The power of process

What is a process?  It is a series of steps of increasing difficulty or complexity repeated daily that leads to a result.  It’s like a manufacturing line.  You have a general form, then it’s refined, and the electronics or hydraulics are added, then refined again for a finished product.  This happens in everything!  Learning, becoming, doing all have their own processes.  Getting fit is a process.  You never actually get fit, you get fitter.  You find a process that allows you to maintain your fitness, but you don’t actually get fit.  The process doesn’t have an ending result.

A friend of mine is a runner.  Her fitness goals include doing a marathon.  She mentioned one time that she’d like to get her miles at a certain time range.  So if she follows her process, and she does the marathon, with her split times on her mile at or below her goal, has she reached her fitness goal and is now “Fit?”  Tada!!!!  She has accomplished her fitness goals and can now quit.  No, she has to pick NEW goals and find a process that will maintain this state of fitness or move her to a new standard of fitness.

A few years ago, my husband, who is not a small man, stepped out onto our stairs in back to do some grilling.  His foot went through the step!!!!  He wasn’t hurt, but now we had to jump from our back door to the yard.  We hired a contractor, and he built us a nicer back porch type set of stairs that lead to the patio.  Oh, it looked NICE!  Now, 3 years later, it isn’t as pretty.  It needs to be resealed because the wood is drying out.  Will this process to maintain this construction ever cease?  Yes, when it breaks.  Then we’ll have to come up with a new set of steps.  The maintenance doesn’t ever stop because nature has its own process as well.

If you want to get fit, that is one process:  it gets you to your best weight range, it increases your stamina and strength so you can physically do the things you want to do.  If you want to stay fit, you choose a process to MAINTAIN your activity and health for the rest of your life and you make decisions every day toward that end.

This is weird

I went in for my training today and we did a Elliptical combination.  Looks like this:

1 min on elliptical at resistance 5, 180+ strides/min

15 chest presses at 35 pounds on the machine

15 lat pulls at  80 pounds on the machine

1 min on elliptical at resistance 10, 175 strides/min

chest presses, then lat pulls

1 min on elliptical at resistance 15, 140 strides/min

chest presses then lat pulls.

I did really well on the 1st elliptical combo, then on the 2nd time through at resistance 10, I got 40 seconds in and hit a wall.  I dropped from 170 to 136 and almost didn’t finish!  My legs just stopped moving and my arms didn’t cooperate.  It took me nearly 15 min to lower my heart rate.  I used to do that in seconds.  The 3rd time through, at lvl 15, I could barely get it over 100 and then not for any length of time.  I was supposed to go through this cycle twice with different weight machines in between, but it took me so long to recover, that I only got through 1 set.  Can anyone explain this?

 

OH NO!

I have a scheduled time at the gym with a trainer.  *Pats self on back*  I go twice a week.  *High fives self*  Then stuff happens.  I’m scheduled for Saturdays and Tuesdays, and last Saturday, I had a meeting that was about 3 1/2 hours long, followed by another meeting that was 2 hours long, and finally followed by a banjo student.  Missed that Saturday.  This week, I am giving a Leadership seminar.  The next Saturday should be all right, but the one after that is another event that goes from Friday afternoon to Saturday at 3:00.  Then yesterday (Tuesday) I had something that didn’t agree with me and I got the runs.  You don’t get cardio credit for the runs.  So, I missed that session too.  I have to think that I don’t get any benefit from SCHEDULING training sessions, I only get benefits if I GO to training sessions.  No problem, I can make these up.  Except I won’t.  I’ve missed 4 sessions out of the 8 I scheduled.  *Gives self a Dinozzo Slap*

I shouldn’t have to re-evaluate how much getting fit and healthy means to me.  That should be a given.  It seems to be a given to everyone I admire, then I read their blogs, and I find them re-evaluating!  So this is a normal thing, and I shouldn’t make too much of it.  The correct response then would be, “Well shoot.  Get back on the horse doofus!”