others that I sometimes focused on too much and found difficult, now proved to be easy because I had switched my focus. What a breakthrough!

As often happens, when one starts out on a new adventure, it’s the small things you never expect that seem to have the biggest impact on you. So if you’ve been hesitant about starting something new for whatever reason, push that thought from your frontal cortex. And as Nike would say: Just do it! You may be glad you did in more ways then you can imagine.

It’s never too late to create a new body or a new habit.