In his book Intervention, strength coach Dan John makes the distinction between different kinds of workouts as bus benches and park benches. The difference is simple:

Bus Bench Workouts
When expecting results on time - like you're hoping the bus will be.

Park Bench Workouts
An opportunity to explore and enjoy where you are in training.

For a long time, I've been more of a park bench kind of girl. When I'm working out, I'll decide what to do each day depending on how I'm feeling, what I've been doing recently, and what I want to work on. I have yet to write out a single program for myself (or really follow one). I'm not so big on planning - how can you decide so far ahead of time what you intend to do on a given day? The problem with this approach (for me), is that it's really easy to talk myself out of rolling out of bed early, or heading to the gym at the end of the day when I'm tired. "Today is an off-day," I'll tell myself... "I need to rest." I'll rationalize. And then I plop on the couch and waste the day away.

But coming up in the not-so-distant future (August, 2015), I am attending the Strong First Girya (SFG) Kettlebell Instructor Certification at Achieve Fitness in Somerville, MA. Which means I need to get strong... like REALLY STRONG!

The requirements for the SFG Kettlebell Instructor Certification at my weight (135 lbs) are:

Swing (one 16 kg bell)
Get-Up (one 16 kg bell)
Double Clean (two 16 kg bells)
Press (one 16 kg bell)
Double Front Squat (two 16 kg bells)
Snatch (one 16 kg bell)

So for this specific goal, that has a specific deadline, I need to get myself to a bus stop and do some serious planning. Luckily I work with two highly knowledgeable and experienced SFG instructors (Eric Gahan and Artemis Scantalides of Iron Body Studios), who will be running an SFG prep program starting in April.

Until the SFG prep program starts, I'm working on consistency. Consistently swinging, cleaning, pressing, squatting, snatching, and get-up-ing - as well as taking care of any aches or movement snags with corrective exercises like diaphragmatic breathing, multi-segmental rolling and crawling. Being patient and focusing on technique rather than going as heavy as possible (I still have 6 months to train), I hope to build a solid foundation of strength and mobility so I can handle the volume of work ahead of me.

Once the SFG certification is over, I'll probably go back to the park for a while. I'll need some time to rest and recover, and that's OK. I strive to add movement to my day and I'll find something that is fun and will keep me excited about the activity. For those of you who have been following programs religiously, consider what it might be like to just play with your workout. Maybe it's time to hang out at the park for a little while and explore some new techniques or change some stuff up.

Are you at a park bench or a bus bench? If you're at a park bench, what do you do to keep moving? If you're at a bus bench, what kind of goals are you working towards?

I've been meaning to start a blog for a long time now. I've wanted to document my experiences as a movement and manual therapist, business owner, lifelong student, and sometimes just an average person dealing with average things. To me, writing is a way to process, a way to reflect on past occurrences/decisions/mistakes and learn from them. And if my learning might help someone else's learning, I want to share it.

Well, one of my biggest obstacles in life has always been procrastinating.

Procrastinating can cause a lot of anxiety and stress in day-to-day life. Procrastinating becomes a BIG problem when you own your own business. And many nights I've gone to bed feeling like a complete failure because I never got around to that pesky to-do list I started at the beginning of the day/week/month. So when a guided meditation related to procrastination popped up on my Facebook feed, I decided to give it a try.

http://www.collective-evolution.com/2015/02/10/3-powerful-guided-meditations-for-feeling-peace-overcoming-procrastination/

The link requires you to provide your email before gaining access to the content. I was worried I wouldn't even get started because of all these extra steps but I muscled through and found my way to the "Overcoming Procrastination" video. I closed my office door, sat down on a pillow, and listened and tapped along (an interesting part of these guided meditations). A short 15 minutes later I was done. And then I immediately opened my browser to start this blog. Seems to be working... so far.

There are many reasons that people will put off what needs to be done. Anxiety, feeling overwhelmed by the prospect of starting, fear of being judged, fear of failure, etc... For me, I think, I want everything to be perfect and think that it won't be, so I hesitate to even start. But I'm working to get over that, and this blog is my first step.

So, moving forward, my goal is to continue on this path of not procrastinating. Using these resources and whatever else I may find along the way to help me get over that nagging urge to sit back instead of charge forward. I plan on using this blog to share my experiences and I hope that somewhere out there someone will read it and enjoy it. But even if this is an utter failure and the only audience I have is myself (and my loving mother, because I know she'll read this) I will continue to write and publish because that is the goal I've set for myself and I'm not going to put it off any longer.

Do you struggle with procrastination or other self-sabotaging habits? How do you get yourself out of a funk and on to a more productive track? Did you try this meditation? What did you think/feel/observe? Please share your experiences/tips/tricks in the comments section.

Do you have another topic you'd like to read about? I like researching all things anatomy, physiology, movement, manual therapy, training, nutrition, lifestyle, mindset/mindfulness. Please leave any suggestions you may have in the comments section below or email them directly to me (michelle@bodyworkplus.net).

Thanks for checking out my first blog post! (I finished it!! Hooray!!!)

~Michelle